<p>Purpose of the essay: The purpose of the essay is to, from the view of the nurses working at the x-ray infirmary; see how the internal e-mail communication is working as the main digital communication method at the x-ray infirmary.</p><p>Material/Method: The material has been collected using qualitative interviews with eight nurses working at the x-ray infirmary. The material has then been analyzed through a theoretical perspective based on The Media Richness theory.</p><p>Main results: The results of the investigation have shown that the nurses see the internal e-mail communication as relatively poor. The information that is sent out by their superiors is often too extensive, this making the screening work an extra work burden. These e-mails are also supplied to the whole infirmary instead of being addressed to specific individuals. Seen through a media richness perspective, the e-mail is a mediumrich communication medium that well could be used in the everyday communication at the infirmary as the main communication agent. The problem is how the superiors design the information that they send out. The mid-rich medium that is e-mail gives the infirmary an information uncertainty that is not dealt with.</p>

This paper provides probit estimates of willingness to pay for Snake River salmon recovery projects using the contingent value survey method. Two types of survey method are tested, the direct question format and the randomized response format. Additionally, both an increase in electric bill payments and volunteer time are offered as payment vehicles. The results suggest that there is not much difference in estimates of willingness to pay between the two survey formats. They also suggest that for the Oregon State University staff, there is substantial willingness to pay through electric bill increases but not in volunteer time. By guaranteeing the respondents anonymity, the randomized response format is hypothesized to encourage more truthful answers, thereby reducing yea-saying bias. The results indicate that yea-saying may be reduced for those who contribute to environmental causes but overall does not affect willingness to pay. Other studies using the randomized response format that show a reduction in yea-saying and willingness to pay were done in classroom settings while this survey was a mail survey. There is an indication that the privacy and anonymity of the mail survey is enough to mitigate social pressure and yea-saying as opposed to a classroom setting. This suggests that the randomized response format may be more appropriate for group surveys or personal interview surveys. The result that there is substantial monetary support in the form of an increase in electric bills but not in the form of volunteer time payments may be due to the sample being fully employed. Also Snake River salmon restoration projects may seem geographically distant to this sample so volunteer activities may seem unrealistic. / Graduation date: 1998

Having a functioning internal communication is necessary for the survival and existence of every company. Traditional communication channels are for example meetings, noteboards and personnel newspapers. During the last ten years we have witnessed an explosion of new channels, who are based on information technology. IT is a natural part in new IT-companies, like Framfab and Icon Medialab, but what role does IT have in a large, manufacturing company with a long history? The purpose with this thesis is to investigate how IT has influenced the internal communication in a company. With this thesis we want to contribute to a developed understanding of communication within companies and discuss what role IT can play for internal communication in the future. We have chosen to study Akzo Nobel and have interviewed employees in different business units to investigate their view on communication and the influence of IT. We found that IT has had a relatively great impact on the internal communication and that the new technology often work as a complement to the traditional communication channels. We believe that IT will lead to an increased amount of written communication and that the communication will be detached from persons. There is a risk that the amount of information will increase and that this will make it harder for the individual to find relevant information. For IT to be an efficient channel for companies in the future, we believe that companies must educate employees regarding technology, pedagogic and written presentation.

Purpose/aim: To investigate individual experiences of how a new communication technology, e-mail, influences a) the structure of the internal communication – does it for example make networking any easier? – and b) the form of the persons everyday language. Material/method: A theoretical framework gathered through a literature study and empirical data gathered through interviews with two persons. Main results: Differences and similarities exist between the experiences studied in this paper. The most unexpected result is that the system of e-mail does not seem to be able to create new channels of communication. If anything, it reinforces the structure that already exist. An aspect of decisive importance is the original rules and norms concerning internal communication within the organization.

Purpose of the essay: The purpose of the essay is to, from the view of the nurses working at the x-ray infirmary; see how the internal e-mail communication is working as the main digital communication method at the x-ray infirmary. Material/Method: The material has been collected using qualitative interviews with eight nurses working at the x-ray infirmary. The material has then been analyzed through a theoretical perspective based on The Media Richness theory. Main results: The results of the investigation have shown that the nurses see the internal e-mail communication as relatively poor. The information that is sent out by their superiors is often too extensive, this making the screening work an extra work burden. These e-mails are also supplied to the whole infirmary instead of being addressed to specific individuals. Seen through a media richness perspective, the e-mail is a mediumrich communication medium that well could be used in the everyday communication at the infirmary as the main communication agent. The problem is how the superiors design the information that they send out. The mid-rich medium that is e-mail gives the infirmary an information uncertainty that is not dealt with.

In 1976, Diffie and Hellman proposed the concept of public key cryptosystem (PKC). The application and research of public key cryptography are arisen in the modern cryptography. In 2005, Sun, Hsieh, and Hwang (S.H.H.) proposed an electronic mail protocol based on classic public key cryptography. The technique of the Certificate of Encrypted Message Being a Signature (CEMBS) that Bao proposed in 1998 is applied on session key sharing of their e-mail system. In the same year, Dent pointed out that the first one of S.H.H.¡¦s e-mail protocols cannot suffice the property of forward secrecy. Thus, Kim, Koo, and Lee (K.K.L.) proposed two e-mail protocols based on signcryption concept which is proposed by Zheng in 1997 to overcome the flaw of S.H.H.¡¦s e-mail protocol in 2006. Lin, Lin, and Wang (L.L.W.) pointed out that the second one of S.H.H.¡¦s protocols cannot achieve forward secrecy and then they improved the protocol. In 2007, Yoon and Yoo claimed that the second one of K.K.L.¡¦s protocols is still vulnerable to two possible forgery attacks. In this thesis, we will make deep discussions about secure e-mail protocols based on PKC with providing the property of forward secrecy and then build a novel e-mail protocol to withstand the above attacks. Our proposed e-mail protocol can achieve the properties of authentication, confidentiality, integrity, non-repudiation and forward secrecy.

I det moderna informationssamhället vi lever i, har tillgången till informations- och kommunikationsteknologin ökat och det har aldrig varit så enkelt att förmedla och ta emot information som det är idag. Detta har till stor del underlättat inom arbetslivet då det globala avståndet minskar och vi har möjlighet att arbeta från ett flertal olika platser. Däremot kan den andra sidan av myntet innebära att vi tar emot mer information än vad vi har förmåga till att hantera och detta kan medföra att vi blir överbelastade. När informationen transformeras till någonting negativt och påfrestande brukar man säga att individen har drabbats av fenomenet Information overload. Ett närbesläktat fenomen till detta är det så kallade Interaction overload där man, till skillnad från Information overload, uppmärksammar interaktionen som individen utsätts för. Arbetsmailen är ett vanligt kommunikationsverktyg inom företag och genom denna finns en risk att drabbas av både Information overload och Interaction overload. Genom kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer har vi undersökt om fem arbetsdeltagare som tar emot arbetsmail på sin fritid drabbas av dessa fenomen. Syftet med studien är således att med hjälp av vår teoretiska referensram skapa en ökad förståelse för hur anställda förhåller sig till arbetsrelaterad e-post under fritiden. Detta har bidragit till nya kunskaper om hur Information overload i samspel med Interaction overload kan förstås i ett nytt sammanhang. Resultatet visade att respondenterna som hade en tydlig gräns mellan vad som är förtroendetid respektive fritid inte drabbades av Information overload. Respondenterna som öppnade arbetsmailen återkommande under fritiden och ansåg att gränsdragningen var mer flytande drabbades dock av Information overload när de upplevde stress. Däremot var det ingen av respondenterna som utsattes för Interaction overload.

This two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Sciences aims to investigate and put the services of 118100 Svar På Allt (SPA, an SMS mobile question and answer service) and Fråga biblioteket (FB, a library operated e-mail reference service) into the context of the reference encounter. Questions sent to SPA and their subsequent answers are analysed, and part of these questions are forwarded to FB for comparative studies. Both of the formats are compared to the reference encounter as a whole. The framing of the question originates in the assumption that there may be a need for further negotiation of the questions submitted to the aforementioned formats. Do SPA and FB constitute formats different enough from the reference encounter to imply that the question at hand already has gone through the apropiate negotiations? These compressed and asynchronous reference services are not only compared to the synchronous reference, but are also examined as reference services in their own right. How does the e-mail reference and the SMS services fare against each other and the “regular” reference encounter? Findings in the analysis are subjected to appliable INSU theories, especially Robert S. Taylors thoughts on question negotitation and Nicholas Belkins et al regarding anomalous states of knowledge. Further major contributors are Marie L. Radford concerning the reference encounter and Reijo Savolainen on everyday information practices. The study found several occasions where a personal, or at least synchronous, reference encounter would have been decidedly more helpful than that of the electronic services. However, the larger majority of the questions analysed turned out to be completed in formulation for the compressed, asynchronous format. The e-mails of FB can to some extent work as an intermediary service since it is more allowing lengthwise than SPA and gives more of an opportunity to redirect towards more exhaustive sources.

Background: Since the mid 1990s the usage of mobile phones has been increasing exponentially (Bauer, Barnes, Reichardt and Neumann 2006) and many firms are aware of the upraising potential with mobile marketing. Thus, the impact of mobile marketing is not yet fully exploited and in need of investigation to fully understand its potential. E-mail is another marketing channel that is claimed to be decreasing in effectiveness. This thesis explores where these channels stands today. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore differences in advertising response between mobile marketing through applications and electronic mails. Research question: What differences can be identified in the consumer buying process when exposed to an offer trough the mobile marketing channel compared to the e-mail marketing channel? Method: We have implemented a qualitative and deductive study where we expose one sample for an offer coming from the mobile marketing channel and one sample exposed to an offer coming from the e-mail marketing channel. The thesis is of a comparative character and the selection is a non-probability sampling. Conclusions: Offers coming through the mobile marketing channel are easier to recall, perceived as more attractive and lead to purchase decisions at a higher rate than offers coming from the e-mail marketing channel.

It has been considered that spam is one of the worst advertising tools in the Internet because of wide range of porno, Viagra, luxury brands’ replicas and other unwanted mailings all over the world; nevertheless, a lot of companies continue to use this tool for products’ or services’ introduction to their potential clients and partners. According to the author’s personal four-year-experience in marketing field, the mostly asked question by companies is how to advertise the product or service to new potential partners or clients using spam without losing the reputation of the company. The author wishes to investigate whether it is possible by carefully thought-out and aimed at the right market spam advertisement to draw people’s attention. This study employs partly quantitative and partly qualitative research approach. Empirical data collection is organized through questionnaires and personal mailing experiment. Random people who filled in the first questionnaire were from the author’s personal network all over the world. Regarding the second questionnaire the author has chosen to research Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as the area of medium-sized companies’ location. The author used 2 million American e-mail addresses in her personal mailing experiment. In order to analyze the findings through a set of graphical techniques exploratory data analysis was used. Both questionnaires consisted from dichotomous (Yes-no) questions, alternative questions, wh-questions and descriptive questions, analysis of which incorporated through the literature review. In addition to this, personal mailing experiment is present in the study where the author tests the attitude towards spam and the perception of advertisement based on the literature review as well. It became clear that it is possible by carefully thought-out and aimed at the right market spam advertisement to draw people’s attention. The author’s experiment has proved that there are some people or the e-mail users who actually buy products advertised in spam e-mails. One of the factors that influence attitude towards e-mails might be because of the particular spam usefulness or low time consumption but the success of the online advertisement depends on people’s perception. In the particular case the attitude towards advertisement was determined by advertisement’s execution and feelings transferred by it. It is important to remember that advertisers have to take main nuances into account when introducing products or services to new clients or partners, such as clear understanding of spam mailing goals, topics of interest, perception of visual information, time of advertisement, and trust.