The advances in online technology has revolutionised online communication. As a result of new emerging web technologies virtual interactions have taken a much more interactive structure. These improvements in technology provide richer communication experiences for the users. Online communities, with the aid of new web 2.0 technology, provide the ideal environment for knowledge sharing. It is the interaction and communication between users of such communities that triggers information and knowledge sharing. Knowledge and information sharing sets the foundation for knowledge creation and co-creation. Meanwhile knowledge is known to be one of the greatest assets of any company or organisation. A significant amount of research has been dedicated to knowledge management. Nevertheless little research has been done to explore knowledge creation and co-creation, particularly in an online community setting. This research is investigating the idea of knowledge co-creation within an online community environment. Knowing that knowledge itself is a subjective entity, which cannot be objectively measured or quantified, the research takes an interpretive approach to finding out how this knowledge is co-created by the users of online communities. One of the main significant factors of this study is that it has used a unique and novel research method to tackle what appears to be a difficult subject. The research uses an interpretive case study method, however without any data collection. The investigation will be exclusively interpretive and philosophically evaluated based on the relevant literature and a set of principles introduced by Klein and Myers (1999). These principles were introduced as a guideline for conducting and evaluating interpretive studies in information systems. Using Klein and Myers’ principles has the advantage of being based on a well-established contemporary literature in information systems (IS) research methodology. The principles have not been used in an exclusively exploratory and interpretive research before. This itself is a major methodological contribution for future researchers to utilise as a practical example. The study develops a conceptual framework around knowledge co-creation, online communities and the technology. This framework is based on a proposed RECI model offered for knowledge creation in online communities. It also investigates the role of technology in the co-creation process. Finally it proposes a set of characteristics and guidelines that facilitate knowledge co-creation in online communities. These characteristics and guidelines would help design and implement future knowledge co-creating online communities, for example, e-learning and knowledge management systems. Furthermore the research lays the foundations for introducing the knowledge co-creation theory within online communities by proposing the initial hypothesis. Subject to appropriate future research and testing, the hypothesis can be developed into a practical theory.

Master of Science / Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology / S A. Leslie-Toogood / With the creation of Facebook in 2004, colleges and universities across the United States have been playing catch-up with students. This new technology carries much weight as a new medium for students to build social connections and grow as members of their institutions. However, this new technology also brings negative implications such as lowered GPAs with greater use. Research was conducted at four major institutions across the country exploring how residence hall students use online communities and the impact it has on their physical world experience on campus. Most students use Facebook as a tool for staying connected to friends from high school, but there is a small population of students who are using it as a tool to make social connections they could not find in person. This study explores the impacts Facebook has had on a college campus. University administrators are urged to use this data to take a proactive approach to using these technologies to enhance the overall campus experience.

Music is an essential part of people’s every day lives, accompanying them as they go about their daily routines, and it can be experienced in almost any context now; which allows us to capture, categorize and reconstruct the activities and memories that shape our personal, social and cultural lives. In this thesis, the area of concern that I explore is the creation of an online community based on people’s experiences with music. Because of the personal nature of the topic and the tendency for the information to change over time, the methodology I chose was action research, specifically Checkland and Holwell’s (1998) FMA methodology. Using this approach, I investigate the different kinds of technology that can be used to build the foundations of the community and which factors are most salient to facilitate member growth. I also examine the effects that user-generated content has on the participation within an online community and the technological features that aid in facilitating this. I discovered that trust is a vital part of an online community because it fosters cooperation between members through visible pro-social behaviour, and that a combination of ease of use, usefulness and the size of the community could influence the participation and activity of users in generating content. I also found that the development cycle for Internet software never ends, thus permanently in beta, as there will always be improvements to the community based on user feedback. I analyzed the data by comparing key metrics such as membership and user-generated content growth for each community to see if the learning and reflections from previous cycles helped improve community participation in the current cycle. The results I obtained and method I used in the thesis demonstrated my contribution to the body of knowledge in using action research theory, specifically the FMA methodology, to investigate, learn and develop an online community as an app creator. I argue that action research can help guide academic-based startups in much the same way as other startup frameworks and this point is one of the focuses for future research on this topic.

In recent years, a surprising new phenomenon has emerged in which globally-distributed online communities collaborate to create useful and sophisticated computer software. These open source software groups are comprised of generally unaffiliated individuals and organizations who work in a seemingly chaotic fashion and who participate on a voluntary basis without direct financial incentive. The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between the social network structure of these intriguing groups and their level of output and activity, where social network structure is defined as 1) closure or connectedness within the group, 2) bridging ties which extend outside of the group, and 3) leader centrality within the group. Based on well-tested theories of social capital and centrality in teams, propositions were formulated which suggest that social network structures associated with successful open source software project communities will exhibit high levels of bridging and moderate levels of closure and leader centrality. The research setting was the SourceForge hosting organization and a study population of 143 project communities was identified. Independent variables included measures of closure and leader centrality defined over conversational ties, along with measures of bridging defined over membership ties. Dependent variables included source code commits and software releases for community output, and software downloads and project site page views for community activity. A cross-sectional study design was used and archival data were extracted and aggregated for the two-year period following the first release of project software. The resulting compiled variables were analyzed using multiple linear and quadratic regressions, controlling for group size and conversational volume. Contrary to theory-based expectations, the surprising results showed that successful project groups exhibited low levels of closure and that the levels of bridging and leader centrality were not important factors of success. These findings suggest that the creation and use of open source software may represent a fundamentally new socio-technical development process which disrupts the team paradigm and which triggers the need for building new theories of collaborative development. These new theories could point towards the broader application of open source methods for the creation of knowledge-based products other than software.

This thesis aims to assess the supporting role social networks provide to divorced Saudi women who face after divorce challenges. After reviewing the impact that online social networks have on Saudi society and the legal context of divorce in Saudi Arabia, this study explores key issues faced by divorced Saudi women using a qualitative approach. Upon reviewing the limited amounts of literature and following two methodological phases, the key findings are: (1) identifications of primary challenges faced by divorced Saudi women namely; social, economic, psychological, and legal issues; (2) extraction of themes based on each identified issue, leading to the identification of four qualitative models; and (3) assessment of the supporting role social networks have in the identified themes of each issue.

What influences online service quality and how is service quality linked to customer satisfaction? This dissertation addresses these important questions using four alternative operationalizations of the service dimensions: expectations minus perceptions (E-P), a direct measure of the expectations - perceptions gap (direct), the perceptions measure only (P), and expectations minus perceptions adjusted for the absolute level of perceptions P-(E-P). Separate structural equation models are estimated for each measurement operationalization. The study found that E-P variables were not highly reliable and the discriminant validity for all models between service quality predictors was not high. A simple overall measure of service quality outperformed independent service dimensions for all models. The only significant individual predictors were sense of internet community and site customization. This study found that Internet buyers are not greatly sensitive to individual service dimensions which seem to act as indicators of a holistic latent service evaluation variable. Buyers are more sensitive to the transaction outcome than its process. A halo effect across service dimensions was also found. Satisfaction was linked to only cognitive, affective, and conative loyalty but not behavioral loyalty. When word of mouth was used as a proxy loyalty measure satisfaction explained more of the variance than the loyalty variables in all models. In assessing overall service, performance managers can use the overall variable. But given that a halo effect was found in this study, identifying and managing specific service dimensions is difficult.

The influx of new digital media technologies and platforms have made it possible for consumers of media products to more easily create and distribute their own works, which breaks away from the traditional production of culture of media by established, professional creators. Consequently, there has been a rise in the immaterial labor of digital media creators, as well as a formation of online communities of disparately connected users through commonly held interests. Within the medium of video games, this convergence between user and producer of content, the tension between control and innovation of media content and form, online communities and immaterial labor is most clearly seen in the practice of modding, here defined as using legally authorized software to modify video game content. Modding for computer games has been occurring since the early 1990s, and has grown considerably due to the expansion of the internet's capabilities for connecting people and distributing large bands of data. In 2012, Skyrim developers Bethesda Softworks released a free software development tool called the Creation Kit. The Creation Kit allowed computer users to modify the game content, at which point the user could publically release their mods through the authorized Steam Workshop Channel. The Creation Kit was distributed via Steam, an electronic digital games store operated by Valve Corporation, Inc. Because Bethesda required users to play Skyrim through Steam, the Steam Workshop Channel was intended to be the primary distribution and gathering location of the modding community for Skyrim. However, most existing modders already had many previously established third-party modding databases and websites for distribution, which meant that the Steam Workshop Channel was a new and forced entry into the modding community. Using a combination of ethnographic methods (participant observation and interviews) and textual analysis of message board data, and in research gathered between September 2013 and January 2014, this dissertation explores the community dynamics of the modders on the Steam Workshop Channel for Skyrim to help locate the identity politics of the community, as well as navigating the tension between innovation and control within the community. It also explores how a digital media producer attempts to control a space of fan-made production, and what that means for the existing community. I participated and observed conversations on modding community dynamics in specific forums on the Steam Community Workshop for Skyrim. There, I gathered textual data from a diverse sample of conversations located on discussion boards and a diverse set of mods ranging in user-defined ratings (high-rated to low-rated) to highlight the conversational dynamics and implicit and explicit structuring of the community. I gathered materials from over 403 relevant conversation threads on the Steam Community Workshop for Skyrim. I also conducted telephone, web and email interviews with a purposive sample group of 15 modders based on their ranking in the community in order to gather their personal motivations for participating in the group and perceptions of norms, rituals and values in the group. Results indicate that modding communities are hierarchized by historically locating the user within the practice, as well as through extensive technical knowledge and frequency of communication. Heavy users and mod creators separate themselves from "non-modders" or mod users through these practices, defining their identities through discourse and the values of creation. The Steam Workshop Channel was a collision between mod creators and non-modder users, sometimes with clashing ideologies that dissuaded heavier users from fully embracing the Steam Workshop. This study illustrates how Bethesda and Valve were perceived by existing modders, and suggests that companies need to pay attention to how historically located communities of users respond to the actions, policies, membership, and moderation of professional media consumers.

With the aim to reduce the effects of anthropocentric climate change and achieve a more sustainable future, promotion of sustainable individual behaviour is just as essential as driving political and economic change. As social media are experiencing growth in popularity, online communities in which influencers act as opinion leaders are a promising tool to influence behaviour. The objective of this paper was to examine the role of individuals’ pre-existing value structures and the effectiveness of encouraging pro-environmental behaviour amongst the millennial generation on Instagram. The study design is based on the extended version of goal-frame theory, The Integrated Framework for Encouraging Pro-environmental Behaviour.An experiment survey has been developed to measure current pro-environmental behaviour, value structure and goal-frame, test preferred Instagram posts, and measure intentions to act pro-environmentally in the future. Survey respondents were randomly assigned to a control group, which was not shown any Instagram posts. The experiment tested whether the provision of Instagram posts, which are framed in line with one’s goal-frame, creates a more effective message subsequently leading to an increase in future intentions to act pro-environmentally. The results of the analyses indicated that framing of an Instagram post based on pre-existing goal-frames does create a more effective message but does not lead to an increase in future intentions to act pro-environmentally. The differences in intentions to start acting pro-environmentally were not significantly different between the experiment and control group.Further analysis revealed that the strongest predictor to increase intentions to act in line with the environment is a combination of high accessibility to a normative goal-frame (biospheric and altruistic values), low accessibility to a gain goal-frame (egoistic values) and university education. Additionally, it was detected that females are more likely to engage in pro-environmental behaviour, to have higher intentions to adjust their lifestyle as well as accessibility to a normative goal-frame. Implications of this study can be applied to future research as well as help organizations and governments to develop more targeted sustainable consumption campaign and policies.

Online communities have grown to be an important feature of modern life, and substantial economic assets in their own right. Over the years, organizations that provide them have adopted a range of management practices, or policies. We propose that the choice of policies to manage an online community can be viewed under the lens of mechanism design. Using both empirical data and computer simulations, we investigate how online community providers might decide to put in place and evaluate such mechanisms.

Problemformulering och Syfte: Ämnet som huvudsakligen har undersökts i studien är kommunikation i online communities, digitala grupper på internet. Problemet som vi stött på och avgränsade oss till under detta ämne var sexism inom digital kommunikation. Utifrån ett medie- och kommunikationsvetenskapligt perspektiv var studiens syfte att observera på hur tonaliteten kring samtalet om aktier och privatekonomi utspelat sig i en kvinnlig respektive en könsblandad facebookgrupp. Utifrån resultaten och med utgångspunkt i feministisk teori, praxisgemenskaper och social marginalisering har vi dragit slutsatser om huruvida tonaliteten i grupperna kan ha påverkat kvinnors intresse för aktier och privatekonomi. Huvudresultat: Ur ett medie- och kommunikationsvetenskapligt perspektiv har vi genomfört kvantitativa innehållsanalyser vilket gav ett resultat som visar att den könsblandade facebookgruppen hade en mindre uppmuntrande tonalitet jämfört med den kvinnliga. Det visar sig också att den könsblandade gruppen är mansdominerade och har skapat en effekt av separatism där kvinnor väljer att avlägsna sig till andra forum där de får mer utrymme att vara en del av samtalet. Metod: För att kunna besvara syfte och frågeställningar har en kvantitativ innehållsanalys genomförts genom datainsamling från totalt 252 facebookinlägg med tillhörandekommentarer. Detta gjordes med hjälp av ett kodschema som behandlade 93 variabler.