Abstract:Social Media has become a powerful tool in several aspects. It can mobilize movements, rallying for social or political causes, and it can bring people together to share experiences or interest on a global platform. Social media platforms have facilitated more dynamic ways of presenting and performing identity positions such as race, gender, class and sexuality. Though many scholars have agreed that the internet and social media offer interesting new aspects in relation to identity exploration and self-expression, the performance of identity online can also contribute to problematic discourses that reinforce old social stereotypes online affecting what happens offline.This thesis explores racial performance on social media by examining the phenomenon of ‘Digital Blackface’, which is a virtual continuation of a historical phenomenon that operates, in particular, through Internet memes. The thesis studies different versions of an American meme, which represent an altered representation of a real person, known as Sweet Brown. Sweet Brown is an African American woman who after she was interviewed on television became a viral celebrity. Due to her expressive personality, her image has been remixed into several popular Internet memes.The theoretical framework consists of a theorization of racial performance and media representation theory. This theoretical lens is used in the analysis that sets out to answer the questions, how is the Sweet Brown meme used as a form of racial performance online? What is Digital Blackface and how does it operate online? And In what way can racial performance reinforce stereotypic representations? The methodological approach the thesis employs to conduct the analysis and exemplify the problematics are visual analysis, critical discourse analysis, and critical theory. Further, the implication of racial performances in Internet memes is linked to other recent cases or incidents that relate to issues of racial performance in the media. Keywords: Racial Performance, Internet memes, Minstrelsy, Digital Blackface, Internet Culture, Representation, Race, Racism.

Denna kvalitativa intervjustudie syftar till att definiera fenomenet elektronisk mobbning, att utreda ansvarsfrågan samt att kartlägga organisationernas arbete och eventuella samverkan. Resultatet baseras på intervjuer med BRIS, Friends, LunarStorm och Playahead som analyserades utifrån symbolisk interaktionism. Studien visar på hur liten skillnaden är mellan traditionell och elektronisk mobbning i hur den kommer till uttryck och vem den drabbar. Utmärkande för e-mobbning är spridningseffekten samt hur språket hårdnat i kommunikationen på Internet och andra elektroniska källor. Föräldrarna, skolan och barnen själva borde enligt organisationerna ta ansvar för att motverka e-mobbningen och de anser att lagstiftningen på området är bristfällig. Organisationernas arbete mot e-mobbning är relativt omfattande men effektiv samverkan saknas delvis. Till följd av den nya nätkulturen och att unga besitter en betydligt högre IT-kompetens än vuxengenerationen har unga i stor utsträckning lämnats ensamma att interagera på Internet. Utifrån symbolisk interaktionisms idéer kring den sociala interaktionens betydelse för identitetsskapandet och behovet av en generaliserad andre kan den vuxna frånvaron vara en bidragande orsak till problematiken kring e-mobbning. Dessutom har vuxenfrånvaron lett till att symbolspråket i nätkulturen blivit betydligt tuffare. Uppsatsens slutsats består till stor del i hur stort behovet av vuxen närvaro är i den unga nätkulturen. / This qualitative study aims to examine how cyberbullying appears, who should be responsible for prevention and measures, and how four organizations work against and cooperates round cyberbullying. The result is based on interviews with BRIS, Friends, LunarStorm and Playahead and analyzed with help from symbolic interactionism. The result indicates little difference between cyberbullying and traditional bullying. The tougher language and the quicker circulation of information characterize bullying on the Internet. The responsibility should, according to the organizations, be placed upon the parents, the school and the children. Legislation regarding cyberbullying is insufficient. In the organizations otherwise rather comprehensive work, efficient cooperation is partly lacking. The new Internet culture and the youths’ considerably higher IT-skills have led to that they to a greater extent have been left alone to interact on the Internet. According to symbolic interaktionism, satisfying development of the identity is highly dependent on social interaction and the idea of the generalized other. Therefore, the adult absence could be one of the most important explanations to cyberbullying, as well as to why the language has become more harsh and ruthless. To sum up, this essay emphasizes the need of adult presence in the new Internet culture. Title: Cyberbullying in the Internet culture – a qualitative study of the work and experiences of two Internet communities and two non-profit organizations.

La tesi affronta la questione delle culture civiche presenti su internet a partire dal dibattito teorico sulla rete e le sue implicazioni in relazione al discorso e alla prassi politica. Nella prima parte verranno messi in luce i presupposti delle riflessioni più recenti che tematizzano la possibilità che il web, in quanto luogo di discussione e partecipazione tendenzialmente libero e inclusivo, possa rappresentare l’incarnazione del modello idealtipico di sfera pubblica borghese, magistralmente elaborato da Habermas (1962). Grazie all’interattività, ai bassi costi di produzione e distribuzione, a una nuova struttura di comunicazione many-to-many, le nuove tecnologie digitali sembrerebbero consentire la realizzazione di una intersoggettività pura, autenticamente orientata all’intesa reciproca e non contaminata dall’agire strumentale dei sistemi politici ed economici. Tuttavia, se si analizzano le ricerche empiriche finora condotte (tra gli altri Whilelm 1999, Tsaliki 2002, Wright e Street 2007), si osserva che, accanto a contributi che evidenziano una notevole capacità deliberativa delle discussioni online, ne esistono altrettanti che, al contrario, mettono in luce un gap profondo tra l’ideale normativo e la prassi concretamente messa in atto. Attraverso un doppio binario, induttivo e deduttivo, si tenterà di provare come la contraddittorietà radicale di tali risultati empirici sia in ultima istanza riconducibile alle problematicità insite nel modello habermasiano e alla sua inadeguatezza nel cogliere la complessità dei processi della partecipazione politica che hanno luogo sulla rete. A partire da questa constatazione, si dimostrerà come la sua applicazione possa ancora essere feconda a patto che si ipotizzi di considerare l’ideale di sfera pubblica habermasiano come uno dei paradigmi che ancora informano gli immaginari sociali moderni (Taylor, 2005), piuttosto che come ideale contro-fattuale (Dryzek, 1990) rispetto al quale commisurare criticamente le imperfezioni del reale. Ne discenderà una traslazione della prospettiva analitica, sintetizzabile nel passaggio da un approccio normativo – prescrittivo, rigidamente ancorato a una determinata concezione del “dover-essere”, a un approccio culturale - diagnostico che invece indaga la contingenza del reale alla luce delle sue precondizioni sociologiche e culturali (Nieminen, 2006). Nella seconda parte, si analizzerà il caso empirico del blog curato dal comico italiano Beppe Grillo (www.beppegrillo.it) attorno al quale si è sviluppato un movimento politico altamente articolato ed eterogeneo, capace di promuovere incursioni sempre più frequenti nella politica istituzionale. L’analisi empirica scaturirà dall’applicazione di un modello analitico che attinge al paradigma delle culture civiche proposto da Dahlgren (2009) e in parte lo riformula alla luce del concetto di mediazione sviluppato da Silverstone (1999). Attraverso l’analisi del contenuto dei post del blog e di un corpus di interviste realizzate su lettori del blog e attivisti del movimento, si tenterà di dimostrare come il fenomeno sviluppatosi attorno a Beppe Grillo abbia funzionato come una “public sphericule” (Gitlin, 1998), una piccola sfera pubblica capace di maturare una propria cultura civica, contraddistinta da autonomi processi di mediazione e di valorizzazione del quadro socio-tecnologico a disposizione. / The notions of deliberation and the frame of the discourse theory of democracy (Habermas, 1996), have inspired a substantial strand of studies focused on the internet’s democratic potential (See e.g. Kellner (1999), Rheingold (1993), and Wilhelm (1999)). The central accomplishment of these various contributions lies in the assessment of the extent to which dialogical exchanges taking place in the cyberspace conform to the normative requirements of the ‘counter-factual ideal’ of public sphere (Dryzek, 1990). However, the contradictions that appear when analyzing practical research findings from a comparative global view, pose a dilemma that deals more with theoretical assumptions rather than with the empirical methods applied. The basic aim of the thesis will be the proposal of a cultural turn in the analysis of online public spheres, inspired by the model of “civil cultures” developed by Dahlgren (2009). For this purpose, two major lines of reasoning will be developed. On one hand, the theoretical roots of the concept of deliberation and the long wave of criticisms drawn out by them, will be explored in order to underscore the intrinsic shortages of the notion. It will be argued that the model of “civic cultures” seems to offer a more adequate analytical frame in order to make sense of the pluralized and fragmented online environment. In fact, its original assumptions offer a real antidote to technological determinism. If it is true that technology only makes sense within a social context from which it receives symbolic and pragmatic meanings (Lievrouw, 2002), we can think of civic cultures as a ‘community of practices’ (Wenger, 1998) within which specific ways of using and interpreting technologies are carried out in order to achieve political and civic purposes. On the other hand, the theoretical path will be supported by the references to an empirical case study that will show how the model can be conveniently used to study what is concretely happening in the living public spheres of the internet. The case study will be focused on Beppegrillo.it, an Italian weblog acting as a communicative platform for the development of a civic and political movement which is lead by Beppe Grillo, a well-known comedian.

Social media provides, as many points out, new possibilities for marketing. Marketing in social media requires a two way communication, rather than the traditional marketing where the communication model is typically sender – receiver.To create a marketing campaign that is suitable for a two way communication model has its difficulties and risks as well as its opportunities. Opportunities in the sense that the campaign can become a viral, a Word of mouth and create a Buzz, which will reach potential customers, to a bigger quantity for lower costs, with a message that will make a different impact from the types of commercial messages we are used to. Risks in the sense that the message, if not properly aimed and phrased, can be turned overnight into something that humiliates the company and possibly harm its brand.The difficulties in creating such a campaign is to create something that will catch people’s attention, discuss and forward it, while at the same time avoid getting hurt.We aim to describe the internet from a cultural context, and from that point of view explore the types of misunderstandings which often seem to happen when a corporate message is created and sent out in social media, how to avoid putting the image of a company in danger when doing this, and examine if there is ways to know how the message will be received. We truly feel that linking marketing in social media with internet culture is a field of research with great possibilites. Number of pages: 33 Course: Media and communication studies C University: Department of informatics and media, Uppsala University Period: Fall 2011 Keywords: Internet culture, social media marketing, word of mouth, viral marketing, participatory culture, transparency, anonymity, Web 2.0,

<p>Denna kvalitativa intervjustudie syftar till att definiera fenomenet elektronisk mobbning, att utreda ansvarsfrågan samt att kartlägga organisationernas arbete och eventuella samverkan. Resultatet baseras på intervjuer med BRIS, Friends, LunarStorm och Playahead som analyserades utifrån symbolisk interaktionism. Studien visar på hur liten skillnaden är mellan traditionell och elektronisk mobbning i hur den kommer till uttryck och vem den drabbar. Utmärkande för e-mobbning är spridningseffekten samt hur språket hårdnat i kommunikationen på Internet och andra elektroniska källor. Föräldrarna, skolan och barnen själva borde enligt organisationerna ta ansvar för att motverka e-mobbningen och de anser att lagstiftningen på området är bristfällig. Organisationernas arbete mot e-mobbning är relativt omfattande men effektiv samverkan saknas delvis.</p><p>Till följd av den nya nätkulturen och att unga besitter en betydligt högre IT-kompetens än vuxengenerationen har unga i stor utsträckning lämnats ensamma att interagera på Internet. Utifrån symbolisk interaktionisms idéer kring den sociala interaktionens betydelse för identitetsskapandet och behovet av en generaliserad andre kan den vuxna frånvaron vara en bidragande orsak till problematiken kring e-mobbning. Dessutom har vuxenfrånvaron lett till att symbolspråket i nätkulturen blivit betydligt tuffare. Uppsatsens slutsats består till stor del i hur stort behovet av vuxen närvaro är i den unga nätkulturen.</p> / <p>This qualitative study aims to examine how cyberbullying appears, who should be responsible for prevention and measures, and how four organizations work against and cooperates round cyberbullying. The result is based on interviews with BRIS, Friends, LunarStorm and Playahead and analyzed with help from symbolic interactionism. The result indicates little difference between cyberbullying and traditional bullying. The tougher language and the quicker circulation of information characterize bullying on the Internet. The responsibility should, according to the organizations, be placed upon the parents, the school and the children. Legislation regarding cyberbullying is insufficient. In the organizations otherwise rather comprehensive work, efficient cooperation is partly lacking.</p><p>The new Internet culture and the youths’ considerably higher IT-skills have led to that they to a greater extent have been left alone to interact on the Internet. According to symbolic interaktionism, satisfying development of the identity is highly dependent on social interaction and the idea of the generalized other. Therefore, the adult absence could be one of the most important explanations to cyberbullying, as well as to why the language has become more harsh and ruthless. To sum up, this essay emphasizes the need of adult presence in the new Internet culture.</p><p>Title: Cyberbullying in the Internet culture – a qualitative study of the work and experiences of two Internet communities and two non-profit organizations.</p>

The current doctoral thesis, vinculated to the Research Line Práticas Escolares e Políticas Públicas of Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação from Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, discusses on the Brazilian high school crisis. Particularly, it has as aim to investigate theoretically how the consumption society and the internet culture collaborate to construct a new vector, in socio-cultural terms, to reflect on the ongoing decadency process of basic education final stage as teaching modality for youngsters and adolescents. For that, it is developed the thesis that juvenile condition, which today is inserted into high schools, brings together behavior and psychological dispositions that support students position of teachers knowledge rejection and of disinterest in learning. The internet and its devices, after had become popular last decade, with its virtual communication platforms, blogs, virtual communities, research engines and audiovisual files uploading, etc., became a new social support for the process of herself/himself construction, due to it, the juvenile subjectivity begins demonstrating new behavior features into the school environment, which did not exist before the spread of internet in the urban sceneries of the country. Besides it, in its turn, the contemporary school is inserted today in a form of social organization, named by Zygmunt Bauman as a consumers society, which, through several media resources, among them the own internet, establishes, together to adolescents and youngsters, discourses that legitimate a pleasure and entertainment morality as social signs representing a good life. However, the current educational diagnostics on the crisis in this teaching stage in Brazil, in political, pedagogical and socio-cultural terms, do not point out the consumption and internet cultures as key-components to comprehend the present dilemmas lived between students and teachers. In this way, the thesis proposes, from educational, philosophical, psychological and sociological theoretical perspectives, that the Brazilian high school is facing a new factor of socio-cultural order to broaden the set of elements that originates its crisis. The central idea is based on subjectivity creation potential from the devices of these two cultures, which, simultaneously, in the current socio-historical context, collaborate to the production of an urban juvenile condition, in front of which, the teachers efforts have been unsuccessful in their pedagogical proposals. / O presente trabalho de doutoramento, vinculado à Linha de Pesquisa Práticas Escolares e Políticas Públicas do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, versa sobre a crise do ensino médio brasileiro. Em particular, tem como objetivo investigar teoricamente o modo como a sociedade de consumo e a cultura da internet colaboram para a construção de um novo vetor, de âmbito sociocultural, a incidir no processo em curso de falência da etapa final da educação básica como modalidade de ensino para jovens e adolescentes. Para tanto, desenvolve-se a tese de que a condição juvenil que hoje chega às escolas de ensino médio traz consigo disposições comportamentais e psicológicas que conformam posições estudantis de rejeição pelos saberes docentes e desinvestimento do ato de aprender. A internet e seus dispositivos, ao terem-se popularizado na última década, com suas plataformas virtuais de comunicabilidade, blogs, comunidades virtuais, sites de busca e postagem de arquivos audiovisuais etc., tornou-se um novo suporte social para o processo de construção de si e, com isso, a subjetividade juvenil passa a manifestar novos traços comportamentais no contexto escolar, os quais eram inexistentes antes de sua difusão nos cenários urbanos do país. A seu lado, por sua vez, a escola contemporânea se encontra hoje inserida em uma forma de organização social, nomeada por Zygmunt Bauman como sociedade de consumidores, a qual, através de vários recursos midiáticos, dentre eles a própria internet, institui junto a adolescentes e jovens discursos que legitimam uma moral do prazer e do entretenimento como signos sociais da boa vida. Entretanto, os atuais diagnósticos educacionais acerca da crise dessa etapa do ensino no Brasil, em seus âmbitos políticos, pedagógicos e socioculturais, não apontam a cultura do consumo e da internet como componentes-chave para a compreensão dos atuais dilemas vividos entre estudantes e professores. Dessa maneira, a tese propõe, a partir de perspectivas teóricas educacionais, filosóficas, psicológicas e sociológicas, que a escola média brasileira se encontra diante de um novo fator de ordem sociocultural a ampliar o espectro de elementos que originam sua crise. O argumento central reside no potencial subjetivador dos dispositivos dessas duas culturas, as quais, de modo simultâneo na atual conjuntura sócio-histórica, colaboram para a produção de uma condição juvenil urbana diante da qual os esforços docentes têm obtido pouco êxito em suas propostas pedagógicas.

Submitted by GUSTAVO LUIZ DOS SANTOS DEWES (dewes.design@gmail.com) on 2018-04-13T23:56:07Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Gustavo Luiz dos Santos Dewes (FINAL).pdf: 5031307 bytes, checksum: 554f1b60113993fe2305705fc8adaf06 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Minervina Teixeira Lopes null (vina_lopes@bauru.unesp.br) on 2018-04-16T18:57:57Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 dewes_gls_me_bauru.pdf: 4733392 bytes, checksum: aae3c324824187ed659b0d18ee5eb0ac (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-16T18:57:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dewes_gls_me_bauru.pdf: 4733392 bytes, checksum: aae3c324824187ed659b0d18ee5eb0ac (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-15 / O objetivo deste projeto é relatar a experiência da produção de um programa educativo/esportivo para ensinar o skate. Dessa forma foi criado um Objeto de Aprendizagem (OA), que se apoia na internet como plataforma de circulação e divulgação. O conteúdo deste AO visa ensinar as bases do skate, explicando a nomenclatura do esporte, com o subsídio de efeitos visuais inseridos em tempo real por meio da Realidade Aumentada (RA) e dos conceitos teóricos do Edutretenimento, que consiste em criar um ambiente favorável que ensina entretendo. Este trabalho apresenta experimentos feitos com o ARSTUDIO, um sistema de estúdio virtual de baixo custo, em desenvolvimento na UNESP/Bauru e experimentos feitos com um sistema doméstico desenvolvido pelo pesquisador, ambos permitem a criação de cenas com RA, integrando ambiente e apresentadores reais com objetos virtuais tridimensionais. Como metodologia para a produção desta dissertação, foi realizada uma pesquisa exploratória em conteúdos acadêmicos convergentes do conhecimento e uma pesquisa participativa onde são apresentados relatos das etapas criativas de pré-produção, produção ,pós-produção e experiências da gravação e transmissão ao vivo com RA. Este projeto propõe ainda uma solução para que integrantes da cultura participativa da Internet possam gerar produtos audiovisuais a baixo custo, pelo uso da RA,e assim atender a produção de conteúdos audiovisuais educativos. Por fim, é realizado um ensaio comparativo das experiências e das técnicas utilizadas. / The objective of this project is to report the experience of producing an educational/sports program to teach skateboarding, in this way a Learning Object (LO) was created, which relies on the internet as a platform for circulation and dissemination. The content of this LO aims to teach the bases of skateboard, explaining the nomenclature of the sport, with the allowance of visual effects inserted in real time through the Augmented Reality (AR) and the theoretical concepts of Edutertainment, which consists of creating a favorable environment that teaches entertaining. This work presents experiments made with ARSTUDIO, a low cost virtual studio system under development at UNESP / Bauru and experiments done with a home system developed by the researcher, both allow the creation of scenes with RA, integrating environment and real presenters with objects three-dimensional virtual worlds. As a methodology for the production of this dissertation, an exploratory research was conducted on convergent academic contents of knowledge and a participatory research where the creative steps of pre-production, production, post-production and experiences of recording and live transmission with RA are presented. This project also proposes a solution so that members of the participatory Internet culture can generate audiovisual products at low cost, by using RA, and thus attend the production of audiovisual content. Finally, a comparative test of the experiments and techniques used is carried out.

The recent advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) over the past two decades have influenced many aspects of live ([19] and [7]). These advances make the issue of acceptance of ICTs a topic of increasing importance, particularly in educational research and practice [18]. Many studies have been conducted to understand, explain, and predict the issue of acceptance and use of new technologies. Fortunately, these studies have resulted in several serious theoretical developments [9]. Overall understanding of the role of culture and social norms in influencing acceptance and use of education technologies, particularly collaborative and interactive technologies such as the internet, can facilitate the successful implementation and use of these technologies in the educational context. This study concentrates on providing insight into the influence of culture and social processes on staff members’ acceptance and use of educational technology, namely the internet at Khartoum state universities (KSUs). Specifically, the study aims to identify the influential role of these factors on acceptance and the use of the internet as a helpful collaborative educational technology. To achieve this aim, the study adopts technology acceptance model (TAM), which is modified (i.e. extended) with Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (mainly uncertainty avoidance and masculinity). With the help of a structural equation model (SEM), the data assessment demonstrates the validity of the model and proves that social influence process and cultural factors have significant (direct and moderate) influence on staff members’ acceptance and use of internet technology for teaching and academic activities – i.e. the authors are able to assert that community matters in the adoption of these new ICTs. The article concludes by offering important implications and recommendations for both research and practice.

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