This study analyzes negative particle variation (i.e., the variable presence or absence of the negative particle ne) in synchronous French chat discourse within a labovian-inspired framework. Selected morphosyntactic, lexical, and phonological constraints are considered. Multivariate analyses performed by GoldVarb 2001 revealed that subject type (i.e., NP, [- overt] subject environment, pronoun) and the phonological environment preceding the position of neregardless of its presence or absenceare determining factors in the variation. In addition, discursive-pragmatic effect was explored in a sub-sample of data. The results indicate that ne is seldom present in verbal negation during explanatory discourse style, yet it is very likely to be retained in ludic, emphatic, and proverbial styles.

This investigation has been carried out at the RoyalInstitute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. The main goal hasbeen to investigate the factors determining the production of asense of presence and reality in video mediated communication.Presenceis in these studies defines as the subjectiveexperience of being together in one place when one isphysically situated in another. Presence is an emergentproperty; it has no physicality, but arises as a mentalsensation. Special attention has been paid to spatial factors,embodiment issues, and narrative elements related to theproduction of presence. A context map has been used in order to model the semanticsof presence production and to visualize the relationshipsbetween the determining factors. The conclusions may besummarized as follows:     Knowledge about physical and extended spaces and bodiesand of the shifting of attention between these is importantin presence production.     Well planned design of physical and virtual spacesenhances the sense of presence.     Coherent design and production of mediated embodiment canenhance the sense of presence.     Conscious use of content characteristics, e.g., goodstorytelling, can enhance the sense of presence.     Different communication modes need the support ofdifferent combinations of presence production factors.     Even technically poorly mediated communication maysupport a sense of presence and reality if the storytellingis good.     The human sensory environment should be supported by asense of non-mediation, technological transparency, on theplane of discourse.     The results indicate that individual differencesinfluence the sense of presence and reality. The perception of video mediated communication evolves aspeople become daily users. People seem to intuitively begin tointerpret new types of mediated cues, adding what is missing incomparison to a real time physical communicationexperience. Keywords:Telepresence, presence, social presence,co-presence, concept modeling, virtual reality, person space,task space, narration, video mediated communication, videoconferencing.

In this thesis I aim to apply some late Wittgenstein's thoughts and ideas (mainly those of language-game) to media studies. For argumentation sake, both mediated communication as whole and various parts of mediated communication are perceived as self-aligning language- games. These are forms of communication wielded only by implicit rules which are determinated by usage of relevant signs. The key ideology here is that of pragmatism. Meaning of words and other signs is also determined by their usage in relevant language- game (e. g. article in paper, certain kind of TV show, etc.). This notion of various forms of mediated communication leads to a belief that they posses only a very limited ability to outreach their context (of a genre and to more extent mediated communication as a whole). This theory is compatible with Jean Beaudrillard's concept of simulacra. These are symbols without meaning based in reality. Instead they form a (hyper)reality of their own. What both scholars tech us is that symbols can be properly understood only within their context. Mediated communication according to my application of Wittgenstein has always a single meaning that is determined by "the way the communication go". I also consider few objections to this "totalitarian" conception, most importantly Umberto Eco's...

This thesis focuses on online communities - both their historic and current form. Various forms of communications are described, main focus is then given to identity online and self-presentation - various forms it can take, which expressive devices are used, how trustworthy is it and how is it perceived by other others. Influence of anonymity is mentioned. Empirical part of this work explores online friendship relations, cornerstone of the current wave of social networking services. It asks several questions about ways in which they affect communication between users. Relation between several factors (reciprocity, direction of initiation of said relation) and both quantity and frequency of communication between those users before and after that friendship is established.

Master of Science / Family Studies and Human Services / Joyce Baptist / The present study examined whether married individuals hold boundaries for online social networking and the relationship between these boundaries and relational trust and satisfaction. Participants included 205 married individuals who had been married for an average of 27 years. Five specific boundaries were identified and tested using group comparison (by sex) structural equation modeling. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed two latent constructs for internet boundaries: Openness (3 items: Know Friends, Share Passwords and Account Access) and Fidelity (2 items: No Flirting and No Former Partners). Findings suggest that couples in long-term committed relationships have boundaries or rules for social networking. Furthermore, trusting one’s partner, but not relationship satisfaction, contributes to behaviors that reflect sharing online social networking information, and curb online flirting and relationships with former romantic partners. Trust was more strongly associated with men’s than women’s motivation to avoid flirtatious online interaction and communicating with former romantic partners online. These findings that indicate that the use of internet boundaries is highly related to marital trust support the development theory of trust.

This thesis attempts to contribute to the study of punctuation marks (including emoji and emoticons) used in computer-mediated communication. It aims to describe their role in abusive comments on YouTube videos with LGBT content and the extent to which their use differs in respectful and hateful comments on such videos. The analysis concentrates also on how the distribution of punctuation marks differs in relation to the polarity, content and length of comments. The thesis also provides a comparison of the frequency of the occurrence of punctuation marks in both respectful and hateful comments. In addition to that, this paper attempts to classify emoji and emoticons according to their role in the text. Key words Computer-mediated communication, YouTube, emoji, emoticons, punctuation, Internet communication

A presente pesquisa destina-se a mostrar o funcionamento de um grupo de discussão via internet denominado \"Lista Provisória dos participantes da Lista de Discussão do programa \'Sua escola a 2000 por hora\'\", por meio do estudo das mensagens trocadas entre os seus componentes. O corpus vem de uma lista educacional ativa, fechada e moderada \"de leve\". Acredito que o ensino por meio de projetos de aprendizagem, onde o aluno atua como protagonista é fundamental para a melhoria da qualidade do ensino. Essa é a filosofia que norteia os projetos sociais do Instituto Ayrton Senna, e é denominada \"Educação para o desenvolvimento humano\". As investigações mostram que as conversações polilógicas (compostas por múltiplos participantes) são mais conflituosas. Assim, acompanhar uma discussão torna-se uma tarefa muito complexa, pois surgem diversos \"fios de conversa\" e é necessário que o usuário faça, mentalmente, as ligações coesivas entre os enunciados de um mesmo fio. Uma das questões fundamentais da pesquisa é a discussão sobre conversação eletrônica, em comparação com a conversação natural. Para entender melhor esse conceito, recorro à teoria da Análise da conversação e verifico quais elementos básicos para que a interação verbal se efetive, seja ela uma comunicação mediada ou não. Outra questão que se coloca, partindo-se da noção bakhtiniana de esfera comunicativa, é a questão dos gêneros textuais emergentes na tecnologia digital. Entendendo-se a web como esfera eletrônica, um espaço de práticas humanas de comunicação, acompanho alguns pensadores que acreditam que ela originará muitos gêneros para organizar as práticas linguajeiras ocorridas nesse espaço. Lista de discussão é um desses gêneros. Atenção especial é dada ao conceito de coesão semântica, como elemento indispensável para o entendimento do fluxo aparentemente caótico de mensagens enviadas ao grupo. Por meio desses elementos construo as teias (conjunto autônomo de fios discursivos dentro da atividade da lista), estabelecendo o subcorpus. / This research aims to show how does an internet discussion group named \"Lista provisória dos participantes da Lista de Discussão do programa \'Sua escola a 2000 por hora\'\" work, studying the messages exchanged by its components. The corpus comes from an active, private and loosely moderated scholar list. I believe that education by learning projects, whereby the student has the main role, is fundamental for the the improvement of the quality of learning. This is the philosophy that guides the social projects of the Instituto Ayrton Senna, and is named \"Education for human development\". The investigation showed that polylogical conversations (composed of multiple participants) are more conflictive. Thus, it is a very complex task to follow up a discussion, because diverse threads come out and it is necessary for the user to mentally make the cohesive links between the headers of a same thread. One of the fundamental issues of the research is the discussion concerning electronic conversation, in comparison to the natural one. In order to better understand this concept, I turned to the Conversation Analysis Theory and verify which are the basic elements for verbal interaction to occur, be it a mediated communication or not. Another issue that arises, departing from the bakhtinian notion of the communicative sphere, is the matter of the emergent textual genre in digital technology. Understanding the web as an electronic sphere, a space of human practices for communication, I follow some intellectuals that believe that it will bring about many genres to organize the language practices that took part in this space. The discussion list is one of those genres. Special attention is paid to the concept of semantic cohesion, as an essential element for the comprehension of the apparently chaotic flux of messages sent to the group. By those elements I assemble the web (autonomic cluster of discursive threads within the list activity), establishing the subcorpus.

O objetivo deste trabalho é identificar os recursos de TI e analisar de que forma as pequenas empresas podem utilizá-los para realizar a comunicação e a gestão da informação, privilegiando o uso de computadores para esta finalidade. A criação e o surgimento de recursos baseados na tecnologia da informação permitiram uma nova abordagem para estes aspectos. A realização da comunicação e a gestão da informação por meio de recursos baseados na tecnologia da informação impactaram de maneira significativa na forma com que o trabalho era realizado nas empresas. A importância do uso de recursos que possibilitem a realização do processo de comunicação mediada por computador, aliada à necessidade de se obter informações tempestivas e corretas, se tornaram variáveis associadas à melhoria da competitividade organizacional. A metodologia empregada nesta pesquisa foi o método qualitativo-exploratório, em que o estudo multicaso, proporcionou vivenciar a realidade com base no referencial teórico apresentado na pesquisa bibliografia. O trabalho de campo contou com a colaboração de três pequenas empresas do setor de informática da cidade de Ribeirão Preto-SP, nas quais foram possíveis a identificação dos recursos contemplados na pesquisa bibliográfica, e a análise de sua utilização em cada uma das empresas pesquisadas. / This essay was done in order to identify the IT (Information Technology) resources and analyse the way that it may be used by the small companies to perform communication and information management, thus making use of computers for this purpose. The creation and emerging of resources based on information technology permitted a new approach to these aspects. The achievement of communication and information management through means based on information technology caused a significant impact on the way that job was performed in the companies. The importance of using means that make possible the realization of the communication process, added to the need to obtain timely and correct information, have become associated variables to the improvement of the organization competitiveness. This research was done by the exploratory-qualified method, in which the multicase study, enabled the experiment of reality based on the theoretical reference presented in the research bibliography. The field work had the collaboration of three small companies of the computer field in the city of Ribeirão Preto-SP, where it was possible to identify the resources contemplated in the bibliography research, and the analyses of the usage in each one of the researched companies.

Amener les personnes à réaliser spontanément un comportement, tel est l’objectif des techniques de soumission sans pression. Depuis les années 60, elles ont prouvé leur efficacité. La popularisation des communications médiatisées par ordinateur (CMO) amène à nous demander si les processus d’influence restent efficaces et sous quelles conditions. Parmi les CMO existantes, nous souhaitons privilégier le terrain d’étude offert par les Massively Multiplayer Online Game parce que les interactions interindividuelles sont nombreuses et parce qu’il est nécessaire de créer un avatar pour y accéder. En accord avec certains travaux, nous pensons que l’apparence de l’avatar est un facteur qui influence significativement les comportements des individus. Nos objectifs sont de répliquer les effets de techniques de soumission sans pression et de spécifier les critères à prendre en compte pour obtenir le comportement souhaité. Une série de quatre études testant des techniques de soumission sans pression (pied-dans-la-porte, foot-in-the-face, porte-au-nez, mais vous êtes libre de…) est mise en place. Pris ensemble, les résultats de ces recherches ne sont pas seulement interprétables au regard des théories utilisées lors d’étude dans la vie réelle. Toutefois, nos résultats amènent de nouvelles perspectives théoriques et méthodologiques en matière d’induction de changements comportementaux lors de CMO. / The aim of compliance without pressure techniques is to get people to spontaneously adopt a behavior. Since the 1960s, they have shown their efficiency. The popularization of computer-mediated communications (CMC) raises the question of whether the influence processes remain effective and on what conditions. Among the existing CMCs, we wish to use the study field provided by the Massively Multiplayer Online Game because the interindividual interactions are numerous and it is necessary to create an avatar to access them. In agreement with some research, we think that the avatar appearance is a variable that significantly influences the individual’s behavior. Our objectives are to replicate the effects of compliance techniques and to specify the criteria to be considered in order to achieve the target behavior. A series of four studies, testing techniques of compliance without pressure (foot-in-the-door, foot-in-the-face, door-in-the-face, but you are free to…) are put in place. Results cannot be explained to the full extend by the common theories used in real life studies, however, they present new theoretical and methodological perspectives in terms of behavior changes induction in CMC.

Resumo: Com o desenvolvimento da Comunicação Mediada por Computadores (CMC), tornaram-se possíveis outras formas de interação social e, apesar de essas possibilitarem a formação de grupos sociais no ciberespaço, também podemos encontrar algumas formas de exclusão. O fenômeno do estrangeiro se apresenta na CMC em língua italiana como uma relação ao mesmo tempo de proximidade e distância, além de algumas barreiras para o desenvolvimento de uma sociabilidade entre italianos e estrangeiros. Na aproximação feita ao fenômeno do estrangeiro, em um dos sistemas mais usados na CMC, o webchat, verificou-se que apesar da possibilidade técnica de se construírem e de se utilizarem diversas identidades nos sistemas de CMC analisados, a identidade nacional se destaca na interação entre italianos e estrangeiros, acompanhada muitas vezes de hostilidades ou de um discurso retórico em relação aos imigrantes na Itália. / Abstract: With the development of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), new forms of social interaction became possible and, despite of the fact that they are responsible for the creation of social groups in the cyberspace, we can also find some forms of exclusion. The "stranger phenomenon" presents itself, in the CMC that uses Italian language, as a relation, at the same time, of proximity and of distance, and also as barriers against the development of a sociability between strangers and Italians. By approaching the "stranger phenomenon", through one of the most used CMC, the webchat, we could verify that, despite of technical possibility of constructing and of using multiple identities, national identity stands out in interrelation between Italians and strangers, bringing with it hostility or rethorical speeches related to immigrants in Italy. / Orientador: Ethel Volfzon Kosminsky / Coorientador: Odair da Cruz Paiva / Banca: Thomas Patrick Dwyer / Banca: Tullo Vigevani / Mestre