M.Comm. (Business Management) / The overall goal of this short dissertation is to investigate the influence of Facebook on the consumer decision-making process of students at a comprehensive university. The five phases of the consumer decision-making process will be atthe core ofthis study; (1) Problem recognition, (2) Information search, (3) Evaluation of alternatives, (4) Purchase, (5) Post-purchase. Included inthe study is the profile of consumers who use Facebook, the general trends surfacing from the use of online activities, an investigation into each of the five phases mentioned that contribute to the influence Facebook exerts. And ultimately, indicating that Facebook has various degrees of influence ornoinfluence on the different phases inthe consumer-decision making process. This study, through a self administered drop-off questionnaire whose valid respondents (total of 325 respondents), provided information about the respondents' demographic profile, online activities and behaviour along the five phase consumer decision-making process. As the topic of this study was about the usage of Facebook, the sample set qualifier was that having a Facebook profile was a prerequisite. The statistical techniques used in the study were based on descriptive analysis which enabled the analysis of the data with regard to the relationship of the variables whereby the data was easily summarised and understood. The other statistical technique used was factor analysis whereby the reliability and validity of the data was verified and further relationships between the variables were examined. The findings indicate that respondents exhibited actions influenced by Facebook in the first two phases of the decision making process (Problem recognition and Information search), than was evident in the remaining three phases. This framework provides the basis forfurther investigation into the influence of Facebook in the areas of problem recognition and information search and provides the opportunity for marketers to position themselves in a way that will address the two phases bybeing present on the Facebook platform.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Wits Business School to fulfilments of the requirements of a Master of Management by Research 30 March 2015 / Our understanding of the psychological construct of sense of community has been developing steadily, particularly since the publication of the seminal work by McMillan and Chavis (1986). Pertinent to this study, the sense of community construct has been applied to the virtual world, leading to the concept of sense of virtual community (SoVC), that is, a sense of community felt by members of a virtual community. This study synthesises the findings of the extant literature to build a multi-dimensional model of sense of community. Moving to a specific context, this study examines SoVC among members of cause-related virtual communities. Examples of such communities can be found in the Facebook communities that have developed around the various branches of the Red Cross and of World Vision. Among members of such communities, some level of support for the mediating cause organisation can be presumed to exist. This is referred to in this dissertation as Passion for the Cause (PFC). Empirical and theoretical work on the interaction between SoVC and PFC is lacking. This study investigates the extent to which SoVC and PFC are associated and seeks to bring clarity to the nature of the association. The research instrument was an online self-completion survey. The Facebook pages of South African cause organisations were used to invite community members to complete the survey. Respondents were participants in the Facebook-based communities of South African cause organisations (n = 67). The research instrument included a scale for SoVC (12 items) and a scale for PFC (6 items). An exploratory factor analysis was done to identify the latent factors of SoVC in this context. Adequate support was found for the conceptualisation of three factors of SoVC, namely, General Benefit, Friendship, and Helping. This was followed by a series of multiple regression analyses aimed at testing the relationships between PFC and SoVC and its factors. SoVC and PFC were found to be highly correlated. Furthermore, PFC was found to significantly predict SoVC. It was also found to predict the SoVC factor conceptualised as General Benefit. Finally, SoVC was found to predict PFC. Notably, PFC was found to be less able to predict SoVC than was SoVC able to predict PFC. Implications for the moderators of cause-related virtual communities are discussed. / MB2016

This study used a training package to teach social media safety skills, using Facebook, to adolescents and young adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders in a small group setting. Participants were taught to decline, block and report when they received a lure from someone that they do not know. A multiple baseline design across lures demonstrated the effects of the intervention on participant performance. Results confirmed an increase in social media safety skills performed by all participants. Participants were able to maintain this skill set once the training package was removed. Spontaneous generalization was demonstrated by all participants for some lures. Generalization of social media safety skills was demonstrated across participants in a setting where they did not receive instruction. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Orientadora: Maria do Rosário Gomes Lima da Silva / Banca: Daniela Nogueira de Moraes Garcia / Banca: Mariangela Braga Norte / Resumo: Inovar nas práticas de ensino de leitura e escrita tem se tornado uma necessidade crescente para os profissionais da educação, tendo em vista que os grandes avanços, sobretudo na área de comunicação, têm criado novas demandas nas práticas docentes. Refletindo a este respeito, esta pesquisa de cunho netnográfico, qualitativo, visa investigar em que medida os textos multissemióticos autorais ou não, veiculados na mídia social Facebook, podem impulsionar as práticas de ensino de Língua Portuguesa no 8º ano dos Anos Finais do Ensino Fundamental de uma Escola Pública, bem como auxiliar o docente a fim de complementar o currículo por meio de práticas mais significativas, produzindo alunos leitores mais críticos e autônomos. Nessa perspectiva, discute-se a concepção de língua, de sujeito (aluno), de aula em ambiente virtual, e de língua em uso; contemplando, também, a noção de Gêneros Textuais, seguida da contextualização do uso da Internet, das mídias sociais como Facebook e suas ferramentas de interação. Propõe-se uma discussão sobre a influência das mídias sociais na modernidade, e como elas se inserem no cotidiano escolar, a arquitetura da mídia virtual Facebook e suas possibilidades como um ambiente gestor e facilitador de práticas de multiletramentos. Discorre-se, ainda, sobre a multimodalidade dos gêneros veiculados no Facebook, como esses gêneros discursivos podem melhorar a interação e o comprometimento do aluno na autoaprendizagem e na aprendizagem colaborativa em ambiente... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Innovating in reading and writing teaching practices has become a growing need for professionals in education, once that the major advances, especially in the area of communication field have created new demands on teaching practices. Concerning these issues, this qualitative netnographic research intends to investigate the extent to which (non)authoral texts, served on Facebook social media can boost the Portuguese Language teaching practices in the 8th grade of elementary public school, and help the teacher to complement the curriculum through more significant practices, producing more critical and independent readers. Under this light, it is discussed the language conception, as well as the subject (student), class in a virtual environment and language in use; adding to this the Text Genre notion, the context of internet use, the social media such as Facebook and its interactive tools. It is purposed a discussion of the influence of social media in modern times and how they fit into the school routine, the virtual media Facebook architecture and its potential as a manager and enabling environment of multiliteracies practices. Then it is also discussed the multimodality of advertising text genres run on Facebook, as these genres can improve interaction and student engagement in self-learning and collaborative learning in virtual environments. To close the chapter, digital literacy is discussed. As regards the methodology, the theoretical study is faced with a field survey on Facebook, in a virtual 8th-grade classroom (Final Years of Elementary School) created for this research. Data collection comprised the summarizing of books, newspapers, magazines, textbooks "Student's book" (Portuguese Language curriculum for the 8th grade of elementary school), questionnaires for students, injunctive multimodal texts worked in the virtual room, and students' productions in Facebook... (Complete abstract click electronic acess below) / Mestre

Many protection mechanisms in computer security are designed to enforce a configurable policy. The security policy captures high-level goals and intentions, and is managed by a policy author tasked with translating these goals into an implementable policy. In our work, we focus on access control policies where errors in the specified policy can result in the mechanism incorrectly denying a request to access a resource, or incorrectly allowing access to a resource that they should not have access to. Due to the need for correct policies, it is critical that organizations and individuals have usable tools to manage security policies. Policy management encompasses several subtasks including specifying the initial security policy, modifying an existing policy, and comprehending the effective policy. The policy author must understand the configurable options well enough to accurately translate the desired policy into the implemented policy. Specifying correct security policies is known to be a difficult task, and prior work has contributed policy authoring tools that are more usable than the prior art and other work has also shown the importance of the policy author being able to quickly understand the effective policy. Specifying a correct policy is difficult enough for technical users, and now, increasingly, end-users are being asked to make access control decisions in regard to who can access their personal data. We focus on the need for an access control mechanism that is usable for end-users. We investigated end-users who are already managing an access control policy, namely social network site (SNS) users. We first looked at how they manage the access control policy that defines who can access their shared content. We accomplish this by empirically evaluating how Facebook users utilize the available privacy controls to implement an access control policy for their shared content and found that many users have policies are inconsistent with their sharing intentions. Upon discovering that many participants claim they will not take corrective action in response to inconsistencies in their existing settings, we collected quantitative and qualitative data to measure whether SNS users are concerned with the accessibility of their shared content. After confirming that users do in fact care about who accesses their content, we hypothesize that we can increase the correctness of users' SNS privacy settings by introducing contextual information and specific guidance based on their preferences. We found that the combination of viewership feedback, a sequence of direct questions to audit the user's sharing preferences, and specific guidance motivates some users to modify their privacy settings to more closely approximate their desired settings. Our results demonstrate the weaknesses of ACL-based access control mechanisms, and also provide support that it is possible to improve the usability of such mechanisms. We conclude by outlining the implications of our results for the design of a usable access control mechanism for end-users.

In this thesis I examine the impact of interaction and participation on Facebook between private individuals and certain hierarchical groups in society, particularly with regard to individual privacy; consider the structure of Facebook’s privacy programming; and seek to establish where the balance of power lies between private individuals and commercial, political and media organisations. I make reference to Foucault’s theory of power, Bourdieu’s theories of power in social space and habitus and Althusser’s theory of interpellation as I record my research. This thesis is a qualitative research project, and I employ Critical Discourse Analysis as the principal research methodology. I focus on four cases studies: Facebook both as the internet platform which facilitates such interaction and the company which operates it; the developers of applications, such as online games, which are mounted on the platform; the network’s use by political parties and their leaders during the UK 2010 General Election campaign; and traditional media platforms as represented by two television annual ‘events’. My findings relate the manner in which individual users are constantly prompted to upload content, principally personal information, thoughts, preferences and relationships to the network, and simultaneously are pressurised into granting access to this information as they seek to fully participate on the social platform. This pressure is applied through applications that are mounted on the platform by commercial, media and political organisations, and I find that Facebook’s affordances to applications developers are instrumental in this process. My research associates these processes with the aforementioned theories of Foucault, Althusser and Bourdieu. My conclusion is that while Facebook continually revises its privacy policy to grant private individuals control over the content, that is the personal information, they upload to the social network, access to this information is a prerequisite for their full participation in the network. Facebook’s continuous introduction of new programmes ensures that private individuals have to choose between interaction and participation on the social network, or exclusion as access to many of the activities it offers is conditional on third party access to their personal information. Further pressure to grant access to the required information is applied through the ability of organisations to feature photographs of users’ Friends who are already using the relevant application. The processes indicate that Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg is slowly progressing his aim to place the social network at the centre of a newly structured Web based on private individuals.

Orientador: Leonardo Lemos de Souza / Banca: Lucinea Aparecida Rezende / Banca: Mário Sérgio Vasconcelos / Banca: Elizabeth Piemonte Constantino / Banca: Raquel Gonçalves Salgado / Resumo: A pesquisa tem por objetivo compreender as narrativas produzidas por jovens estudantes, usuários(as) de uma rede social da internet, o Facebook, no que diz respeito às produções de linguagens a partir da expressão de seus sentimentos. Busca-se também trazer à discussão o uso destas tecnologias na educação de conteúdos mais relacionados às ressignificações da escola da contemporaneidade. Para conseguir atender ao objetivo proposto, foi realizado o diálogo entre as literaturas na área da Psicologia e da Educação e a aproximação dos aportes teóricos utilizados ao contato com o público jovem - estudantes do ensino médio do IFPR de Jacarezinho - PR. Em suas narrativas produzidas no Facebook, ficam registradas suas necessidades de falarem sobre si por meio dos discursos próprios e também por meio dos já produzidos pelos seus pares. Sentimentos manifestados em publicações que representam seus aspectos emocionais, aquilo que os afetam e como são afetados pelos outros. Tais produções, ou seja, suas crenças, sentimentos, excessos, desabafos, produzidos em redes, permite-nos refletir sobre a rede social como o espaço da alteridade, para a construção de identidades em face do outro, de seus interlocutores. Sustentados nos procedimentos da pesquisa, os projetos de ensino a partir da transversalidade apresentam-se como um modelo interessante para a formação integral dos(as) estudantes que visam a ampliação dos trabalhos meramente voltados para a valorização da racionalidade... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The present work has as its main objective to understand the narratives produced by young students, users of an online social network, Facebook, considering the language productions as from their feelings. There is also the interest of putting into discussion the application of these technologies to the education of contents more related to the resignifications of the contemporary school. In order to fulfill the proposed objective, it was necessary the dialogue between literatures in the field of Psychology and Education and the approach of the theoretical framework used upon getting in touch with the young people - students from the high school at the Federal Institute of Paraná - Campus Jacarezinho. In their narratives produced on Facebook, needs of speaking about themselves through their own speeches and by the ones already produced by their peers are recorded. Feelings expressed in posts that mean their emotional aspects, things that affect them and how others affect them. Such productions, that is to say, their beliefs, feelings, overflows, relief, produced on the social networks, allow us to think about the social network as a place of alterity, for the construction of identities in the light of the other, of their speakers. Underlay under the procedures of the investigation, the teaching projects as from the transversatily are shown as an interesting pattern for the integral education of the students that aims for the increase of the works merely directed to the cognitive issues, but that can take into consideration the affectivity as a strategy in the school activities including all levels of teaching. The suggestion of this pattern requires, nevertheless, a bigger investment on the dialogue between the action implemented in schools of basic education, the interests of students and teachers and the academic reflection... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

M.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / With the increasing development of technology and the cyber world, a culture of social networking has been established. Social networking sites, such as Facebook™, became useful and popular tools, specifically for young adolescents, as it offers engaging opportunities to connect, communicate and interact with peers while enabling and sustaining interpersonal relationships. Given the stage of development in which they reside according to Erikson, adolescents place immense value on their social activity and connectedness, and therefore a positive self-identity and self-esteem becomes dependent on their social success. This study attempted to explore the possible psychosocial effects, specifically on the self-esteem of adolescents, who regularly interact on Facebook™. The research was conducted at an urban public school in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg. Participants for the individual interviews were selected based on how thoroughly they completed their questionnaires which I requested of this grade 10 group. From the analysis of the data, four main categories emerged namely; positive and negative influences on self-esteem, deception on Facebook™, crystallisation of identity and dangers associated with Facebook™. Consistent with recent literature regarding social networking and its effects, the results suggested that there is a definite link between Facebook™ interaction and self-esteem and that the social interactions on Facebook™ can have both positive and negative effects on the self-esteem of the individual. It is however crucial to consider the dangers and detrimental effects on both the self-esteem and the safety of individuals. Furthermore interesting features that were illuminated by the research is the concept of deception on social networking sites and individuals’ tendency to deceive and mislead based on a desire to be accepted and to avoid criticism. Lastly the idea of individuals’ identity being crystallised through their social interaction on Facebook™ came through strongly. Recommendations made based on the findings include adapting the Life-Orientation curriculum to address social etiquette and moral guidelines pertaining to online behaviour and interactions. Recommendations for future research include, amongst others, broadening the context and exploring this issue throughout the whole of South Africa and to observe differences between urban and rural areas.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences / Department of Communication

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-12-11T11:59:14Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Victor Cencini Rodrigues.pdf: 604746 bytes, checksum: 68d25d36933543ca0a28f1150e3ba5e7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-12-11T11:59:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Victor Cencini Rodrigues.pdf: 604746 bytes, checksum: 68d25d36933543ca0a28f1150e3ba5e7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-10-05 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The research focused on the issue of censorship on Facebook, verify the existence of this censorship and its nature, how this censorship is made and justified to users, how the American social network treats the content published by its users, censorship cases were searched on the EFF website (Eletronic Frontier Foundiation, an American civil rights organization such as freedom of expression on the internet, the survey touched on important Internet issues such as privacy, mass surveillance by governments and the private sector. censorship found range from activists of black movements censored by the denunciation of racist messages they receive, journalists who have been censored for reasons ranging from the disclosure of documents on political scandals or war crimes, research using the terms in their version of the year of 2015, every user entering a social network on the internet had to agree with the terms and privacy policy, the terms under which conditions a publication may be withdrawn / A pesquisa se debruçou sobre a questão da censura no Facebook e sobre a verificação da existência dessa censura e sua natureza, além de como essa censura é feita e justificada aos usuários. Houve um questionamento de como a rede social americana trata o conteúdo publicado pelos seus usuários. As consultas sobre os casos de censura foram realizadas no site da EFF (Eletronic Frontier Foundiation), organização americana que milita pelos direitos civis como a liberdade de expressão na internet. A pesquisa percorreu questões importantes para a internet como a privacidade, vigilância em massa feita pelos governos e pelo setor privado. Os casos de censura encontrados variam desde ativistas dos movimentos negros censurados pela denúncia de mensagens racistas que recebem e jornalistas que foram censurados por motivos que vão desde a divulgação de documentos sobre escândalos políticos ou crimes de guerra. A pesquisa concordou com a utilização dos termos em sua versão do ano de 2015 tendo em vista que os termos atuais foram divulgados na fase de finalização desta pesquisa, portanto não seria possível analisá-los. Todo usuário ao entrar em uma rede social na internet teve concordar com os termos e a politica de privacidade, os termos colocam em quais condições uma publicação pode ser retirada