Thesis (M.S.)--Air Force Institute of Technology, 2007. / AFIT/GIR/ENV/07-M15. Title from title page of PDF document (viewed on: Nov. 28, 2007). "March 2007." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-174).

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Carleton University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 107-110). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Advisor: Dr. Steven McClung, Florida State University, College of Communication, Dept. of Communication. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 29, 2005). Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 66 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: Jelena Mirkovic, Dept. of Computer and Information Sciences. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Sc.)(Applied sciences)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

No description available.

In a series of five studies, I used the Internet and computed-mediated technologies as tools to revisit the longstanding issue within the fields of personality and experimental social psychology: "person by context" interaction on social communicative behaviour. The effects of the personality trait of shyness were examined in visually anonymous and non-anonymous conditions to see if the interaction of the person and context influenced social communication. Participants were paired in dyads and instructed to converse using a text-based online Instant Messenger program. Dyads were randomly assigned to converse with webcams or without webcams. For some types of behaviour (e.g., self-disclosure), shyness and level of visual anonymity interacted (Studies 1 and 2). Shy individuals disclosed more personal information in a visually anonymous context than a visually non-anonymous context. For non-shy individuals, self-disclosure was not influenced by the context. For other types of behaviour (e.g., affective language), the effect of shyness was consistent across context. To determine the specificity of the shyness-anonymity interaction, other person-anonymity interactions were examined (e.g., self-esteem, loneliness, sex of the participants) (Studies 3 and 4). Finally, the influence of the shyness-anonymity interaction on social communicative behaviour was examined in a cooperative performance-related task (Study 5). These series of studies suggest that anonymity is a particularly salient contextual cue for shy individuals. Furthermore, the moderating effects of anonymity on shyness do not generalize to other characteristic of the person. Instead, anonymity moderates the other characteristics (e.g., self-esteem) uniquely. The present findings have theoretical implications to the study of person by context interactions by identifying how such interactions influence specific aspects of social communication. These findings also have practical or clinical implications. For example, the treatment of social difficulties related to high shyness, low self-esteem, or high loneliness, may involve specific treatment plans building off of modifications in anonymity. Shy individuals benefit from using the Internet as a social medium in which they can control the level of anonymity as is demonstrated by their bolder behaviour during visually-anonymous conversations. The present findings also suggest that the Internet and computer-mediated technologies can be used in novel ways to study longstanding questions in personality and experimental social psychology. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Even when end-to-end encryption is used in centralized messaging services, problems related to security, privacy, availability, and transparency remain. These problems can be avoided or reduced by using a decentralized architecture. The most notable previous attempts at decentralized messaging protocols have been based on peer-to-peer or federated networks. In a federated network, anyone can run servers that clients interact with and that interoperates with other servers in the network, whereas there is no distinction between clients and servers in a peer-to-peer network. Current peer-to-peer messaging protocols lack functionality that users expect from a messaging service, such as multi-device history and asynchronous messaging. These problems are currently being circumvented through centralized components. Current federated messaging protocols can provide most of the functionality that users demand from a messaging service but suffer from other problems. Federated protocols commonly have uncertainty in terms of interoperability in the network. Furthermore, federated messaging protocols require users to trust one node through which they send messages and assume that users have sufficient knowledge to make the correct decision of which node to trust. Users have been shown to become concentrated on one or a few nodes, which leads to many of the problems with a centralized messaging service. This study presents a decentralized messaging protocol that operates on so-called canister smart contracts on the Internet Computer blockchain. The Internet Computer operates on nodes provided by independent data centers with a consensus model that allow up to one-third of the data centers to be faulty or malicious. The presented messaging protocol allows for messages to be sent from one public key to a collection of public keys and stores the messages on the Internet Computer. New canister smart contracts are created once the previous ones are out of memory to provide theoretically infinite scalability. The evaluation of the presented messaging protocol shows that it takes approximately 5 seconds to send a message and less than 1 second to retrieve messages. Furthermore, the cost of sending and storing one million messages with a size of 100 kB for one year is estimated at $4,200. / Centraliserade meddelandetjänster kan förbättras gällande säkerhet och integritet med hjälp av end-to-end-kryptering. Det finns dock fortfarande problem med säkerhet, integritet, tillgänglighet och öppenhet i centraliserade meddelandetjänster. Dessa problem kan undvikas eller minskas genom att använda en decentraliserad arkitektur. De mest anmärkningsvärda tidigare försök på decentraliserade meddelandeprotokoll har baserats på peer-to-peer- eller federerade nätverk. De nuvarande peer-to-peer-protokollen för meddelandehantering saknar funktionalitet som användare förväntar sig av en meddelandetjänst, exempelvis historik på flera enheter och asynkrona meddelanden. Dessa problem kringgås för närvarande genom centraliserade komponenter. De nuvarande federerade meddelandeprotokollen kan tillhandahålla de flesta av de funktioner som användare förväntar sig av en meddelandetjänst, men lider av andra problem. Federerade protokoll är ofta osäkra när det gäller driftskompatibilitet i nätverket. Dessutom kräver federerade meddelandeprotokoll att användarna litar på en nod som de skickar meddelanden genom, och förutsätter att användarna har tillräckligt med kunskap för att fatta rätt beslut om vilken nod de ska lita på. Det har visat sig att användarna samlas på en eller ett fåtal noder, vilket leder till många av de problem som finns i en centraliserad meddelandetjänst. I den här studien presenteras ett decentraliserat meddelandeprotokoll som är uppbyggt av, så kallade, canister smart contracts på blockkedjan Internet Computer. Internet Computer fungerar på noder som tillhandahålls av oberoende datacenter med en konsensusmodell som tillåter att upp till en tredjedel av datacentren kan vara felaktiga eller illvilliga. Det presenterade meddelandeprotokollet gör det möjligt att skicka meddelanden från en offentlig nyckel till en samling offentliga nycklar och lagrar meddelandena på Internet Computer. Nya canister smart contracts skapas när de föregående har slut på minne för uppnå teoretiskt sett oändlig skalbarhet. Utvärderingen av det presenterade meddelandeprotokollet visar att det tar ungefär 5 sekunder att skicka ett meddelande och mindre än 1 sekund att hämta meddelanden. Dessutom uppskattas kostnaden för att skicka och lagra en miljon meddelanden med en storlek på 100 kB i ett år till 4200 dollar.

Qiu Linchuan (Jack). / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 169-173). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / The Objectives --- p.1 / The Assumptions --- p.2 / The Case --- p.4 / Methods --- p.9 / The Conceptual Framework --- p.11 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Theoretical Background --- p.18 / Communication Technology as A Democratizer --- p.18 / Democratizer or Something Else? --- p.23 / The Concept of Mediation --- p.27 / The Mediationist Perspective --- p.33 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- China's Cyberspace --- p.37 / China 's Nets and Netizens --- p.40 / Bamboo Curtains Unfurled --- p.53 / Virtual Censorship vs. Mass Media Regulation: a Comparison --- p.67 / Concluding Remarks --- p.75 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- The Processes of Mediation --- p.79 / Internet Audience and Their Exposure --- p.80 / The Rugged Route from Exposure to Expression --- p.88 / The Gap between Virtuality and Reality --- p.98 / Concluding Remarks --- p.108 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- The Consequences of Mediation --- p.110 / Evaluating the Consequences --- p.110 / Selecting Online Arenas --- p.113 / Data Gathering and Coding --- p.119 / Findings --- p.130 / Concluding remarks --- p.147 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Discussions --- p.151 / Summary --- p.151 / Methodological Issues --- p.154 / Broader Implications --- p.164 / Bibliography --- p.169