Electronic Newspapers has become one sort of important communication medium with the rapid growth of audiences on Internet. In Taiwan, the majority of famous news media have their own Electronic Newspapers, which provide a large amount of online news. Though audiences can receive a mass of news, it is difficult for them to find the news in which they are really interested within limited time. Therefore, this current study focused on the research of the mechanism for filtering and recommending news based on the Use and Gratification Theory. The purposes were to develop a personalized news recommendation method for Electronic Newspapers and to examine the effect of the recommendation methods. The results of the empirical study showed that the system with recommendation mechanism was superior to the one with none in both usage performance and overall satisfaction. In this study, there were two recommendation mechanisms. One of them is time-based mechanism which refers to derive the interest automatically by analyzing how much time the audiences spent on reading news, the other is feedback-based mechanism which refers to derive the interest by asking audiences explicitly. It was found that there were no significant differences between the two mechanisms in either usage performance or overall satisfaction. Therefore, the time-based mechanism is helpful for audiences in finding personal news.

According to ¡§the research of Internet users in Taiwan¡¨ by Institute for Information Industry, the number of Internet users in Taiwan has reached 8,590 thousand, and the prevalence rate was 38 percent at December, 2003. And the broadband users also reached 2,100 thousand. As it, we could figure out that the importance of Internet is keep growing. Since the significance and specialty of Internet, many scholars have begun to study for the communication behaviors on Internet. Computer mediated communication contains many kinds of activities, including chat room, BBS, online game, etc. Internet literature is also a kind of computer mediated communication behavior. Traditionally, literature is purely a personal behavior, but the spread and publication of writings is depending on publishers. Therefore, not all people could let their writings be published. Nonetheless, in the world of Internet, everyone could put his writings on BBS or websites. As the characteristics and probabilities of traditional and Internet literature are different, I would focus on the writer of Internet literature, and try to understand their personalities, motivations and behaviors by using both interview in depth and questionnaire. I hope to build the total map of Internet literature from this research. From the research, I found the backgrounds and personalities of Internet writers seem the same. Over half of the writers are students, between 16-30 years old, and have Internet using experience over 3 years. The genres of their writings are mostly romantic novels. For the motivations of writing, ¡§writing is its own purpose¡¨ is the most accepted motivation. Besides, most writers tend to interact with other writers or readers, and adjust their material and style of writings from the interaction. Therefore, Internet literature is not a single-way transmission behavior, but a double-ways social interaction process.

The explosive proliferation of Internet usage has enabled a number of new online communities to be established. Among them, online games have been representing the leading technological edge of the entertainment sector and the trend is expected to continue. The nature of Internet has enabled its users easy to hop from one website to another only several clicks away with very little cost. While website stickiness is regarded as a significant factor to e-commerce success, how to attract the attention of gamers and make them stick around has become a big challenge for both online game developers and providers. Based on the uses and gratification theory, this study proposed a model which integrated use and gratification with service mechanism (i.e. fairness, security, and incentive) and media factor (i.e. spatial presence and social presence) to investigate what determines player¡¦s online game stickiness. The partial least squares method was applied to empirically evaluate the proposed model using survey data collected from 274 online gamers. Our findings indicate that all variables except presence have positive significant effects on continuance motivation (CM), and CM also significantly affects gamers¡¦ stickiness. The implications of this work to both researchers and practitioners are discussed.

Syfte och frågeställning: Uppsatsen undersöker vad de som går sitt första år på Högskolan i Halmstad (HH) (www.hh.se) tycker om högskolans hemsida. Förutom detta undersöks deras användning och behov av hemsidan, vilket kan vara intressant för utvecklare eftersom det skapar djupare förståelse för studenters åsikter. Utvecklare kan genom vår uppsats få kunskap om nödvändiga förändringar för en mer användarvänlig hemsida. Föreliggande uppsats koncentrerar sig alltså på att generera djupare förståelse om varför studenterna exempelvis tycker något är dåligt eller bra.   Metod och material: Vi valde att genomföra sex kvalitativa intervjuer i form av fokusgrupper där respondenterna berättade om sina behov samt visade oss hur de tar sig till olika platser på hemsidan. Därefter uttryckte de åsikter om vad de tyckte om processen och om hemsidan överlag. Som teoretisk grund använde vi uses and gratifications-theory (U&G).   Huvudresultat: Överlag fick hemsidan negativ kritik. Främst gällande navigationen genom rubrikerna och underrubrikerna, vilket i de flesta fallen var förvirrande för respondenterna. Sökfunktionen fungerade dock i de flesta fallen bra. Både negativa och positiva åsikter rörde grafik och layout, vissa respondenter ansåg det vara störande och ”kluddigt” medan andra ansåg det vara visuellt tilltalande och stilrent. I det stora hela bör hemsidan förbättras, exempelvis bör kategoriseringarna av samtliga underrubriker göras lättare att förstå, det bör inkluderas en ”menade-du-funktion” till sökfunktionen, dessutom bör utvecklarna fundera mer på vilka som är hemsidans målgrupper.

Medielandskapet har förändrats till följd av de digitala mediernas framväxt. Då det finnas allt fler användare av sociala medier är det viktigt för företag att veta hur de ska nå ut till konsumenterna. Instagram har 200 miljoner aktiva användare varje månad. Att veta vilka bilder som bäst når ut till användarna, varför de väljer att interagera med företag och vilka behov de uppfyller är betydelsefullt att få kunskap om. Syftet med uppsatsen är att se om användare av Instagram följer och interagerar med företag beroende på vilken typ av bild de väljer att lägga upp. Detta har undersökts genom tio semistrukturerade intervjuer där de intervjuade fick se bilder från två företags Instagram-konton. Därefter analyseras resultaten med hjälp av teorierna attityder och uses and gratification. Resultatet av undersökningen visade att respondenterna i studien värdesatte bilder med en personlig rele-vans. De föredrog även att interagera med företag som väljer att lägga upp personliga bilder framför företag som lägger upp informerande bilder. Detta kan relatera till att det finns en variation i de bilderna. / As a result of the digital medias development during the past years the media landscape has changed. As there are more and more users of social media it is important for companies to know how to reach their customers. Instagram has approximately 200 million active users every month. It is imperative to know which photos that attract users the most, why they choose to integrate with these companies and which needs they fulfil. The purpose with this study is to examine if users of Instagram follows and integrate with companies de-pending on the types of images they choose to share. This has been researched through ten semi-structured interviews where the respondents looked at photos from Instagram. The results were analysed with the help of the theories attitudes and uses and gratification. The results from the study showed that the respondents valued photos with a personal relevance. They also preferred to integrate with companies who share personal photos instead of informing photos. This can be related to the variations in the photos they share.

Delay of gratification is the ability to forego an immediate indulgence in lieu of a later, greater reward. Past research has shown that using behavioral strategies may help children to delay gratification longer. The current project tests whether children can learn one such strategy, covering the eyes, through imitation. Four-year-olds saw a model delay gratification using a strategy, using no strategy, or saw no model. They then participated in an accumulation task, where they could earn an incremental sticker reward. Children who saw a strategy showed evidence of imitation by covering their eyes. Unexpectedly, however, this had an adverse influence on their ability to delay gratification. Thus, although children can apply a strategy, its effectiveness may be limited by the type of task used (accumulation) or from an incomplete understanding of the strategy’s function. Additional research is needed to investigate whether delay performance can be promoted by a social example.

This study was created to contribute to the research field of studies about Media and Communication. The study analyses swedish footboll fans motives, gratifications and participating culture on social media.The purpose of the study was to examine and create understanding about what motivates and gratify footboll fans to participate on social media. This was examined through a quantitative survey that was answered by swedish football fans. The study was created from using the theory uses and gratifications and earlier research in the area. McQuail, Joinson, Papacharissi and Rubin are the main reserachers contributing to the study. Conclusions that were made indicate that despite latest reserach, that indicates on a growing interaction and two-way communication, this study reveals that fan cultures main focus, motives and gratifications to participate are informational and one-way directed.

I denna uppsats studerar vi delningar av artiklar på det sociala mediet Facebook. Syftet är att undersöka informanternas egna tankar, reflektioner och upplevelser av vad de läser och delar med sig av på Facebook. Det vi vill undersöka är användandet av artiklar som opinionsbildande material - så som krönikor, debattinlägg och nyheter. Fokus ligger på att försöka se hur informanternas förhållande till deras åsikter och värderingar påverkas av vad de läser och delar på Facebook, samt hur och varför de använder sig av delningar. Vi har genomfört sex stycken kvalitativa intervjuer med informanter mellan 25-38 år, både kvinnor och män. De övergripande frågeställningar vi ville besvara var; Varför väljer informanten att läsa artiklar på Facebook? Varför väljer informanten att dela/dela vidare på Facebook? Hur ser relationen ut mellan de delningar informanten gör och informantens åsikter? För analysen har vi främst använt oss av teorierna Uses & Gratifications, som vi hämtat från Lee & Ma (2012), samt Kang et al (2013) för att förklara motivet till delningar och Nyhetsvärdering som baseras på Galtung och Ruge´s kriterier för nyhetsvärdering, för att förklara vad de läser. Vi har även använt oss av Agenda-Setteing och Narcotizing Dysfunction för att närmare kunna förklara motiv, urval och vad resultatet av delningar blir. Resultatet visar att informanterna främst delar för att påverka andra och bidra till samhällsdebatten. Samtidigt så anser de att de inte själva blir påverkade av vad andra delar.

As humans we have a remarkable capacity to sacrifice for the future, and an equally remarkable capacity to shortchange it, leaving our future selves to pay the price. The research in this dissertation suggests that sacrifice for the future (patience) may be governed by the same rules that govern sacrifice for others (altruism). Studies found that (1) patience was positively correlated with altruism, and (2) patience was positively correlated with empathic accuracy, a measure that predicted altruism. A third set of studies found that (3) a pervasive influence on altruism--group membership--also influenced patience. Participants who expected to switch groups in the future felt less connected to their future selves and left more than twice as much unpleasant work to the future. This research provides converging support for the hypothesis that common factors promote altruism and patience, suggesting that we may be able to draw on the decades of research studying kindness toward others to promote a little more kindness toward our future selves. / Psychology

The way people choose to communicate can affect current and future relationships between sender and receiver. Business professionals communicate internally and externally using a variety of communication channels, such as e-mail, letters, phone, or face-to-face and must choose the best channel for the message they are trying to convey. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine how business professionals choose between the available channels, the premise being that users choose communication channels due to the gratification obtained (GO). Guided by gratifications theory, which proposes that choice of a communication channel depends upon the GO, this study assessed 15 communication channels to gauge how well frequency, duration, and function predict GO. A cross-sectional survey was used to collect the research data from a random sample of currently employed alumni from an international hospitality school in Switzerland. Multiple linear regression was conducted to assess statistically significant relationships between the independent variables of frequency of use (how often), duration (how long), and functions (specific tasks) and the dependent variable: GO. The results confirmed that the regression model of frequency of use, duration, and function predict GO with a 52% variance. This study concluded with implications for positive social change for employees in higher education and the workplace and recommendations for further research on other channels or variables to improve the model for predicting GO.