This study examines the discursive development of the viral online phenomenon known by the hashtag #swedengate. Having originally revolved around Swedish dinner customs, the discussion and the meaning of ‘Swedengate’ soon came to encompass more serious themes, including various forms of criticism directed at Sweden. Due to the political significance such a development could imply, this study aims to map the renegotiation of meaning of the phenomenon over time and analyze it using a discourse theoretical framework. Moreover, to reflect upon the political aspect of such renegotiation, by contrasting Swedengate to literature on hashtag politics, virality and nation branding. Empirically, the study draws on Twitter hashtag data that represents concurrent hashtag usage related to the hashtag #swedengate within a time span of 39 weeks. Using social network analysis, this data is visualized and presented as a network graph offering a discursive and temporal representation of the interaction that is constitutive of Swedengate. With reference to several of Laclau and Mouffe's key concepts, the analysis shows that the graph can be understood as an articulation process, within which the hashtag #sweden functions as a floating signifier whose meaning is negotiated upon by various antagonistically positioned discourses. As a result of the floating signifier being articulated differently and through the formation of equivalence chains, the meaning of Swedengate came to include everything from vaccine skepticism to criticism of the Swedish government. Consequently, the study discusses the possibility of phenomenon such as Swedengate being exploited by actors with a specific political ambition.

Denna studie använder sig av cyberfeministisk och multimodal kritisk diskursanalys som teorier för att närma sig den populära hashtaggen #femalegaze på sociala medieplattformen TikTok. Studien undersöker hur kvinnor använder sig av denna hashtag för att skapa diskursiva interventioner till dominanta diskurser rörande genusnormer. Genom att analysera materialet för denna studie så går det att se hur kvinnorna som skapar innehåll till denna hashtag försöker omförhandla dominanta diskurser rörande kvinnors framställning online, deras sexualitet, sexuella uttryck och rätt till begär, idealkvinnan som passiv och reaktiv likaväl som att framförhandla hur kvinnor kan presentera sig själva utifrån en kvinnliga blick. Genom detta kan man även se hur dessa kvinnor använder denna hashtag för att omförhandla sig själva och andra kvinnor från objekt till aktiva subjekt. Hashtaggen och specifikt den kvinnliga blicken kan även ses användas som en tankefigur av kvinnorna, liknande cyberfeminismens cyborg, som agerar som en motpol till patriarkala diskurser. De använder denna tankefigur på flertalet aspekter av sitt liv för att omförhandla dominanta patriarkala diskurser. Genom att skapa detta innehåll och använda den kvinnliga blicken som en tankefigur så använder kvinnorna den relativt slutna cybermiljö skapad på TikTok med denna hashtag för att forma en arena där de kan samlas och genomföra diskursiv intervention till normativa, hegemona diskurser rörande genusnormer.

The emergence of social media has impacted the way people think, communicate, behave, learn, and conduct research. In recent years, a large number of studies have analyzed and modeled this social phenomena. Driven by commercial and social interests, social media has become an attractive subject for researchers. Accordingly, new models, algorithms, and applications to address specific domains and solve distinct problems have erupted. In this thesis, we propose a novel network model and a path mining algorithm called HashnetMiner to discover implicit knowledge that is not easily exposed using other network models. Our experiments using HashnetMiner have demonstrated anecdotal evidence of drug-drug interactions when applied to a drug reaction context. The proposed research comprises three parts built upon the common theme of utilizing hashtags in tweets. 1 Digital Recruitment on Twitter. We build an expert system shell for two different studies: (1) a nicotine patch study where the system reads streams of tweets in real time and decides whether to recruit the senders to participate in the study, and (2) an environmental health study where the system identifies individuals who can participate in a survey using Twitter. 2 Does Social Media Big Data Make the World Smaller? This work provides an exploratory analysis of large-scale keyword-hashtag networks (K-H) generated from Twitter. We use two different measures, (1) the number of vertices that connect any two keywords, and (2) the eccentricity of keyword vertices, a well-known centrality and shortest path measure. Our analysis shows that K-H networks conform to the phenomenon of the shrinking world and expose hidden paths among concepts. 3 We pose the following biomedical web science question: Can patterns identified in Twitter hashtags provide clinicians with a powerful tool to extrapolate a new medical therapies and/or drugs? We present a systematic network mining method HashnetMiner, that operates on networks of medical concepts and hashtags. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first effort to present Biomedical Web Science models and algorithms that address such a question by means of data mining and knowledge discovery using hashtag-based networks.

This study proposes a social and emotional disclosure model for understanding the mechanism that explains sharing intimate information on social media (Twitter). Previous research has indicated that some aspects of social, emotional, and attitudinal information processing are involved in disclosure of intimate information. However, these factors have been considered in isolation. This study proposes and tests a theoretically grounded model that brings all of these factors together by combining individual and group social media behaviors and online information processing in the realm of online social movements. The core explanatory model considers the impact of peer response, emotional evaluation, personal relevance, issue orientation, and motivation to post online on intimate information disclosure online. A path analysis building on four Poisson multiple regressions conducted on 28,629 #MeToo tweets evaluates the relationships proposed in the explanatory model. Results indicate that emotional evaluation and motivation to post online have direct, positive impacts on online disclosure. Other factors such as peer response, issue orientation, and personal relevance have negative direct relationships with online disclosure. Motivation to post online mediates the effects of emotional evaluation, issue orientation, and personal relevance on online disclosure while issue orientation mediates the effect of personal relevance on motivation to post online. This study offers findings that have use for practitioners interested in hashtag virality and to social media users interested in social influence and online information sharing.

On 15 October 2017 actress Alyssa Milano posted the following on her Twitter account: “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet”. After Milano’s tweet, the hashtag #MeToo is said to have gone viral overnight. Suddenly, the stories of survivors and victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault and/or sexual abuse seemed to be everywhere— although, it may be argued, that they have always been the lived reality for many of us. Activists and those who research feminist hashtags like #MeToo tend to view the hashtag as a personalized tool for storytelling that enables survivors and victims to re-claim agency over the production of their own stories. This thesis deals with how survivors/victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault and/or sexual abuse tell their stories and reproduce their experiences in the context of #MeToo movement. Through an analysis within the framework of institutional ethnography, the process of constructing a #MeToo account will be recovered. The analysis focuses on investigating what informs and shapes the way in which survivors/victims tell their story and how their #MeToo accounts interact with the reader. It will be argued that institutional processes of handling cases of sexual violence significantly influence the way survivors and victims share their experiences in the context of the movement. It will be suggested that being critical and mindful of the institutional processes that affect the way survivors and victims share their experiences, means to disrupt the oppression and the violence that criminal justice systems and retributive models of justice perpetrate. As it is then that we can open up to more transformative, sustainable approaches to justice and survivor/victim support. The project contributes to the current body of feminist hashtag activism scholarship with an institutional ethnography perspective.

The aim of this study was to examine which impact social media has on gender equality. During The Oscars Red Carpet Live 2014 the hashtag #Askhermore arose in the social media sphere. The hashtag implies an existing difference in the questions asked towards women and men on the red carpet. To get a closer look into the climate on the red carpet this study focuses merely on the American Broadcasting Channel’s (ABC) broadcasts from the Oscars red carpet. To be able to follow up the movement and its’ potential effect, the study views two broadcastings done before the establishment of the hashtag and two done after. Focusing on the verbal communication (the language being used), as well as the visual communication (the camera movements and angles), our study shows that #Askhermore has had a great impact on ABC’s Oscars red carpet broadcasts. By looking at these two types of communication in our analysis, it is revealed that women, before the establishment of #Askhermore, were mainly asked about their looks and clothes - while men were asked about their accomplishments in acting. Something that was drastically changed during the two later years of reporting, where women instead were asked the same type of questions as the male actors attending the event. Which indicates a fair amount of stereotypes being reproduced by the reporters at this Hollywood event.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how digital activism is conducted on Twitter, particularly in relation to the dialogues and demands for Europe’s green economic recovery plan from COVID-19. It seeks to analyse the communication made using #GreenRecovery on Twitter by various actors over the period of May to June 2020, guided by the theory of public sphere and social movement and literature on digital activism, hashtag activism, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Political Activity (CPA) using a qualitative and quantitative content analysis.By analysing the frequency patterns of tweets and by uncovering the different types of communication, this paper sheds light on the users involved as well as the issue frames and mobilisation strategies that were visible in the #GreenRecovery discourse . Results of this study demonstrate that #GreenRecovery is used by varying actors on Twitter such as individuals, social movements, businesses and others. Furthermore, the hashtag has been used to raise awareness, communicate particular information, mobilize action and also employ assertion as dominant digital spectator activity. Tweets with #GreenRecovery was primarily framed towards the need for a redesign of the economy, indicating demands for changes in policies by targeting accounts of political actors from the EU Commission. It is further implied that during the discourse, #GreenRecovery acted as a structural signifier as a response to the leaked proposal of the Recovery Plan demonstrating that it has the potential to create hashtag communities.

This comparative study investigates the media representation of YouTube-based news about the #MeToo campaign, feminism, and sexual harassment accounts in three BRICS nations: China, Russia and Brazil. The situation of women in the Global South was at the centre of discussions during the 2018 BRICS summit. While their security remains a persistent issue, officials declared that women should not feel unsafe while participating in economic activity. Although the bloc flagged gender disparities as a significant concern, media outlets perceive Russia, Brazil and China's responses to sexism and gender-based violence as inadequate. Various mechanisms also compromise activism for women's rights. This research focuses on the YouTube representation of conditions which gave rise to the campaign and the process of #MeToo in BRICS. This study considers the level of inclusion of women in economic activity, the procedures established for their safety as well as the extent of media freedom, including tools available for feminist advocacy. In addition to revealing gaps in depiction and proposing solutions for improved media framing, this research is significant because the role and repercussions of this viral campaign must be comprehended better in BRICS economies. Academics focused mainly on the impact of the movement in the West. However, the innovative feminist trend rapidly spread to non-western nations that are dominant emerging economies, showing the gravity of sexual harassment and gender disparities globally. Furthermore, the extent to which #MeToo had influenced localised iterations of anti-assault movements in these emerging countries suggests that the BRICS became sites where sexual abuse and gender inequalities unfold singularly in comparison to other nations. The study presents findings from primary research done on the BRICS, this online social movement #MeToo and related gender dynamics issues. After a presentation of the selected study design, the research provides results from a content analysis of thirty YouTube news reports (October 2017-March 2019).

Denna studie undersöker hur representanter från musikindustrin använder sig av hashtags, sociala medier och vilka effekter hashtags har samt, vilken effekt de skulle kunna ha på deras arbete. Användningen sätts i förhållande till tio redan definierade funktioner av hashtags.Uppsatsens syfte är att bidra till djupare förståelse hur hashtags används och hur dessa kan användas inom musikindustrin. Genom att förtydliga om detta är ett verktyg som kan användas för att lättare sprida information på social media. Detta genomfördes genom en kvalitativ studie och utförandet av semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem representanter från musikindustrin och två respondenter som arbetar inom andra områden, varav en är har forskat på twitter och hashtags och en jobbar med att stärka användningen av digitala verktyg på ett större företag. Detta har sedan blivit granskat genom en induktiv ansats. Frågeställningen har besvarats genom att resultaten från empirin analyserats utifrån teorin.Studien kom fram till att representanterna från musikindustrin i huvudsakligen använde sociala medier och hashtags för att marknadsföra sig själva och sina band. Men Artist 1 använde hashtags mer än Skivbolag 1. Effekterna hashtags hade var både positiva och negativa. Fördelen var att hashtags kunde rikta deras budskap mer exakt och nackdelen var att personer kan ha en negativ bild av hashtags och på sätt bli kritiska till användningen av dem. / This study examines how representatives from the music industry use hashtags, social media and what effects hashtags have, and what effect they could have on their work. The usage is set in relation to ten already defined functions of hashtags.The purpose of the thesis is to contribute to a deeper understanding of how hashtags are used and how these can be used in the music industry. By clarifying whether this is a tool that can be used to more easily disseminate information on social media. This was done through a qualitative study and was conducted by semi-structured interviews with five representatives from the music industry and two respondents as workers in other areas, one of which has been researching twitter and hashtags, and one who is working on strengthening the use of digital tools at a large company. This has since been examined through an inductive approach. The question has been answered by analysing the results of the empirical data based on the theory.The study concluded that the representatives of the music industry mainly used social media and hashtags to market themselves and their bands. But the artist used hashtags more than the record company. The effects of hashtags had been both positive and negative. The advantage was that hashtags were able to target their messages more accurately and the disadvantage was that people could have a negative image of hashtags and thus become critical of their use.

This study started off during the spring of 2017 and had the goal of with the aid of a competitive analysis create a new social media strategy for the company Spree. During the last years, digitalization has grown increasingly and has become more integrated in our society. Together with the digitalization, the use of social medias has increased, both for personal use and for business use. For companies, the use of social medias is still relatively new, so a designed and developed social media strategy can be crucial for a company to reach out in the right way and to the right target group. This study show that a well-designed social media strategy can be created with the aid of a competitive analysis together with a deeper analysis of the company’s own social medias. The analysis of the company’s own social medias helps to illustrate the current flaws that exists, while the competitive analysis assist in finding relationships that can help the company get an apprehension of what their main focus should be on. / Denna studie borjade under varen 2017 och hade som mal att med hjalp av enkonkurrensanalys skapa en ny sociala medier-strategi for foretaget Spree. Under desenaste aren har digitaliseringen vaxt allt mer och blivit mer integrerad i vartsamhalle. Tillsammans med digitaliseringen har aven anvandningen av socialamedier okat, bade for den enskilda individen samt for foretagen. Men att anvandasociala medier for foretag ar fortfarande relativt nytt, sa att ha en utformad ochvalplanerad sociala medier-strategi kan vara avgorande for att na ut pa ratt satt ochtill ratt malgrupp. Denna undersokning visar att en val utformad sociala medier-strategi kan skapasmed hjalp av en konkurrensanalys tillsammans med en djupare analys av foretagetsegna sociala medier. Analysen av det egna foretagets sociala medier hjalper till attbelysa de nuvarande brister som finns, samtidigt som konkurrentanalysen bistar tillatt hitta samband som kan hjalpa foretaget att fa en uppfattning om vad de borfokusera pa.