Social media play a significant role in people’s daily communication and life. Even companies use them to reach a broader audience. This study aims to explore if Snapchat can be a useful platform for companies in their strategic communication, especially regarding corporate branding. Snapchat is the fastest growing social media today and they use content in a completely different way than other major social medias. This paper will show how Arla Sweden is using Snapchat to communicate with a specific target group, create engagement and strengthen brand identity. The study focuses on how users understand Arla´s content and is divided into two parts, where two qualitative methods are used. The first part focuses on Arla´s use of Snapchat and is conducted by an interview with an expert from Arla´s social media department. The second one aims to understand the user experience and is collected through four focus group interviews. The study is based on theories about corporate branding and Stuart Hall´s theory of encoding/decoding. The result shows that the users are critical to companies using Snapchat. The users view Snapchat as a private medium for friends and are negative to companies using it as a marketing tool. However, the study shows a positive result regarding users’ first experience with Arla´s content. The conclusion is that Snapchat can be used for corporate branding as long as companies make sure that the content is interesting enough for the target group.

Journalism as we know it today is facing massive change. Technological advances have enabled new ways of delivering news which differ from traditional means in both practical and content-related matters. This bachelors thesis intended to obtain greater understanding of how journalistic content manifested itself on the new media platform Snapchat. We chose to conduct a socialsemiotic analysis of six of CNNs “stories” on the platform and their corresponding content on CNNs website. By doing this we could distinguish a signifigant change in both magnitude and form. Compared to the corresponding content the stories contained less information and indicated a higher level of sensation and dramatics. In addition we found that information not conveyed in the stories text could appear in other modalities such as image or music. This suggests a different way of storytelling in news media when distributed on this new platform.

Through the use of the smart phone application, Snapchat, people use the features and abilities to express themselves and communicate with their friends. With the accessibility of mobile phones and the special features of a camera on each side, making the action of taking a selfie more efficient, the allure of the application is endless. The temporariness of the photos taken through Snapchat and the additional features users are able to include provide an opportunity for them to have control over what they distribute throughout social media. The project included a variety of Snapchats from over 10 different users of various ages from all over the world. With the given prompts, they delivered Snapchats to their best friends, classmates, or on their "My Story" as they wished. The decisions of who received the Snapchats and for how long, demonstrated the control these participants were able to have while using the application. This control allows for the opportunity to explore and define one's self identity and representation through a social media platform.

Millennials have surpassed Baby Boomers as the nation’s largest living generation. Cultural institutions must reach out to millennial audience to thrive. At the same time, social media has become a business tool used to engage with millennials and build brand loyalty. Cultural institutions must learn how to effectively utilize social media. In this project, you will find three case studies of cultural institutions who have used social media in a variety of ways to successfully reach out to millennials. In this project, the author attempts to study three award-winning cases of cultural institutions who have used social media in a variety of ways to successfully reach out to millennials.

This research explores the Snapchat and Instagram feature of “Stories” and aims to understand what users post in their “Stories” and how they make use of the feature to tell their story. The application of narrative theory theoretically informs the concept of digital storytelling, which is ultimately the practice of telling online stories. The methodology consists of a qualitative content analysis of Snapchat and Instagram “Stories”, observation of active ordinary users and in-depth semi-structured interviews to address the user’s perspective. The main results indicate that there are themed patterns following narrative structures in Snapchat and Instagram “Stories”. For that reason eight categories were created and divided between the four narrative elements according to Barthes (1977) and these were actions (demonstrating emotions, eating, interacting), happenings (updates), characters (people, self- portraits and animals) and setting (environment). In addition, another result is that Snapchat and Instagram storytellers make use of seven means to tell their stories and create a narrative. These means are images, texts, videos, emoji, doodles, instant information and filters. Human beings are natural storytellers according to the Narrative Paradigm by Fisher (1984), which explains the popularity of the “Stories” feature, as well as the discovered categories based on narrative elements and the use of semiotic resources to make more sense of the stories told by users.

Den gemene svensken befinner sig allt oftare i digitala miljöer, inte minst i sociala medier. En inblick i dessa medier visar en mörkare sida som inkluderar kränkningar, sexuella trakasserier och andra kriminella handlingar. Snapchat är en av många samlingspunkter för dessa aktiviteter, bland annat för dess inbyggda funktion som automatiskt raderar meddelanden efter en viss tid. Men är datan verkligen raderad? Går det att skapa ett verktyg som gör det lika lätt att återställa datan som att radera den? Målet med denna uppsats är att utforska hur extraheringen av raderade meddelanden i Snapchat kan automatiseras, i syfte att underlätta IT-forensiska utredningar och minska IT-forensikerns höga arbetsbelastning. Resultatet visar att raderade meddelanden förekommer i filsystemet, med tillräcklig struktur för att ett skript ska kunna skrivas som automatiskt extraherar dessa tillsammans med resterande icke-raderade meddelanden. / <p>Källkod till programmet ReSnap:</p><p>https://github.com/8urle/ReSnap</p>

Submitted by Adriana Alves Rodrigues (aalves@espm.br) on 2018-10-11T15:40:58Z No. of bitstreams: 1 MPPJM - CLEBER STEVANI PÓS-BANCA.pdf: 5487444 bytes, checksum: 5cbc5fd7e7e80d2e383403bf9e4c0238 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Alves Rodrigues (aalves@espm.br) on 2018-10-11T15:41:24Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 MPPJM - CLEBER STEVANI PÓS-BANCA.pdf: 5487444 bytes, checksum: 5cbc5fd7e7e80d2e383403bf9e4c0238 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Debora Cristina Bonfim Aquarone (deborabonfim@espm.br) on 2018-10-11T15:42:32Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 MPPJM - CLEBER STEVANI PÓS-BANCA.pdf: 5487444 bytes, checksum: 5cbc5fd7e7e80d2e383403bf9e4c0238 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-10-11T15:42:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MPPJM - CLEBER STEVANI PÓS-BANCA.pdf: 5487444 bytes, checksum: 5cbc5fd7e7e80d2e383403bf9e4c0238 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-10-28 / Snapchat is a social video network and its main features are the vertical format, perpetuated by the application due to the operational exclusivity in smartphones and handsets, and the ephemerality of the content, in what was a pioneer. The platform came out in 2011 with the purpose of making videos with simple and fun language. Emojis are very popular and fundamental to complement communication between users - mostly young people of named generation Y, or "millennials". With the growth of Snapchat in recent years, newspaper companies have invested in the application to bring information and engage that audience to their respective platforms, particularly in the United States. In Brazil, the UOL portal is the journalistic medium that produces the most content for Snapchat. Given this scenario, the present study make an analysis of the use of Snapchat in the coverage of the municipal elections of São Paulo in 2016 by UOL. The research maps and analyzes the uses the portal made of Snapchat on occasion and uses the data to support the production of a small documentary about Snapchat's potential for journalism in the digital age. After a bibliographical survey, interviews and content analysis we understand that Snapchat is an application that has been of little use by the Brazilian press and we have produced a nine-minute small video on the subject, in Snapchat format. / O Snapchat é uma rede social de vídeo e suas principais características são o formato vertical, perpetuado pelo aplicativo devido à exclusividade operacional em smartphones e aparelhos de celulares, e a efemeridade do conteúdo, no que foi pioneiro. A plataforma surgiu em 2011 com o propósito de fazer vídeos com linguagem simples e divertida. Os emojis são muito populares nela, e fundamentais para complementar a comunicação entre os usuários – na maior parte, jovens da chamada geração Y, ou "millennials". Com o crescimento do Snapchat nos últimos anos, empresas jornalísticas investiram no aplicativo para levar informação e engajar esse público para suas respectivas plataformas, particularmente, nos Estados Unidos. No Brasil, o portal UOL é o veículo jornalístico que mais consistentemente produz conteúdo para Snapchat. Diante desse panorama, o presente estudo traz uma análise sobre o uso do Snapchat na cobertura das eleições municipais de São Paulo em 2016 pelo UOL. A pesquisa mapeia e analisa os usos que o portal fez do Snapchat na ocasião e usa esses dados para subsidiar a produção de um minidocumentário sobre as potencialidades do Snapchat para o jornalismo na era digital. Após um levantamento bibliográfico, entrevistas e análise de conteúdo compreendemos que o Snapchat é um aplicativo que tem sido de pouco aproveitamento pela imprensa brasileira e produzimos um minidocumentário de nove minutos sobre o tema, no formato do Snapchat.

Sociala medier har idag en betydande roll för företag och deras marknadsföringsmöjligheter. Snapchat är relativt ny social medieapplikation som möjliggör kommunikation mellan människor. Denna studie undersöker Snapchat som möjlig kanal för företags marknadsföring. Undersökningen baseras på en datainsamling av litteratur kring sociala medier i allmänhet och kring Snapchat i synnerhet. Studien är indelad i två undersökningar. Den första fokuserar på användarens upplevelser och användning av Snapchat och innehåller data insamlad genom två fokusgruppsamtal och ett frågeformulär. Den andra undersökningen ser till företags möjligheter att marknadsföra genom Snapchat. Detta genom datainsamling i form av en kvalitativ intervju med ett företag som fokuserar på marknadsföring genom sociala medier, samt genom ett experiment för att se hur applikationen fungerar för företag i praktiken. Resultatet visar att snapchatanvändare är kritiska till marknadsföring genom Snapchat. Användarna vill inte ha reklam i en kanal de använder för kommunikation med vänner. Studien leder fram till slutsatsen om att det tycks vara svårt att som företag vara en pionjär på Snapchat då det är få snapchatanvändare som vill följa företag på Snapchat. Det förefaller dock vara viktigt för företag att finnas där konsumenterna finns. Detta kräver dock att företaget skickar ut budskap som är intressanta för målgruppen. / Social Media has become important for companies and their marketing possibilities. Snapchat is a relatively new social media channel that enables communication between people. This study aims to explore Snapchat as a possible marketing channel. The study is based on literature about social media in general and on Snapchat in particular. It is divided into two studies. The first one focus on the user experience of Snapchat and contains data collected through two focus groups and one questionnaire. The other part of the study aims to look at companies possibility to use Snapchat as a marketing channel. This part collects information throughout a qualitative interview with a company that focus on social media marketing, and also throughout an experiment to show how Snapchat works for companies in practice. The result shows that the Snapchat users are critical about marketing through Snapchat. The users don’t want advertising in a channel they use for communication with friends. This leads to the conclusion that it is hard to be a Snapchat pioneer since the users don’t want to follow companies Snapchat accounts. Another conclusion is that it is important for companies to be where the costumers are, but that it requires that the company messages are interesting for the target group.

Studien har som övergripande syfte att undersöka unga tjejers användning av mobilapplikationen och det sociala nätverket Snapchat. Igenom tillämpning av kvalitativ metod har två semistrukturerade fokusgruppsintervjuer genomförts bestående av 11 tjejer i åldern 14-24. Med tematisk kodning och bearbetning av empiri urskilde författaren fem centrala teman som studiens analys och resultatredovisning grundar sig på. Genom att lyfta fram informanternas uppfattningar kring Snapchat har författaren ämnat belysa i vilka syften som informanterna använder applikationen med utgångspunkt i teorin om Uses &amp; Gratifications. Informanterna genomskådar inga nya behov utan de behov som skildras i analysen är snarare redan framväxta behov som informanterna kan tillfredsställa enkelt och snabbt via Snapchat då det är applikationens tekniska funktioner som formar informanternas behov. Det allomfattande syftet med denna studie har även varit att undersöka hur informanterna kommunicerar via applikationen. Författaren har studerat hur informanterna kommunicerar med kommunikationsformerna bild och text samt en kombination av dessa med utgångspunkt i de teoretiska begreppen anchorage och relais. Trots att bilden till en början uppfattades som det huvudsakliga enligt informanterna visade analysen på att det visuella i de flesta sammanhang tar hjälp av olika verbala uttryck. Det är mediekombinationen som blir en kommunikativ enhet. Utifrån studiens empiriska material har även spridningen av och acceptansen för Snapchat varit möjlig att undersöka. Med utgångspunkt i termer av Diffusion of Innovation Theory och Technology Acceptance Model upplevs applikationen ha en stor spridning i åldern 14-24 grundat på kombinationen av ansträngningslös användning och att användare kännetecknas av digitala infödingar. De yngre informanterna upplever emellertid fler fördelar med Snapchat. En lägre nivå av acceptans bland de äldre kan förstås utifrån att de fortfarande hellre väljer att använda andra sociala nätverk som präglas av andra åldersmässiga intressen och användarmotiv. Studiens analys pekade alltså framförallt på en högre grad av acceptans av Snapchat i åldersgruppen 14-15.

This study is about the selection of test groups for a user test. The natural choice for company is to choose people that are included in the target group for the product or system that are about to be tested. This is something I have chosen to focus on. Is there reason to believe that you would choose people to your test group that are not part of the target audience and still produce an equally good result? To learn more about this, a test is conducted on a product that has one focus area and a clear target audience, in this case Snapchat. This research is showing that it’s a difference depending on what people are picked for the test. The two different groups focused on different things in the test that gave different goals to follow.