This PAR project used applied communications to get and use power to influence public policy. Informed by social and policy network theories, the method used Facebook as an organizing tool to create and position a recreation issue network in tension with an environmental policy community, exploring the concepts of layering, conversion, exhaustion, policy image, and venue change in an effort to influence policy. The introduction of a new-media social network as a competing influence in a policy network was an innovation, and demonstrated that the “strength of weak ties” may have implications for policy-making. The study concluded that a Facebook group was an efficient and effective organizing tool, capable of organizing an issue network and disrupting the status quo; however, the tightly coupled nature of a policy community makes it highly resilient to outside influence and an issue network may not gain sufficient influence to change policy. Keywords: Facebook, new-media social network, policy community, issue network, policy image, venue manipulation, layering, conversion, exhaustion

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No. of bitstreams: 1 COLPANI_Felipe_2015.pdf: 111798431 bytes, checksum: 5a4c6c5873af082d62f5fd5c20943184 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-07-16 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / This research aims to analyze the production of homosexual experiences in contemporary times, with the investigative territory, social network Facebook. The space network connections [cyberspace] have been constituted as new production space morphologies for homosexuals. The technoculture’s virtual machines present themselves as social spaces of projection, memory and new developments. Emerged in a trans-discursive network connections, homosexuals can assume ownership of virtual machines to the ongoing reconstruction of its virtuality, understood as a mobile incorporeal flow that is transmuted in connection with each other. The social network Facebook is configured as a network of connections equipped by axes and directions, allowing individuals movements of deterritorial and intensive meetings, under a spatial mosaic hybrid, circumscribed in a multitude of territories and ciber-regions spread across the Global Village Machinic. The deterritorialized open cyberspace, solidifies as a space recorded by a heterogeneity of spatial elements, allowing the passage of flows and practices, and provide new experiences, which can move with the hetero-capitalism power centers. The analysis is centered on the materialistic production os [cyber]space, which allowed the outline of contemporary social production, combined with discursive production, through what is stated and registered on Facebook. A symbiosis that allowed me machining of existential production scenario in which these homosexuals are territorialized. The collection of discursive practices occurred from a virtual ethnography in the most closed group of homosexuals in Brazil, a nomadic territory of bodies and utterances that connects all to a central point: the uniqueness of homosexual desire. A creation of space for new experiences and affectivity, as well as a virtual closet. In this group, there are forces of coalescence: transgression forces and forces that capture the heterocapitalismo standard, constituting as an inductor territory of processes and connections that may even break with the reactionary encodings of global simulations of the Patriarchal-Heteroapitalist Empire. Through the analysis of the discursive production of homosexuals on Facebook, notes that homosexual experiences of today is based on a constant exchange between real and virtual, online and offline, corpus and machines under a profusion of new experiences and new performativities, passing by a social production of connections fight and claims and new groupings by affection. / Esta pesquisa teve como perspectiva analisar a produção de experiências homossexuais na contemporaneidade, tendo como território investigativo a rede social do Facebook. O espaço em rede de conexões [ciberespaço] têm se constituído como uma nova geomorfologia, que tem acarretado em novos eixos heterogêneos de produção existencial. As próteses high-tech da tecnocultura, se apresentam como espaços sociais de projeção, de memória e de novos acontecimentos. Emergidos em uma rede biotécnica de conexões, os homossexuais podem se apropriar das máquinas cibernéticas para a reconstrução contínua de sua virtualidade, entendida como um fluxo incorpóreo que se transmuta na conexão com o outro. A rede social do Facebook, se configura como uma malha de conexões equipada por eixos e orientações, permitindo aos indivíduos movimentos de des-territorialização e encontros intensivos, sob um mosaico espacial híbrido, circunscrito numa multiplicidade de territórios e ciber-regiões espalhadas pela Aldeia Maquínica Global. O ciberespaço como sistema aberto desterritorializado, solidifica-se como um espaço registrado por uma heterogeneidade de elementos espaciais, permitindo a passagem de fluxos e práticas que além de proporcionar novas experiências, podem deslocar com os centros de poder do heterocapitalismo, do que aqui chamamos de Império Patriarcal-Heterocapitalista. A análise centrou na formação materialista do [ciber]espaço, que me permitiu o delineamento da produção social contemporânea, aliada a produção discursiva, através do que se enunciado e registrado no Facebook. Uma simbiose que me permitiu a maquinação do cenário de produção existencial no qual estes homossexuais estão territorializados. A coleta de práticas discursivas ocorreu no seio de uma etnografia virtual no maior grupo fechado de homossexuais do Brasil, uma aldeia molecular e nômade de corpus e enunciações que conecta todos a um ponto central: a singularidade do desejo homossexual. Um território prostético de constituição de novas experiências e afetividades, como também pode servir como uma forma de armário. Neste grupo, há uma coalescência de forças: forças de transgressão e forças majoritárias de captura à norma heterocapitalista. Através da análise da produção discursiva de homossexuais no Facebook, se constata que as experiências homossexuais na atualidade se assenta em um intercâmbio incessante entre real e virtual, on-line e off-line, corpus e máquinas, sob uma profusão de novas experiências e novas performatividades, perpassando por uma produção social de luta e reivindicações, de conexões e de novos agrupamentos pelo afeto.

Users in social networking sites, such as Facebook, are increasingly receiving friend requests from strangers and accepting strangers as friends. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the Big Five personality traits and strangers' gender in affecting Facebook users' decisions to accept the stranger's friend request by adopting a 2 (gender of the stranger: male vs. female) x 5 (stranger's personality: Neuroticism vs. Extraversion vs. Openness vs. Conscientiousness vs. Agreeableness) factorial design. Results revealed that participants were more likely to accept the stranger's friend request when the participant's and stranger's personalities matched. This effect was more pronounced when the stranger was a female. Participants accepted female stranger's friend request due to the inflated perception of stereotypical female characteristics, which supported the hyperpersonal effect. Majority of the participants accepted the stranger's friend request based on textual cues that were displayed in the friend request message, which supported social information processing theory, suggesting that impression formation of the stranger was not constrained to the lack of nonverbal cues setting.

This thesis examines the political public relations campaign of the Democratic Alliance in the 2009 elections in order to explain the party’s performance in these elections. The research is premised on John Petrocik’s (1996) issue ownership theory. A number of quantitative and qualitative content analyses were conducted to provide answers to the main research questions. These involved: the party’s 286 media releases; party leader Helen Zille’s 2009 campaign speeches; and Zille’s Facebook platform. Results revealed that although the DA demonstrated extreme political resilience amidst fierce challenges in the 2009 elections, the party primarily campaigned on an anti-ANC ticket and a fair amount of negative advertising against the governing party to win itself votes. Not only did the party fail to “associate” itself with real issues affecting South African voters—especially the poor Black African majority which constitutes the largest voting bloc—it failed to pronounce itself clearly on other issues. Instead, the party attached itself to a multitude of shared issues, often “trespassing” on issues of common concern not necessarily “owned” by any one political party. This study also deduced that while Facebook facilitated public opinion on the DA in the 2009 elections, it still could not be regarded as a genuine public sphere in the South African context. / Communication Science / M.A. (Communication)

Facebook studio groups/pages are commonly used by applied music faculty to communicate with current students, recruit new students, share students' activities, and promote faculty members' professional performances and academic endeavors. However, the blurred lines between academic, professional performance, and social activities in the field have led to a wide variety of approaches to Facebook use by music faculty. This dissertation documents the first generation of music faculty social media users and investigates the beliefs, intent, and lived experiences of music faculty who use Facebook studio groups/pages to communicate with their students. Four music faculty were interviewed and a semester's Facebook studio group/page data collected for each faculty member. Interviews and Facebook data were analyzed using Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to identify emergent, and ultimately super-ordinate, themes from the data. The three super-ordinate themes that emerged were: Impact of Social Media on Studio Teaching and Learning, Learning through Enculturation, and Faculty Lived Experiences with Facebook Studio Groups/Pages. Findings of the study included: faculty concerns about personal and professional risk; the observation that teaching and learning are occurring through these Facebook studio groups/pages by way of the process of enculturation, but without evidence of a Virtual Community of Practice; and, a multitude of group/page management practices developed in isolation that suggest a need for discussion/debate and training in the field to determine best practices for using Facebook studio groups/pages as an extension of the physical studio. Recommendations include training for music faculty that situates Facebook studio groups/pages within the enculturation process of students pursuing careers in music, music department development of guidelines for Facebook group/page creation and management based upon their institutions' rules and oversight procedures, and the sharing of exemplar Facebook studio groups/pages by professional music education organizations to encourage discussion of best practices for teaching and learning in informal environments.

Thesis (M.A. (Media Studies) -- University of Limpopo, 2019 / This study explored the uses of Facebook by youth in the Vhembe District Municipality of Limpopo Province, South Africa. It is exploratory qualitative research. The research sample consisted of twenty (20) respondents both 10 males and 10 females whose ages range between 18 and 29 years who are on Facebook. Purposive sampling was adopted for the study to sample the study population members. The method used to collect data was the structured interview. The data collected from research respondents were analysed in themes and sub-themes using texts and tables. The study found that Facebook is the most preferred social media by youth from the Vhembe District. The platform connects users irrespective of their geographical boundaries and promotes the level of interaction on social and entertaining issues. Facebook also enables the Vhembe District youth to search for jobs and also helps them to discuss their academic and sometimes political issues. Most of the Vhembe District youth prefer using Facebook to share recent information and create content such as pictures and videos with their friends when they are online. The Vhembe District youth also use the platform to entertain each other. The major problems faced by the Vhembe District Facebook users are that a majority of them become exposed to pictures and videos of sexual nature, cyberattack, cyberbullying and vulgar language whereas a minority become victims of account hacking and invasion of privacy. The research respondents came up with solutions to prevent social media challenges. A majority of respondents suggested that strong passwords, an increase in privacy, social media law implementation, social media campaigns and social media education can help prevent online challenges. A minority of students indicated that parental support, strong age restriction, adding known Facebook users, blocking, unfollowing and unfriending unwanted users can help to prevent challenges faced by Facebook users.

Suicide clusters have been identified in many populations; however, research exploring the role of online communication in the aftermath of a suicide cluster is extremely limited. This study used the Consensual Qualitative Research method to analyze interviews of ten high school students following a suicide cluster in a small suburban school district. Interviewee’s responses were organized into 4 domains: the suicide, impact, perceptions of school environment, and recovery. The role of social networking emerged as a common theme across domains, suggesting broad relevance to adolescents’ experience following the suicide of a peer. Implications for clinical intervention and research are discussed.

As social media becomes an integral part of our daily lives, and groups seek to utilize this medium to facilitate activism, understanding the nature of these communications and the impact of the content on the individual user becomes a valid area of interest. When one then considers that extremist and terrorist groups have found social media to be an inexpensive and effective means for communication, radicalization, recruitment and member mobilization, the need for this understanding becomes critical. This research seeks to provide just such an understanding in its examination of Far-Right English Defence League and their use of Facebook during a period of increased activism and online growth. Important elements of this work include an understanding of the legal and ethical issues surrounding the collection of online content, particularly in extremist environments; the role of traditional media in their coverage of the group and whether the comments of the members reflect the group's mission statement of the characterization of traditional media; the ability to enhance data segregation and analysis through the development and use of specialized software; and most importantly the findings from the data analysis. Contained within these findings is an understanding of the intricacies of online participation in extremist social media. These include insights into overall traffic generation, the use of links within communications and their impact on the member traffic, and how the group narrative put forth by the administrator is reflected in the dialogue of the users. The most important finding was an understanding of individual user participation within the group and how, even with such an inexpensive and pervasive media outlet, activist groups still struggle to overcome the problem of participation. That this knowledge can be applied in a meaningful way in counter extremist and counter terrorism efforts was an interesting and satisfying development.

The development of non-traditional communication channels in recent years has progressively created a world more digital, networked and interlaced by a myriad of communication tools than ever before. With Facebook being the most prevalent social network, this study aims to guide local organisations to use Facebook optimally to communicate with their customers. The study strives to incorporate the latest ideas about social media marketing in the relevant literature with the opinions of local social media marketing experts. The generally ineffective use of Facebook as a communication channel by small, inexperienced organisations is seen as a justification for identifying a set of criteria to guide organisations in using Facebook pages as a driver of communication. The empirical phase of the research produced a list of seven guidelines on the optimal use of Facebook pages for marketing purposes, which might assist South African companies in developing their marketing strategies. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)

Since the emergence of the Internet, scholars have had mixed opinions regarding its role in influencing levels of political participation. Two frameworks, the mobilization and the reinforcement theses, were created from these opposing views. The introduction of social networking websites (such as Facebook) offers new platforms with which to test these opposing theories on. This study investigates the Facebook group ―Canadian‘s against Proroguing Parliament,‖ to determine: 1) what the members' motivations were for participating in the group, 2) whether the group attracted formerly marginalized voices to participate on the group, or simply reinforced those who were already active in the political process, and 3) whether the participation of members on the group translated into offline or real world political participation. The findings suggest that the group‘s members had a variety of reasons for joining the group. As well, the findings suggest that the group both mobilized reinforced its participants. Finally, the data indicates that in some instances, the group‘s members translated their online participation into real world political activity. / 171 leaves ; 29 cm