The purpose of this study was to examine the use of and attitudes toward social networking as a tool for use by NASCAR speedways and to gauge track perceptions on the effectiveness of social media as a marketing tool. Individual NASCAR tracks were surveyed (n=22, 84.6% response) to explore current track social media practices and the potential impact of social networking sites on NASCAR marketing and consumer relations. Results found that individual tracks as well as the two major ownership groups highly agreed about issues concerning the use of social media to increase sales and to develop fan bases. However, they also agree there are other marketing tactics that are still more effective than social media at this time.

The emergence of social media technology and the rise in unorthodox warfighting strategies has fundamentally changed and altered traditional methods of conflict. With the ability to use social media network features for military effects, citizens, state, and non-state actors have set precedents for modern warfare in the age of the Internet. Through exploring three case studies on Egypt, ISIS, and Russia, this paper will address how modern conflict has advanced to become a fight over public perception and behavior. Each case employs various techniques of mobilization, recruitment, and propaganda to weaponize the online social media user. The Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the growth of ISIS, and the 2016 United States Presidential Election have all been impacted by social media for the advancement of hybrid warfare. This paper will seek to answer how has social media changed the nature of contemporary conflict, and how has social media allowed warfighting strategies that differ from traditional warfare?

Social media usage for parents has become ubiquitous, as either a form of entertainment or communication with other individuals. However, excessive use of social media has also shown to have effects on parenting; causing parental distraction, decreasing the level of everyday parental engagement, and making a child more likely to be at risk for injury. Studies have shown that frequent eye contact, one on one time, and undivided attention are necessary in building a secure attachment between a parent and child. The research study in question hoped to understand whether there was a correlation between the amount of hours a parent uses social media and any number of parental qualities. Surveys were distributed to parents in various parenting groups and online chatting boards regarding social media usage, number of hours on their devices, and parenting styles. Other questions asked whether their child has ever been injured as a result of their social media usage, and whether a parent shows a strong general bond to their child. Results from the survey concluded there to be only one statistically significant relationship between any of the social media usage variables and the parenting variables, that is, a positive relationship between hours of social media usage and a high score on authoritarian parenting techniques. Overall however, parents identified more often with a balanced parenting style. Implications of other demographic characteristics are further explored.

This study explores the impact Social media has on the postpartum depression experience. To date, no work has examined the association between social media and postpartum depression. This research is an exploration into the use and impact of social media on individuals with postpartum depression. One hundred and three participants provided information about their demographics, experience with depression, treatment options, use of social media and preferred method of support. This information was gathered and analyzed via a web-based survey instrument. Descriptive statistics was used to compare responses on the internet based questionnaire. The study findings show that Social Media has a positive impact on individual that experience postpartum depression. Most participants indicted that social media assisted in offering emotional, informational and appraisal support through social media. In addition, it appears that a majority of study participants had a positive experience with social media. The greatest use through social networking and social knowledge sites.

Social Workers make up a significant portion of mental health clinicians providing services to clients or young adults, and in today’s day and age, the popularity of social media use is increasing within the young adult population. Young adults spend hours on end on many different social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and/or Snapchat. Therefore, this study asks, what are clinician’s perspectives about social media influencing young adults with mental health concerns? This study utilized a qualitative, content analysis approach in interviewing clinicians to draw from their experience with clients who have used and interacted with social media. This study utilized a qualitative, content analysis approach in interviewing clinicians to draw from their experience with clients who have used and interacted with social media. The findings of this study suggest that social work clinicians interviewed have found that social media has an overall negative influence on young adults, but that they have not considered the depths of its effect. The findings of this study assist in raising awareness on the ever-present and changing internet culture; and this study provides clinicians perspectives on therapeutic modalities that can best be used in practice when interacting with clients.

This thesis reports on the use of verified Twitter accounts during crisis events. Twitter is a social media platform that allows users to broadcast and exchange public text messages and it can be used as a communication tool during crisis events. Verified Twitter accounts are those accounts that Twitter has investigated and found to be genuinely maintained by the claimed owner. Celebrities, public officials, and other well-known persons or companies often seek this account status. The owners of these accounts are likely to provide more accurate or relevant information during a crisis event because they represent a brand, whether themselves or an organization. To study the role verified Twitter accounts play in a crisis event, information was collected from Twitter’s API (Application Programming Interface) from February 28, 2018 through March 3, 2018 during a powerful storm on the East Coast of the United States called a Nor’easter. Through data collection and analysis, this thesis describe show verified Twitter accounts communicated during a crisis event. Three exploratory questions were proposed to better understand the use of verified Twitter accounts: Who are the verified Twitter users that tweet about a crisis event? What types of information do verified Twitter users tweet about a crisis event? When do verified Twitter users tweet about a crisis event? Results show that verified Twitter accounts create more original messages, share more informative messages, and spread less spam than their non-verified counterparts.

Authors: Linda Olsson & Dennis Åström Title: A journey of discovery on the third floor – A case study in how juvenile agents in the municipality of Kalmar communicate with its young people Level: BA Thesis in Media and Communication Studies Location: Linnaeus University Language: Swedish Number of pages: 60 Introduction: The participation amongst young people regarding political, democratic and society related questions is through an investigation confirmed not being high enough. Within the municipality of Kalmar, juvenile agents work as a link between young people and the opportunities that the municipality provides. To create this link with young people, communication is essential. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to create an understanding of how the juvenile agents work in order to create and maintain communication with young people. The purpose is also to evaluate the result of the information campaign they executed in 2011. Methodology: For this paper we had a hermeneutic approach with an inductive viewpoint. In our qualitative research we gathered our empirical material by doing qualitative interviews and the respondents were chosen based on both their knowledge in the subject of youth related questions and also the results of the information campaign in 2011. Conclusion: Within the process of creating and maintaining communication with young people, we can see that the juvenile agents strive to become a strong link between them and young people. The obstacle they stand in front of, as we see it, is that the creation of communication is achieved in a bigger extent than the maintaining of communication. Keywords: Communication, municipality, democracy, youths, social media

Are you aware of the changes taking place where you live? Have you ever thought: “I want to change that and make my voice heard?” But how do you get a hold of the decision makers, and if you do, would anyone listen? These are questions that an operational team of Örnsköldsvik’s municipality has considered. This operation is named Världsklass 2015 and is a development work and a platform where the citizens together can contribute to Örnsköldsvik’s future growth in an increasingly competitive world. Our degree project is conducted towards this operation within Örnsköldsvik’s municipality. Världsklass 2015 team’s task has, among other things, been to increase transparency and responsiveness between the municipality and its citizens. But which media should be used to reach the inhabitants?   Social media has been on the rise the last decade and with it the power relation between companies and customers has changed. Through social media customers have been empowered. The main purpose of this degree project is to examine a municipality’s citizen participation within a particular operation with help of social media. Citizen participation can be achieved by building a stronger relationship between the municipality and its citizens and improving the two-way communication. We have chosen to look at citizen involvement from a view of the competitive business environment, where it is crucial to maintain a good relationship with its customers. Our conclusions aim to function as a framework in the municipality’s on-going development of strategies regarding social media and citizen participation. Our research question is formulated as such:   How can a municipality create participation among citizens via social media for a development operation?   Our research question is answered through four sub-purposes. With these sub-purposes we analyse our findings, where the conceptual framework later on is developed into key insights. We use these to formulate our recommendations to Världsklass 2015 who then can utilize them to improve their communication and relationship to the citizens. We have chosen to use a mixed-methods approach to reach the citizens and to collect relevant data from representatives of the municipality. Our qualitative research is based on three semi-structured interviews with the municipality’s employees, the manager of the information department at the municipal administration, the web manager and the manager of Världsklass 2015. In the quantitative study we received 84 survey responses from the citizens. The analysis and conclusion of our empirical findings will be validated through relevant theories on relationship marketing, customer involvement, relationship marketing, citizen participation, CSR-strategies and e-government.   The main conclusion from this degree project is that the municipality of Örnsköldsvik has realized that it is important to have a purpose in the use of social media. We can confirm a strong interest from the citizens regarding the municipality’s existence in social media. Further they need to improve their two-way communication and encourage the citizens to participate in the municipality’s social media forums to improve citizen participation. / Världsklass

This Bachelor thesis is a case study that explores the possibilities and complications to use social media in marketing purposes. The case involves a company that sells garments for men. The company, named Mouli, has decided to use social media as their marketing platform. The company makes an interesting case, since they are still quite new on the market and have all the possibilities to succeed. The purpose for the thesis is to examine Mouli’s use of marketing in social media and to evaluate what could be done to amend the communication. The purpose is also to discuss and reflect certain effects that the company is exposed to when using these media channels. These questions has been subject throughout the thesis: Description of Mouli’s communication, what is said and how is it presented? How well is Mouli’s brand with its core values presented in their communication? What kind of expectations is there and what significance does the communication in the social media have for the company? The thesis is based on theories from marketing communication, such as the concepts brand, core values, superior value, brand image, brand identity and storytelling. These theories have been applied to the theories about communication on the web and social media. This case study was accomplished with qualitative analysis and interviews. The method being used was Kozinets´ nethnography, together with Roman Jakobson’s communication model and picture analysis based on Barthes theories. The results showed that Mouli’s communication functioned and it was well connected to the brand with its core values. The setback is that Mouli does not use the social media channels to their full potential and therefore there are measures that have to be executed.

There has been scarce research into the topic of B2B in the context of social media. Due to this, the aim of this study was to explore how social media is used within B2B in the initial phase of building relationships. The research questions regarded; attracting new customers, which channels that were used and potential drawbacks of using social media. An analytical framework was presented with the factors reputation, familiarity, similarity and knowledge of alternatives from literature within attraction. In order to collect the empirical data, semi-structured interviews were conducted with consultancy agencies. The results showed that social media was used to increase familiarity through third party sources, which was enabled by companies networks. Channels used for this were LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Regarding similarity, companies used social media to promote its personality that could attract customers both in a business and personal manner. The channels used for this were LinkedIn and Facebook. Furthermore, it was important that the type of information that was shared represented the company, and companies worked to improve this type of information. Further on, companies encouraged people in their network to share content in order to enhance reputation by third party sources. Channels used for this were LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Concerning knowledge of alternatives, social media were used as search-friendly channels, which enabled companies to remain on top in the search list, and make them a potential choice for customers. Channels used for this were LinkedIn and blogs. Furthermore, the major social media drawbacks for B2B companies were lack of resources in terms of time and lack of control over the information once it was posted online.