Because of the speed and convenience of Twitter, it has become one of the most widely utilized platforms for breaking news and is often used to raise awareness of current social issues, political happenings, and social injustices. As more women use Twitter and other social media to embrace the feminist label online, an array of criticism has come to surface. A new movement, #WomenAgainstFeminism, has become popular with Twitter users who reject feminism ideals and the feminism label. Research has been done examining the presence of online feminism, “hashtag feminism,” and online activism in general. Currently, there is no research analyzing the online reaction to feminism, #WomenAgainstFeminism. The purpose of this study is to analyze tweets containing #WomenAgainstFeminism to identify the salient reasons for rejecting feminism, stereotypes associated with feminism, and characteristics associated with feminists. This study broadens the current literature that analyzes attitudes towards feminism, stereotypes of feminists, and feminist identification. This study also adds to the growing body of literature that appreciates the impact Twitter and other social media networks have on members of society and social movements. This study differs from previous research because it focuses on the common stereotypes and characteristics associated with feminism that are prevalent in a social media campaign created to refute feminism.

Sprachideologien als zugrundeliegende Annahmen über Sprachstrukturen und Sprachgebrauch schlagen sich häufig in metasprachlichen Diskursen und vor allem im laienlinguistischen Austausch über Sprache nieder. Die einschlägige Forschung zu derartigen Metasprachdiskursen hat sich bislang nur vereinzelt dem laienlinguistischen Austausch in den Sozialen Medien gewidmet. Um Einblicke in laienlinguistische Metasprachdiskurse jüngerer Generationen zu geben, untersucht die vorliegende Studie die Beiträge sowie die dazugehörigen Kommentare zweier Instagram-Profile, die regelmäßig sprachliches Wissen vermitteln, hinsichtlich ihrer sprachideologischen Standpunkte. Hierzu wurde das stancetaking der Nutzenden untersucht, d.h. es wurde nachvollzogen, wie sich Sprachteilnehmende lexikalisch, grammatisch, aber auch im Rahmen multimodaler Möglichkeiten der Plattform (z.B. Farben, Emojis, Likes) zu Sprache und zu anderen Sprachteilnehmenden positionieren. Es zeigt sich, dass vor allem sprachrichtigkeitsideologische Einstellungen in den untersuchten Beiträgen vorzufinden sind. Varianten werden hier explizit sprachlich als richtig oder falsch oder auch implizit mittels farblicher Markierungen gekennzeichnet. Standardideologische Annahmen kommen in den Beiträgen häufig in der Orientierung an kodifizierenden Institutionen und in der Abgrenzung zu einer Umgangssprache zum Tragen, wobei die Beiträge von einer Thematisierung des Standardbegriffs absehen. Vereinzelt werden die Sprachrichtigkeits- und die Standardideologie in den Kommentaren durch Nutzende in Frage gestellt; insbesondere, wenn diese sich als linguistisch Sachkundige positionieren. / Language ideologies as underlying assumptions about the structure and use of a language can often be found in meta-linguistic and especially lay linguistic discourse. So far, only few studies have looked at lay linguistic discourse about language on social media. This study aims at giving insights into the lay linguistic discourse of younger generations by looking at two Instagram accounts that frequently publish content containing lay linguistic knowledge and extracting existing language ideologies. The process of stancetaking was considered: It was examined how users position themselves towards language and towards others by means of lexical and grammatical expressions, as well as multimodal ways provided by the online platform (e.g. colors, emojis, likes). The results show that the posts convey beliefs about the correctness of language as they explicitly mark variants as right or wrong or use colors to signify (in)correctness. The ideology of standard language is also present in many posts and comments. This is indicated by users referring to codifying institutions and by users differentiating between a standard and a vernacular use of language, both of which are not further defined by users. Occasionally, language ideologies about correctness and standards are questioned in the comments; especially when users position themselves as linguistic professionals.

The perception of mental illness has often been studied in traditional face-to-face settings, but the research on its perception in an online setting has been growing recently. Social media platforms have allowed for important conversations regarding mental health to gain popularity and led to the formation of communities where users can share their personal experiences. It has also given professionals the opportunity to educate others on various mental health topics and answer specific questions their audience may have. From these posts and forums, users who are concerned with their mental health can be given the guidance to achieve proper assistance from an in-person support group or medical professional. However, there is little to no regulation concerning who can share information on these applications, which can potentially lead to the spread of false information and exaggerated instances of mental illnesses. This can encourage users to incorrectly self-diagnose and reinforce stigma that is already prevalent in both face-to-face and virtual settings. The role that social media plays in mental health perception and self-diagnosis remains uncertain. To better understand this interaction, an online study was conducted where participants were tasked with completing a survey and watching a series of videos that varied depending upon the condition they were assigned to. Participants were then given the same survey to determine whether any particular thoughts or emotions had been evoked from watching the videos. There were no significant differences between the survey responses before and after the videos, and no interaction was found between the type of videos the participant watched and their combined scores on each survey question. The results of this study merit further investigation into how social media platforms influence the perception of mental illness, which indicate there is not a significant impact.

Civil unrest (protests, strikes, and ``occupy'' events) is a common occurrence in both democracies and authoritarian regimes. The study of civil unrest is a key topic for political scientists as it helps capture an important mechanism by which citizenry express themselves. In countries where civil unrest is lawful, qualitative analysis has revealed that more than 75% of the protests are planned, organized, and/or announced in advance; therefore detecting future time mentions in relevant news and social media is a simple way to develop a protest forecasting system. We develop such a system in this thesis, using a combination of key phrase learning to identify what to look for, probabilistic soft logic to reason about location occurrences in extracted results, and time normalization to resolve future tense mentions. We illustrate the application of our system to 10 countries in Latin America, viz. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Results demonstrate our successes in capturing significant societal unrest in these countries with an average lead time of 4.08 days. We also study the selective superiorities of news media versus social media (Twitter, Facebook) to identify relevant tradeoffs. / Master of Science

The current study investigated the role of social media influencers' credibility and followers' motivations in shaping consumer behavior among Saudi consumers, focusing on key aspects of influencers' credibility (expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness) and followers' (consumers) motivations (information, socialization, and entertainment). The current study developed a framework to investigate how social media influencers' credibility and followers' motivations impact consumer purchase intention and consumer behavior, using the theory of reasoned action (TRA). The study employed quantitative research methodology, utilizing the Qualtrics platform to distribute online surveys to collect data. The study sample was 416 Saudi consumers. The study proposed a framework to describe the phenomena. The relationships were tested using liner multiple regression. SPSS software was employed for analysis of data including the demographic characteristics of participants. The study's findings showed that in relation to the influencer's credibility, the factors of trustworthiness and attractiveness had a statically significant and positive direct impact on purchase intention. However, expertise had a statistically insignificant negative impact on purchase intention. The findings showed that all the investigated factors of follower motivations, which include information, socialization, and entertainment, were statically significant and had a direct positive impact on purchase intention. The study offers significant insights into the connection between social media marketing influencers and consumer behavior, insights ultimately beneficial in the areas of both academic research and practical implications. These findings will enable marketers to optimize their strategies and improve their effectiveness within the Saudi market.

No / Social media plays an important role in the digital transformation of businesses. This research provides a comprehensive analysis of the use of social media by b2b companies. The current study focuses on a number of aspects of social media such as: the effect of social media; social media tools; social media use; adoption of social media use and its barriers; social media strategies; and measuring the effectiveness of the use of social media. This research provides a valuable synthesis of the relevant literature on social media in the b2b context by analysing and discussing the key findings from existing research on social media. The findings of this study can be used as an informative framework on social media for both academics and practitioners.

Small business owners understand the advantages of using social media as a marketing tool; however, some of these owners do not leverage social media marketing strategies to increase sales. Small business owners who fail to implement social media marketing strategies minimizes the potential to gain new customers; thus, negatively impacting sales. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore social media marketing strategies used by five small family-style restaurants in Maryland. Berry's relationship marketing theory was the conceptual framework for this study. Data collection included semistructured interviews, documents pertaining to social media marketing strategies, and social media pages and websites from the participating restaurants. These data were analyzed following Yin's 5-step analysis plan. Key themes that emerged were (a) social media platforms small family-style restaurant owners use to increase sales and were most effective, (b) employees' response to social media marketing strategies small family-style restaurant owners use to increase sales, and (c) relationship marketing. The implications for positive social change include the potential to increase the knowledge of future entrepreneurs and show them how technology can help them launch and grow their businesses faster creating an atmosphere of better customer services. Increasing the demand for employment can have a direct impact on decreasing the unemployment rate within the United States, particularly in the state of Maryland.

Social media is considered an important marketing tool for B2B companies that are operating in the current decade (Andersson and Wikström, 2017; Brink, 2017; Itani, Agnihotri and Dingus, 2017). As social media has become a well-researched topic over the last decade, it has become more popular for businesses and individuals to use (Andersson and Wikstrom, 2017; Lacka and Chong, 2016; Michaelidou, Siamagka and Christodoulides, 2011). However there are limited research on how specific industries are adopting social media (Siamagka et al., (2015). Therefore, this thesis will contribute with research on why the industrial industrys adopt social media as well as how they are using it (Ibid).   Ten industrial businesses working in Sweden have been used for the empirical data collection. A qualitative approach have been used for this study in order to satisfy the purpose. All of the interviewees have experience within social media adoption or are working with social media on a daily basis. The interviews were conducted through phone and lasted approximately 20-50 minutes.   The conclusion of this study is that academic research within this field are somewhat in an agreement with the empirical data provided within this study. The main reasons to why industrial B2B businesses are adopting social media is because businesses can reach their target customers in an easy and fast way, also the pressure from stakeholders and customers have been an important factor to why some of the practitioners within this study have adopted social media. The barriers and benefits of using social media goes hand in hand. As one of the main benefits is the communication with customers and the main barrier is the negative comments that businesses can get. Although this study has indicated that the benefits outweigh the barriers when adopting and using social media. Findings from this study has shown that LinkedIn is the most useful social networking sites for businesses to use and this statement is also confirmed with the academic research done within this field.

Research show that social media are effective channels to use in branding, at the same time Swedish municipalities are increasingly starting to see the importance of branding and reports show that  they are using social media channels for branding purposes. Even though reports show that the municipalities are using social media channels in branding there is a lack of studies done on how they are using social media in branding. To examine this two research questions is developed; (1) What is branding for a municipality and (2) How are municipalities using social media in branding. To examine the research questions different theories are applied and a conceptual framework is developed based on theories from branding, social media and branding in social media. To collect data for the research a qualitative study with three case studies (three Swedish municipalities) is conducted. The primary data from the three cases is collected through face to face interviews with employees responsible for the social media channels. Secondary information is gathered through observations of the municipalities social media channels examined in this thesis, and documents found on internet concerning the municipalities’ use of social media. The analysis of the data is done based on the conceptual framework presented in the theoretical chapter and consists of both within case studies and cross case studies in order to identify similarities and differences among the cases. The findings from this study show that both corporate, employee, and place branding is applied in the municipalities overall branding goals and strategies. Even though the municipalities are examined as organizations in this study employee and place branding goals are identified in order for the municipalities to reach their overall wanted position and image. A further conclusion is that social media has been effective in branding. Social media has enabled the municipalities to reach their branding goals through being transparent, informing, engaging and creating dialogues with their inhabitants and other publics. Through social media the municipalities have managed to establish, influence and create perceptions that have positively influenced their position and image. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have shown to be efficient social media channels to use in branding and has enabled the studied municipalities to change their perceived image from being unknown organizations to becoming more personal, transparent and increasing the public`s knowledge about the municipalities.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Nigerian post-independence history (1960 to the present date) is steeped in socio-political upheavals. The majority of the citizens are frustrated with the injustice, inequality and fraudulent politics that pervade the country. The central argument of this thesis is that these conditions are critiqued through the photographic practices produced on Facebook. Through the circulation of photographs and the conversations around them on the social media platform, Nigerians demand social change. The sociality that underpins the visuality of social networking is explained by Ariella Azoulay's notion of "civil discourse," which theoretically organises the thrust of this thesis. The formulation suggests that the photograph is an outcome of the interaction among many individuals. It is a site of exchange, a process which I have argued to be reinforced by digital and internet technology. For five years, I have followed the visual social production on Facebook in the context of virtual participant observation, downloading photographs and the comments that go with them. A number of the photographs and the accompanying comments are analysed with semiotic tools to understand the key concerns of Nigerians. To explain how the agitation is presented, and the efforts invested in the production, I have reflected on the related questions of technological mediations and appropriations. A network of digital infrastructure conditions the creation and editing of the photographs and their dissemination and meaning-making processes on Facebook. Again, the Nigerian example demonstrates how state failure fuels activism, insurgency and counter-insurgency, all of which are actuated by digital photographic production. In this situation, the photographic image is burdened with the task to produce violence and to counter it. What ultimately emerges are complex relations among people, photography and technology. I conclude that the virtual movement presents possibilities for socio-political transformation in Nigeria. From the perspective of photography, this thesis contributes to the debates in social media activism and how it is shaping politics in Africa. It demonstrates the possibility of reading the tensions in an African postcolony through the connected digital, visual and social practices of the ordinary people. We are prompted to acknowledge the influence of digital infrastructure in the political use of the image.