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.

This work explores the effect of social media on expectations held by nonprofit publics as they seek to build and maintain relationships with nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in the context of expectancy violation theory, social capital, and the situational theory of publics. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 individuals who follow a nonprofit on social media to understand the public perspective on nonprofit organizations' relationship building and maintaining behaviors on social media. The study found that nonprofit publics do have specific expectations for how NPOs should build and maintain relationships on social media (i.e., high-quality posts, level of interaction being limited to likes on social media and interpersonal interactions, high visibility to prove legitimacy, high transparency, and posts that are positive in tone). The study also found that nonprofit publics immediately end relationships when these expectations are violated, but tolerate relationships if these expectations are met. Finally, nonprofit publics expect to build relationships by interacting in a face-to-face or interpersonal setting, but also expect to maintain these relationships on social media, shedding light onto the importance of combining the use of interpersonal and computer-mediated communication.

Using a data-driven qualitative approach and drawing from language socialization and communities of practice theories, this dissertation study examines the second language (L2) identity-building strategies of 22 American learners of Russian who engaged in a six-week telecollaborative project with Russian native speakers in two genres of Internet-mediated communication: in one-on-one interactions with an assigned native Russian speaking keypal and in selected virtual communities populated predominantly by native Russian speakers. The investigation of L2 identity enactment in Internet-mediated environments was guided by three research questions pertaining to (1) the nature of the discourse Russian (L2) learners use in interactions with native speakers in two genres of online interactions, (2) the discursive manifestations of L2 learner and speaker identity performances in the learners' online discourse; and (3) the learners' perceptions of their online experiences in two genres of online interactions with native-speaking peers. The methods of critical discourse analysis and interpretative phenomenological analysis were employed to examine the Russian learners' online interactional discourse and offline metatalk regarding their online experiences in the two genres. The analysis of the Russian learners' discourse revealed the complex nature of discursive L2 identity enactment as they moved into and out of the frames of language learners to complete class assignments and negotiate their competent L2 speaker positions in conversations with Russian-speaking peers. The findings indicate that the two genres of online interaction evoked distinct participation patterns and interactional practices. In both genres, L2 identity enactment involved three dimensions: the macro-level of global identity categories, the locally assigned identity positionings (e.g., heritage speaker, multilingual speaker), and interactionally negotiated stances and temporary positions that evoked self- or other-initiated L2 learner/speaker identity performances. The author concludes that L2 identity, when enacted in Internet-mediated environments, represents a continuum of L2 learner-speaker performances that rely on the contextual factors of the online encounter, learners' global identity tokens, and the dynamics of power relations in native-nonnative speaker interaction. Performing an L2 identity online is construed as a critical experience of re-evaluating one's association with the target language and transformation into a new kind of socially oriented multilingual subject.

Using both quantitative and qualitative methods of inquiry, this dissertation study undertakes an exploration of the dynamics of the social interaction in discourse co-constructed by pairs of college students in telecollaborative tandem exchanges. Two groups of participants, Mexican learners of English as a foreign language and American learners of Spanish as a foreign language, participated in video-based telecollaborative tandem exchanges where they worked in pairs to discuss topics assigned by their instructors, communicating half the time in Spanish and half in English. According to the principle of reciprocity in tandem learning, the participants switch between the roles of native speaker (NS) expert and non-native speaker (NNS) learner as they invest equal time, effort, and interest in each language part of the chats. Grounded in sociocultural theory (SCT) for second language acquisition (SLA), this study addresses research questions pertaining to (1) the distribution of talk between the members of each pair and between the language parts of the exchange, (2) the distribution of interactional resources deployed by the members of each pair to establish and maintain intersubjectivity and build a relationship, and (3) the individual experiences of participants regarding their positioning in and perspectives of the exchange. Addressing the three research questions allowed the researcher to look at the telecollaborative tandem exchanges from the perspectives of language production, social aspects of interaction, and individual experiences and perspectives to gather a deeper understanding of the tandem context. The analysis of three data sources—survey responses, chat transcripts from one chat of the semester-long telecollaborative tandem project, and post-project participant interviews—shows that the principle of reciprocity posited by tandem theorists as equal time, effort, and interest in each language part underestimates the complexity of the construct as it was created by the participants in the telecollaborative tandem interactions examined in this dissertation study. A mixed methods approach allowed the researcher to deconstruct and reconsider the construct of reciprocity in telecollaborative tandem learning. The telecollaborative tandem exchanges examined in this study were not reciprocal between language parts of the exchange in terms of language production, use of interactional resources, or tandem participant positioning. Instead, they presented complex pair relationships that used language differently in each language part to establish and maintain intersubjectivity, as well as the strong desire of the participants to position themselves and their partners as peers rather than take on the roles assumed to characterize the tandem context; that is, NS as expert and NNS as learner. In accordance with these findings, telecollaborative tandem learning should be approached with an open understanding of the concept of reciprocity in which the participants co-construct their relationship through meaningful social dialogue as peers, rather than through the roles of NS expert and NNS learner. Based on the findings of this study, the expert–learner model of reciprocity may be too rigid and too static for the dynamic context of telecollaborative tandem learning.

<p>The growing role of communication using computers in people’s everyday lives is reflected by the debates about massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMOs) like World of Warcraft and the Internet as a whole. While people may be driven by the same psychological drives that have spurred interaction between people in the past, this interaction is increasingly facilitated with the use of computer mediated communication (CMC). Can strong relations form between people that are separated by great distances in space using CMC? The presence of strong relations in MMOs could open the possibility for MMO communities to thrive.</p><p>A social network analysis of a MMO guild with 50 members was conducted using an online survey, which produced a non-response rate of 50 percent. Participants were asked about their age, the time they had spent in the guild and their gender in order to explain the social structure of the networks. They were then asked to state the strength of their relations with each of the other members of the guild on a scale from ―one, neutral‖ to ―five, strong friendship‖. The social network analysis program Pajek was used to investigate the characteristics of the social network using so called sociograms.</p><p>The essay concludes that numerous strong relations exist within the guild and that a long time spent in the guild increases the number of strong relations a guild member has. The results show that guilds may form the cohesive backbone of MMO communities and proposes that future research be conducted on the brokerage between guilds in MMO communities in order to produce a comprehensive view of the social structure of MMO communities.</p>

<p>This thesis tells the story of a design case creating an user interface for a MMORPG where the player are able control the body language of the avatar. By this the game can achieve a gameplay about drama and strong characterization. The thesis addresses considerations on what aspects of body language that can be important for computer games and other virtual environments. It also offers design considerations when designing interfaces for using gestures and other body signals to communicate emotions in virtual environments such as computer games. The main design consideration when creating the interface was to treat the player as an actor and the game world as a stage. The player needs to be in control of combinations of facial expressions, body posture and gestures as well as relative avatar positioning to other characters and objects. The interface was first tested as a paper prototype, re-designed, re-tested and then implemented into a computer prototype.</p>

<p>Purpose/aim: The purpose is to get increased knowledge about how the communication had developed from the first contact online to the first meeting in real life and even after when it had turned into a real relationship. I also wanted to know why the eight women I interviewed experienced that the Internet is a good venue to meet and develop a real relationship at and if there existed any differences between those four women who were a bit older and those four women who were young.</p><p>Material/method: When the purpose with this survey stood clear I decided to use interviews as the method to find out more about my subject. I decided to do eight interviews and I contacted eight women who all found their partners online that were willing to help me and answer my interview questions. I did six of the total eight interviews through MSN Messenger and the other two through the telephone.</p><p>Main results: I found out that three of the older women had used e-mail and telephone and sometimes SMS communication to find out more about their soon to be partner and after that decided to meet the other person in real life. One of the older women and all four of the younger ones had used a Community and Instant Messenger to communicate with their soon to be partner, they also used the telephone and SMS to communicate with each other but Instant Messenger was the medium that dominated in their wish to communicate. Those instant messenger communications were also a difference that I came to see between how the younger and older women communicated and the fact that three of the older women told me that they had used the Internet to search for a partner while one of the older women and all of the younger ones told me they didn’t search for anyone at all it just happened that they found someone and came to like that person.Keywords: Internet dating, instant messaging, Community, computer mediated communication, telephone communication, face to face communication.</p>

Purpose/aim: The purpose is to get increased knowledge about how the communication had developed from the first contact online to the first meeting in real life and even after when it had turned into a real relationship. I also wanted to know why the eight women I interviewed experienced that the Internet is a good venue to meet and develop a real relationship at and if there existed any differences between those four women who were a bit older and those four women who were young. Material/method: When the purpose with this survey stood clear I decided to use interviews as the method to find out more about my subject. I decided to do eight interviews and I contacted eight women who all found their partners online that were willing to help me and answer my interview questions. I did six of the total eight interviews through MSN Messenger and the other two through the telephone. Main results: I found out that three of the older women had used e-mail and telephone and sometimes SMS communication to find out more about their soon to be partner and after that decided to meet the other person in real life. One of the older women and all four of the younger ones had used a Community and Instant Messenger to communicate with their soon to be partner, they also used the telephone and SMS to communicate with each other but Instant Messenger was the medium that dominated in their wish to communicate. Those instant messenger communications were also a difference that I came to see between how the younger and older women communicated and the fact that three of the older women told me that they had used the Internet to search for a partner while one of the older women and all of the younger ones told me they didn’t search for anyone at all it just happened that they found someone and came to like that person.Keywords: Internet dating, instant messaging, Community, computer mediated communication, telephone communication, face to face communication.

The growing role of communication using computers in people’s everyday lives is reflected by the debates about massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMOs) like World of Warcraft and the Internet as a whole. While people may be driven by the same psychological drives that have spurred interaction between people in the past, this interaction is increasingly facilitated with the use of computer mediated communication (CMC). Can strong relations form between people that are separated by great distances in space using CMC? The presence of strong relations in MMOs could open the possibility for MMO communities to thrive. A social network analysis of a MMO guild with 50 members was conducted using an online survey, which produced a non-response rate of 50 percent. Participants were asked about their age, the time they had spent in the guild and their gender in order to explain the social structure of the networks. They were then asked to state the strength of their relations with each of the other members of the guild on a scale from ―one, neutral‖ to ―five, strong friendship‖. The social network analysis program Pajek was used to investigate the characteristics of the social network using so called sociograms. The essay concludes that numerous strong relations exist within the guild and that a long time spent in the guild increases the number of strong relations a guild member has. The results show that guilds may form the cohesive backbone of MMO communities and proposes that future research be conducted on the brokerage between guilds in MMO communities in order to produce a comprehensive view of the social structure of MMO communities.

El coneixement professional és epistemològicament diferent a d'altres tipus de coneixement; el coneixement professionalitzador ha de permetre als estudiants gestionar situacions de la seva pràctica professional. En aquest sentit, el coneixement professionalitzador implica unes demandes superiors en comparació a d'altres tipus de coneixement. L'objectiu d'aquesta tesi doctoral és analitzar la naturalesa del coneixement professionalitzador i el canvi en el discurs professionalitzador en entorns l'aprenentatge en línia. Analitzar la naturalesa del discurs professionalitzador permet conèixer quins factors estan implicats en la construcció del coneixement professional i ajustar els entorns d'aprenentatge en línia. Aquesta tesi doctoral descriu els resultats de l'anàlisi de quatre casos relatius a la construcció del coneixement professionalitzador en el camp educatiu. Els resultats obtinguts ens mostren que el discurs professionalitzador construït amb mediació de les tecnologies de la informació i la comunicació (TICs) està estructurat entorn una part molt petita dels tòpics de discurs professionalitzador (menys del 5%). També hem evidenciat diferencies rellevants evidenciades en funció del tipus d'activitat d'aprenentatge, el tipus de contingut i l'escenari de la tasca (tàcit o explícit). Pel que fa al canvi del discurs professionalitzador, els estudiants expressen tensions en la seva concepció de la pràctica i interaccionen com una comunitat de pràctica professional amb diferents característiques depenent del tipus d'activitat, el tipus de contingut i l'escenari de la tasca. / Professional knowledge is epistemologically different from other kinds of knowledge. Students are considered to have built academic discourse when they are able to produce speech based on concrete academic content whereas professional knowledge should enable students to manage situations in professional practice. In this sense, professional knowledge is more demanding than other kinds of knowledge. Our objective was to analyze the nature of professional knowledge and change in professional discourse in the framework of online learning environments. Analyzing the nature of professional discourse helps us understand the characteristics that make it special and that relate to managing situations in professional practice. Analyzing change in professional discourse enables us to know which factors are involved in building professional knowledge and to adjust online learning environments accordingly. This paper describes the results of an analysis of different cases related to the construction of professional knowledge in the educational field. The results we obtained show us that professional discourse built using ICT is structured by a very small fraction of identified topics of professional discourse (less than 5%), furthermore, relevant differences are evidenced depending on the type of learning activity, kind of content and task scenarios conducted (tacit or explicit). Regarding change in professional discourse, students expressed tensions in their conception of practice and interacted as a structured professional community although different characteristics depending on the type of activity, kind of content and task scenarios were observed in all cases.