Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree: Master of Technology: Entrepreneurial Studies and Management, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2017. / Different social classes of people in South Africa are divided, digitally. This phenomenon manifests as a disparity of information in ICT (Information and Communication Technologies), which is a matter of concern, as the use of ICT is acknowledged to greatly influence the world today, more specifically so in rural areas. An investigation to determine which factors affect rural communities’ access to information, as well as progress levels that can be realised in the support means employed by people resident in rural areas, through introducing ICT’s in their day-to-day living, thus addresses the purported ‘digital divide’. The study’s population was drawn from the Dibate Village community, located in Mmabatho in Mafikeng, South Africa. Recommendations from the findings, point out how ICT facilities can be utilised in the development of rural communities, not just socially but also economically. As main objective, the study evaluates and examines the use of ICT facilities for commercial activities, in uplifting the rural community in the area of Dibate Village. This study is of value to governmental and non-governmental organisations where improving both socio-economic development and service delivery is concerned, in South Africa’s rural areas. / M

The impact of computer-mediated communication (CMC) on relational behavior is a topic of increasing interest to communication scholars (McQuillen, 2003; Tidwell & Walther, 2002). One of the most interesting issues that CMC raises concerns the impact of CMC on relational maintenance and development. Using dialectical theory, social exchange theory, social information processing theory, and the hyperpersonal perspective as theoretical frameworks, this study used quantitative and qualitative analyses to identity potential effects of CMC on relationships. Study 1 (n=317) examined the effects of CMC on relational closeness, satisfaction, and social support. Study 2 (n=196) explored the reasons individuals provide for privileging computer-mediated forms of communication, and the perceived effects of using CMC in relational communication. Results indicated that quality of CMC predicted increased perceptions of social support and relationship satisfaction. Results further suggested that CMC enabled participants to manage more effectively relational tensions of autonomy-connection and openness-closedness. Specifically, individuals used CMC to retain higher levels of conversational control, and to maintain greater numbers of relationships with decreased levels of investment. This paper concludes with a discussion of implications and directions for future research.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:08:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_clecia_lorena.pdf: 1655433 bytes, checksum: f868f155cd354ef2e365d0c5402f0a5c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-07-10 / The teenager is considered one of the main agents of social transformation, a wealth of expectations of the future, updating the family and those around them about what is happening in society. Currently, the youth goes through extremely speedy experiences: access to an almost inexhaustible amount of information and immediate contact, without demarcation of physical boundaries through the Internet. This feature not only revolutionized the different technologies, but also changed the social configuration in which we live, how we perceive the world how we are embedded in it, and, above all, our way of being. Given these changes, which occur in real time, the computer connected to the Internet has become for many a faithful companion of all hours, especially for teenagers who seem to use it as an indispensable resource for their contacts with others, with the world. The contemporary world has marks that are common to all subjects. However, the experience of adolescents in their transition into a world of extreme speed has been marked by uncertainty of future projects, fugacity, volatility, consumerism, among other issues that have hindered their entire process of maturity. Insecurity, characteristic of this time is further enhanced by helplessness, lack of references, lack of continence and the impossibility of creating projects for adult life. Life project here has a broader meaning, it concerns not only a professional dimension, but the inclusion of the subject in the universe of social and affective relationships with a view to implementing a vision for adult life. All this led us to investigate the possible effects of Internet use in the creation of projects of life of adolescents. To this end, we sought to reflect specifically on the following questions: What are the meanings of Internet use for teens? Are the teens surveyed concerned with creating life projects? It is possible to relate the use of the Internet to the development of their life projects? To realize this endeavor, we performed a theoretical study based on Winnicott s reference, especially the notions of transitionality, illusion, space potential and cultural experience. The participants were ten female adolescents, aged between 16 and 17 years, all students in public schools in the metropolitan area of Recife-PE, studying between the first and third year of high school. The collected data were analyzed with special emphasis on the participants self perception and the results showed that the Internet is an environment that can be used creatively, according to the demands of the subject. It also promotes a passage from virtual to real, to the extent that adolescents navigate in a world without borders, where they can play, create, rehearse for the future and see how it happens in real life / O adolescente é considerado um dos principais agentes de transformação social, um manancial de expectativas do futuro, atualizando a família e os que estão em seu entorno sobre o que se passa na sociedade. Atualmente, passa por experiências de extrema velocidade: acesso a uma quantidade de informações quase inesgotáveis e contatos imediatos, sem delimitação de fronteiras físicas, através da Internet. Esse recurso não só revolucionou as diferentes tecnologias, mas também mudou a configuração social em que vivemos, a forma como percebemos o mundo, como nos inserimos nele, e, principalmente, a nossa forma de ser. Em face dessas mudanças, que acontecem em tempo real, o computador conectado à Internet tornou-se para muitos um companheiro fiel de todas as horas, sobretudo para o adolescente, que parece usá-lo como recurso indispensável aos seus contatos com o outro, com o mundo. A contemporaneidade tem marcas que são comuns a todos os sujeitos. No entanto, a experiência do adolescente em seu processo de transição em um mundo de extrema velocidade tem sido marcada pela indefinição de projetos futuros, fugacidade, volatilidade, consumismo, entre outras questões que têm dificultado todo seu processo de amadurecimento. A insegurança, característica desse momento, é ainda realçada pelo desamparo, pela falta de referências, pela falta de continência e pela impossibilidade de criação de projetos para a vida adulta. Projeto de vida aqui tem um sentido mais abrangente, não diz respeito apenas a uma dimensão profissional, mas à inclusão do sujeito no universo de relações sociais e afetivas, com vistas à implementação de perspectiva para uma vida adulta. Tudo isso nos levou a indagar as possíveis repercussões do uso da Internet na criação dos projetos de vida dos adolescentes. Para tanto, buscou-se refletir especificamente sobre as seguintes questões: Quais os sentidos do uso da Internet para os adolescentes? Os adolescentes pesquisados se preocupam em criar projetos de vida? É possível relacionar o uso da Internet à elaboração de seus projetos de vida? Para dar conta dessa empreitada, foi realizado um estudo teórico baseado na referência winnicottiana, sobretudo nas noções de transicionalidade, ilusão, espaço potencial e experiência cultural. Participaram da pesquisa dez adolescentes do sexo feminino, com idade entre 16 e 17 anos, sendo todas estudantes da rede pública estadual da região metropolitana do Recife-PE, cursando entre o primeiro e o terceiro ano do ensino médio. Os dados coletados foram analisados priorizando-se a autopercepção das participantes e os resultados obtidos demonstraram que a Internet é um ambiente que pode ser usado criativamente, de acordo com as demandas do sujeito. Além disso, promove uma passagem do virtual ao real, na medida em que as adolescentes navegam em um mundo sem fronteiras, onde podem brincar, criar, ensaiar para o futuro e ver como acontece na vida real

This project seeks to identify characteristics of successful online communities and apply them to designing and prototyping an online discussion forum where novice computer users can share computer questions and answers. Usability and sociability are identified as essential goals in the development of online communities. Appropriate and effective Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) software is evaluated and selected to run the discussion forum.

The study examined how the introduction of high-speed internet into a rural community affected audience members' use of their local radio station. A qualitative case study was guided by uses and gratifications and niche theory. The author conducted interviews with KMMR FM audience members in Malta, Montana, to investigate how the introduction of high-speed internet impacted listener habits. Twenty participants who either listened to or produced content for KMMR FM were interviewed. The author performed a thematic analysis of different uses for the radio guided by typologies created by Rubin (1983), Palmgreen and Rayburn (1979), and Katz, Haas, and Gurevitch (1973). The results showed the internet and the radio gratify different needs for audience members: radio was used the most for local information and the internet for more specialized needs that could not be met by the radio. The findings also showed that the radio is important in fostering a sense of social cohesion within the community

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Emotional communication is fundamental to everyday interaction. How well emotions are communicated is crucial to interpersonal relationships and individual well-being. Emotional communication in instant messaging (IM), however, can be challenging because of the absence of visual and aural nonverbal behaviors. Despite the growing number of technologically-focused solutions for supporting emotional communication in IM, limited design research has been done to study the actual users’ behaviors in communicating their emotion in IM and strategies they use to adapt emotional communication in this medium, with the purpose of establishing design solutions to support users' emotional communication. Connecting several bodies of HCI, design, and communication literature in the context of IM, this dissertation critically examines how users communicate emotion in IM and accordingly establishes user-centered multi-touch gesture based design solutions to support emotional communication in this medium. Understanding how users communicate their emotion in IM, the design issues, and corresponding design solutions help researchers and designers to support the user's emotional needs, resulting in the improvement of emotional communication strategies in IM.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Government and Public Administration

Thesis by publication. / Thesis (PhD) -- Macquarie University, Macquarie Graduate School of Management, 2008. / Bibliography: leaves 124-133. / Introduction - Literature review -- Online word-of-mouth: a comparison of American and Chinese discussion boards -- Electronic word-of-mouth: a comparison of stated and revealed behaviour on electronic discussion boards -- A cross-cultural comparison of electronic word-of-mouth and country-of-origin effects -- Conclusion. / The growth of electronic discussion boards has enabled consumers from different cultures to communicate with people of similar interests. Through this online channel, marketing concepts such as word-of-mouth (WOM) and country-of-origin (CoO) effects have the potential to become more important because of the potentially large number of participants involved. The US and China, being the largest and second-largest online population in the world respectively, are ideal countries to investigate the frequency and extent of these marketing concepts. --The thesis consists of three separate but inter-related papers which have been published in journals or have been accepted for publication. Each paper builds on the one before and analyses different aspects of online consumer behaviour such as information-giving, information-seeking and the CoO statements made by participants of discussion boards. By examining and comparing the frequency and content of discussion postings on discussion boards within US and China based websites, the thesis makes a comparison of the information-giving and information-seeking behaviour of the discussants and also looks at the extent and the content of CoO statements made. Online observation of discussion postings from six different discussion boards (three each from the US and China) was conducted over two 90-day period in 2004 and 2005 and a total of 5,993 discussion postings were downloaded for analysis. In addition, an online survey of 214 participants was conducted to compare the stated and actual (or "revealed") behaviour of discussants on the US and China based discussion boards. -- Overall, the findings indicate consistent differences over a 12-month period in the bahaviour of the US and Chinese discussants. The US discussants were found to provide more information than their Chinese counterparts while the Chinese discussants exhibited more information-seeking bahaviour on the discussion boards. The findings also indicate that the Chinese discussants demonstrated more negative CoO statements and these statements were observed to be related to Japan and/or brands that originated from Japan. The findings suggest that such negative CoO statements can increase rapidly online and it appears that the negative sentiments by the Chinese were apparently unrelated to product quality; instead they appear to have been predominantly associated with war related animosity. -- These findings have important implications for marketers selling to the Chinese as discussion boards appear to be more important as a source of information for the Chinese than the Americans. Also, given that the Chinese discussants demonstrated a high level of negative CoO statements relating to products from Japan, marketers selling Japanese products to the Chinese must understand the underlying issues related to these negativeCoO statements and take steps to prevent non-purchase of Japanese products. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / vii, 133 leaves ill

The author examines how a North American commercial Web site developed by Environmental Systems Research Institute serves as a vehicle through which American hegemony and cultural imperialism are propagated to Latin America. The author argues that the content of the web site pages, which contain American cultural symbols and values, may serve to influence or change the values of its Latin American visitors.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In today's fast paced world, people have become increasingly interested in online communication to facilitate their lives and make it faster. This goes on from simple social interactions to more advanced actions like shopping on the internet. The presence of such activities makes it crucial for people to use their common sense and judgment to process all this information and evaluate what/who they trust and what/whom they do not. This process would have been much easier if the number of people in such networks is really small and manageable. However, there are millions of users who are hooked online every day. This makes the person very overwhelmed with his trusting decision, especially when it comes to interacting with strangers over the internet, and/or buying personal items, especially expensive ones. Therefore, many trust models have been proposed by computer scientists trying to evaluate and manage the trust between users using different techniques and combining many factors. What these computer scientists basically do is coming up with mathematical formulas and models to express trust in online networks and capture its parameters. However, social scientists are the people better trained to deal with concepts related to human behaviors and their cognitive thinking such as trust. Thus, in order for computer scientists to support their ideas and get a better insight about how to direct their research, people like social scientists should contribute. With this in mind, we realized in our group work the importance of such contribution, so we came up with the idea of my research work. In my search, I tried to find how these social scientists think and tackle a dynamic notion like trust, so we can use their findings in order to enhance our work and trust model. Through the chapters, I will discuss an already developed trust model that uses measurement theory in modeling trust. I will refer back to this model and see how other social scientists dealt with some of the issues encountered by the model and its functionality. Some small experiments have been done to show and compare our results with social scientists results for the same matter. One of the most important and controversial points to be discussed from social scientists' point of view is whether trust is transitive or not. Other points to be discussed and supported by social scientists' research include aggregation, reputation, timing effects on trust, reciprocity, and experience effects on trust. Some of these points are classified into trust mapping categories and others are related to trust management or decision making stages. In sum, this work is a multidisciplinary study of trust whose overall goal is to enhance our work and results, as computer scientists.