The concept of trust in human relationship has gained much attention over the past decade. The majority of the trust literature focuses on the definition of trust and the development and maintenance of trust. Most scholars agree that trust is developed and maintained through dialogue and socialization, including verbal and nonverbal social cues. The literature suggests that individuals share information and build communities with persons they trust. Within an organizational environment, higher degrees of trust enhance the discovering processes and, ultimately, the ability of groups and organizations to fully function. A "sense of community" is created in environments that encourage open and honest communication among their members. Despite the research supporting a link between socialization, communication, and trust, there is almost no research that specifically addresses the relationship between communication technologies that eliminate face-to-face interaction and organizational trust and sense of community. E-mail, a tool that enables members of an organization to communicate with one another despite differences in time and location, is used by a vast majority of corporations to communicate with its organizational members. While e-mail communication provides many advantages, the literature in this area suggests that this tool may limit the amount of "human moments" at work, which may relate to decreased levels of trust and feelings of community in the workplace. This study was aimed at learning more about this phenomenon. Using a questionnaire developed that included three valid and reliable instruments of trust and sense of community, responses were collected from members of selected teams within a large, international organization to examine the relationships between trust, community, and e-mail communication. Other demographic and organizational data was also collected. Although no relationship was found between e-mail use, organizational trust, and psychological sense of community in the workplace, the results suggest that factors other than communication medium influence feelings of trust and community. Implications of the findings as well as recommendations for practice and future research are provided. / Ph. D.

This study was designed to gain a better understanding of whether electronic mail (email) was replacing traditional behaviors in which college students engage to achieve academic and social integration. Data consisted of printouts of email records, and corresponding logsheets detailing the relationship of the participant to the sender/receiver of each message and the general nature of the message. Additional data included answers to email survey questions and lists of traditional academic and social integration behaviors against which the email behavior categories were compared. Specifically, this study was designed to explore the following research questions: 1. For what purpose do students use email? 2. Do college students use email in lieu of traditional behaviors that lead to social integration? 3. Do college students use email in lieu of traditional behaviors that lead to academic integration? 4. Does students' use of email differ by gender? Two samples were selected for this study. The first consisted of a comprehensive list, compiled from nationally normed survey instruments, of traditional behaviors that students use to achieve academic and social integration. The second sample consisted of 23 traditional-aged freshmen who used email (11 males and 12 females). Results were based on an analysis of 4,603 messages sent or received by the participants and revealed several important findings. First, while the participants did use email for some academic and social integration purposes, the bulk of their email activity did not relate to either form of integration. Second, participants seemed to be using email to communicate extensively with family members and high school friends. Third, there were no major differences in either the extent of email use or the nature of that use by gender. Finally, the participants spent a considerable amount of time every day checking, writing, composing and sending email messages. These trends suggest that email has become an integral part of college student life and that college administrators need to explore new and effective ways to ensure that the use of email is beneficial, not detrimental, to the overall development of college students. / Master of Arts

No

Cílem této magisterské práce je představit jednoho ze zakládajících členů neoistické skupiny, kontroverzního multimediálního performera Istvana Kantora. Práce se snaží zasadit Kantorovy aktivity do širšího historického, teoretického a politického kontextu. V díle Istvana Kantora se magisterská práce zaměřuje především na jeho krvavá X a na jeho názory na umění a tvorbu. Práce by měla korigovat některé nepřesné informace, které život Istvana Kantora a jeho tvorbu obestírají.

E-mail is an important tool for faculty and staff at the university, college, department, and instructor levels. E-mail is a useful medium in the academic setting for corresponding at all levels. Instructors e-mail students about assignments, lectures, and urgent information: for example, postponed classes and changes in the schedule. In addition e-mail is used to let potential students know about job opportunities. Other routine uses for e-mail include group communications within academic committees and groups of students collaborating on projects. Most users of e-mail who send messages to multiple recipients enter each recipients e-mail address into the TO: field individually or enter the name and e-mail address into a distribution list individually. Both methods are time consuming. This thesis describes a tool for facilitating the use of e-mail for classroom management. This tool, List Maker converts class roll listings to e-mail distribution lists for five common e-mail clients: Pegasus Mail, Eudora Lite, Netscape Messenger, Microsoft Outlook Express, and Microsoft Outlook 97/98. List Maker also converts address books and distribution lists from one e-mail client to another. The List Maker program has been adopted for use in selected departments within ETSU. A survey of the programÆs users indicates that List Maker made it easier for users to create distribution list from class rolls. Efforts to distribute List Maker to other Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) colleges, unfortunately, have not yet succeeded due to a lack of uniform computing platforms and e-mail policies in the TBR.

<p>Electronic mail has become the medium of choice in most organizations because of some of its special features. E-mail, like all computer-mediated communication, changes the way we interact and has therefore an impact on working conditions, sometimes in a negative direction. Research findings so far show divergent opinions about how e-mail has influenced work. </p><p>The main purpose of this thesis is to understand and explain if and why there are possible negative outcomes of e-mail usage in organizations, and to use the findings to develop a guiding model for organizational e-mail use. In order to meet the goals set, earlier research in the area Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) that focus on the effects on the social system was used. This research is mainly based on theories of media choice and communication theories, which offer a valuable contribution for understanding why e-mail might be used in improper ways in organizations. Empirical data was collected in several steps using different techniques. The target group was managers in different kinds of organizations, but also administrative staff and teachers. The result shows that there are several reasons why e-mail usage might be a problem in organizations like expectations of fast feedback and being constantly updated, post absence backlog, too much information in e-mail, too many incoming e-mails, irrelevant information, decreased personal contact, a more sedentary work environment and e-mail splitting the respondents' time.</p><p>The contribution of this thesis is that possible negative aspects of e-mail use in organizations are due to a combination of factors. To overcome any organizational disadvantages of e-mail it is vital to consider the e-mail users' behaviors, feelings and attitudes in a specific organizational context in combination with e-mail's special features. A number of guidelines are presented to help organizations and individuals make e-mail use more efficient and satisfying.</p>

Electronic mail has become the medium of choice in most organizations because of some of its special features. E-mail, like all computer-mediated communication, changes the way we interact and has therefore an impact on working conditions, sometimes in a negative direction. Research findings so far show divergent opinions about how e-mail has influenced work. The main purpose of this thesis is to understand and explain if and why there are possible negative outcomes of e-mail usage in organizations, and to use the findings to develop a guiding model for organizational e-mail use. In order to meet the goals set, earlier research in the area Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) that focus on the effects on the social system was used. This research is mainly based on theories of media choice and communication theories, which offer a valuable contribution for understanding why e-mail might be used in improper ways in organizations. Empirical data was collected in several steps using different techniques. The target group was managers in different kinds of organizations, but also administrative staff and teachers. The result shows that there are several reasons why e-mail usage might be a problem in organizations like expectations of fast feedback and being constantly updated, post absence backlog, too much information in e-mail, too many incoming e-mails, irrelevant information, decreased personal contact, a more sedentary work environment and e-mail splitting the respondents' time. The contribution of this thesis is that possible negative aspects of e-mail use in organizations are due to a combination of factors. To overcome any organizational disadvantages of e-mail it is vital to consider the e-mail users' behaviors, feelings and attitudes in a specific organizational context in combination with e-mail's special features. A number of guidelines are presented to help organizations and individuals make e-mail use more efficient and satisfying.

Background E-mail marketing is used to get consumers’ attention to one’s products, services, need, etc., and ultimately to get them to act in a specific way. How consumers are affected by E-mail marketing is a topic that has not been thoroughly investigated even though it is of great interest due to the vast increase of E-mail marketing the last couple of years. Thus, there is a major gap in the research of this topic, especially in a B2B context. Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to analyze behaviors and attitudes of decision-makers in the Swedish manufacturing industry regarding B2B E-mail marketing. Method The authors used a quantitative research approach with an online-survey in order to collect necessary data. The population is decision-makers within the manufacturing industry in Sweden. The result is based on 1 777 participating decision-makers. The questionnaire was constructed by the authors and is based on the theoretical framework consisting: Tri-Component Model of Attitudes, Planned Behavior, Micheaux’s (2011) theory of perceived pressure and A(ad). The authors used analysis techniques such as descriptive univariate analysis, Anova-test, factor analysis and linear regression analysis to derive the result. Conclusion The conclusions drawn from this study are that the decision-makers within the manufacturing industry in Sweden tend to have a negative attitude and behavior toward E-mail marketing messages, only a small minority of the decision-makers had a positive attitude. Furthermore, the authors discovered an association between their attitude and how they actually behave. The study also reveals differences in the attitudes and behaviors regarding age and position within the company. A final conclusion drawn from this study is that the decision-makers do not read all marketing messages they receive and they also delete some marketing messages without reading them. The result of this is a non-functional marketing method, as it does not work as it is intended. A suggestion for marketers working with E-mail marketing is to try to establish more positive attitudes by building relationships with the recipients.

Diese Arbeit zeigt ausgehend von einer Darstellung der theoretischen Grundlagen automatischer Textklassifikation, dass die aus der Statistical Learning Theory stammenden Support Vector Machines geeignet sind, zu einer präziseren Erkennung unerwünschter E-Mail-Werbung beizutragen. In einer Testumgebung mit einem Corpus von 20 000 E-Mails wurden Testläufe verschiedene Parameter der Vorverarbeitung und der Support Vector Machine automatisch evaluiert und grafisch visualisiert. Aufbauend darauf wird eine Erweiterung für die Open-Source-Software SpamAssassin beschrieben, die die vorhandenen Klassifikationsmechanismen um eine Klassifikation per Support Vector Machine erweitert.

Esta pesquisa analisa a inter-relaÃÃo entre a linguagem verbal e a linguagem nÃo verbal na construÃÃo da persuasÃo nos e-mails promocionais. Para verificar essa junÃÃo entre os textos verbal e visual, fizemos uso de duas teorias que concebem o ato de linguagem como um reflexo das prÃticas culturais e sociais dos sujeitos de uma coletividade, em determinada situaÃÃo de comunicaÃÃo: a multimodalidade (KRESS; VAN LEEUWEN, 2006) e a semiolinguÃstica (PATRICK CHARAUDEAU, 2008). No desenvolvimento da pesquisa, realizamos o seguinte processo: a) anÃlise do dispositivo argumentativo (proposta, proposiÃÃo e persuasÃo) na linguagem verbal e visual, na construÃÃo da persuasÃo dos e-mails promocionais: b) verificaÃÃo da ocasional sobreposiÃÃo dos elementos que configuram o dispositivo argumentativo: c) anÃlise do significado composicional (dado/novo, ideal/real), saliÃncia e framing, no sentido de verificar como o gÃnero promocional estabelece tÃcnicas para persuadir o leitor/provÃvel consumidor. Para a anÃlise do objeto de estudo, selecionamos uma amostra de 30 e-mails promocionais do site de compra coletiva Peixe Urbano, coletados diretamente na caixa de entrada de e-mails, entre os meses de julho de 2013 e julho de 2014. Na verificaÃÃo dos resultados, constatou-se que os elementos colocados em cena tÃm o objetivo de persuadir o leitor/provÃvel consumidor e que o dispositivo argumentativo (CHARAUDEAU, 2008) à recorrente em toda a amostra analisada. Verificamos que a proposta, proposiÃÃo e persuasÃo sÃo recorrentes em todos os e-mails promocionais que analisamos. AlÃm disso, observamos que a composiÃÃo do dispositivo argumentativo ocorre com mais evidÃncia na linguagem verbal, e que a inter-relaÃÃo entre as duas linguagens contribui para atestar sistemÃticas sobreposiÃÃes entre os elementos na estrutura do e-mail promocional. Sobre o significado composicional, notamos que os valores informacionais ideal/real sÃo predominantes em toda a amostra, no sentido de que o ideal, que veicula a âpromessaâ, e o real, que conduz ao produto em si, agregam maior apelo persuasivo. Em relaÃÃo à saliÃncia, percebemos que a imagem à o item mais evidente na conduÃÃo do leitor à persuasÃo. O framing, por sua vez, evidencia a conexÃo ou desconexÃo entre os elementos, seja pelos espaÃos vazios ou repetiÃÃo de cores e formas. Em suma, os dados sinalizam que a inter-relaÃÃo entre a linguagem verbal e nÃo verbal à indissociÃvel na estrutura do e-mail promocional, porque, juntas, elas desenvolvem efeitos de sentido que conduzem o leitor à persuasÃo. / This research examines the relation between verbal and nonverbal language in the persuasion construction of the promotional e-mail. To verify this link between verbal and nonverbal texts, we used two theories that conceive the act of language as a reflex of the social and cultural practices of a collectiveness subjects, in particular communication situation: multimodality (KRESS; VAN LEEUWEN, 2006) and semiolinguistics (CHARAUDEAU, 2008). In the development research, we realized the following process: a) analysis of argumentative device (proposal, proposition and persuasion) in the verbal and visual persuasion construction of the promotional e-mail; b) verification of casual overlap of the elements that configure the argumentative device; c) analysis of the meaning of composition (given/new, ideal/real), salience and framing to verify how the promotional genre provides techniques to persuade the reader/probable consumer. For the analysis of the study subject, we chose a 30 e-mails sample of the Peixe Urbano collective shopping site, directly collected in inbox emails, between 2013 July and 2014 July. In the survey results, we established that showed elements are used to persuade the reader/probable consumer and that argumentative device (CHARAUDEAU, 2008) is recurring in all analyzed sample. We verified that proposal, proposition and persuasion are recurrent in all promotional e-mails analyzed. In addition, we observed that the composition of argumentative device is most frequent in verbal language, and that relation between verbal and nonverbal language contribute to demonstrate systematic overlaps between the elements in the promotional e-mail structure. About the composition meaning, we noticed that ideal/real information values predominate in the entire sample, in the sense of the ideal, that manage âpromiseâ, and the real that manage the product itself join greater persuasive appeal. In relation to salience, we realized image is the most evident item to persuade the reader. In its turn, framing shows connection or disconnection between the elements, be it through empty spaces or successive colours and forms between them. In brief, results indicate an inseparable relation verbal/nonverbal language in the promotional e-mail structure, because, joined, they develop meaning effects that usher reader to the persuasion.