This paper complements theoretical and methodological considerations regarding social media in critical discourse studies as it addresses social media content policies as a key contextual element. Specifically, this paper argues that - and why - the exploration of content policies and their enforcement is indispensable when approaching social media platforms and social media data in particular from a critical perspective. A number of researchers have already begun to identify contextual elements that require particular attention when viewing social media and social media data through a CDS lens. However, social media sites' content policies, as pervasive contextual element, have not received adequate research attention yet. Drawing on Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA) and recent developments in Social Media CDS (SM-CDS), this paper first demonstrates the existing gap in research. Then, it contends that social media sites' content policies deserve more detailed attention in SM-CDS, argues why this is the case and elaborates on the different aspects of content policies and policy enforcement that require examination. After detailed theoretical discussion of this, empirical evidence to support this argument is presented in the form of a case study of Wikipedia and Wikipedia data.

Magister Artium (Sport, Recreation and Exercise Science) - MA(SRES) / Social networking sites are important communication tools used in different industries including the sports industry. Professional athletes, coaches, spectators, journalists, and broadcasters from nearly every sports code maintain a social media presence. The rapid growth in the use of social networks in sport and the challenging economic climate launched an urgent need for sport administration departments at universities to understand SNSs and how student spectators use these sites in the realm of university sport. This understanding serves as an attempt to enhance spectator attendance at university sports games through the use of SNSs by integrating these sites into marketing strategies. Sports spectators are key constituents of sports event attendance, however, little is known regarding whether a relationship exists between students’ activities on SNSs and their spectator behaviour. Subsequently, the purpose of this study was to examine and describe the relationship between the use of SNSs and student spectator behaviour in university sport by considering attendance, loyalty, trust, and commitment as determinants of behaviour. A quantitative methodological approach was adopted to collect data, using a cross-sectional research design. By applying a random sampling method, 540 full-time registered university students provided consent to participate in this study. An online survey was distributed to the entire student population, N=24000. All significance levels were set at p<0.05. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) V.25 software. Results showed statistical significance, p<0.00, for the relationship between the use of SNSs and student spectator behaviour during student spectator attendance of university sports games. No statistical significance was found in the relationship between the use of SNSs and student spectator behaviour before and after student spectator attendance of university sports games. These results suggest that greater investment should be placed in marketing through SNSs in order to develop, increase, and retain longstanding relationships of loyalty, trust, and commitment with student spectators in the fast-growing segment of social media and spectatorship.

Female influencers have during the last years reached great success on social media, they are popular and influential with a lot of followers who they have a close bond with. Therefore, they are frequently used as a third part of corporate marketing strategies. The content on social media have however been criticised for only presenting an edited and happy picture of life. Thereby, the purpose of this study was to analyse the five biggest influencers in Sweden and their self-representation concerning happiness on Instagram. More specifically to study how happiness is constructed discursively. The study was based on posts published during 2018 and was conducted through a discourse analysis inspired by Laclau and Mouffe, focusing on happiness as an empty signifier. The theoretical starting point of this essay was based on Ahmed´s (2010) argumentations about happiness, Gill´s (2007) understanding of postfeminism and Hochschild´s (2003) comprehension of feelings as a part of labour. The results showed that happiness was both expressed as a process and as a state of mind, where happiness either could be reached through change and improvement or by loving yourself just the way you are. The results also showed that happiness was used as a tool within their self-representation in order to market products and services. Furthermore, their relationships were constructed as an ideal for a happy life. Finally, setbacks and problems were expressed as an opportunity to grow and learn in order to experience greater happiness in the future.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Wits Business School to fulfilments of the requirements of a Master of Management by Research 30 March 2015 / Our understanding of the psychological construct of sense of community has been developing steadily, particularly since the publication of the seminal work by McMillan and Chavis (1986). Pertinent to this study, the sense of community construct has been applied to the virtual world, leading to the concept of sense of virtual community (SoVC), that is, a sense of community felt by members of a virtual community. This study synthesises the findings of the extant literature to build a multi-dimensional model of sense of community. Moving to a specific context, this study examines SoVC among members of cause-related virtual communities. Examples of such communities can be found in the Facebook communities that have developed around the various branches of the Red Cross and of World Vision. Among members of such communities, some level of support for the mediating cause organisation can be presumed to exist. This is referred to in this dissertation as Passion for the Cause (PFC). Empirical and theoretical work on the interaction between SoVC and PFC is lacking. This study investigates the extent to which SoVC and PFC are associated and seeks to bring clarity to the nature of the association. The research instrument was an online self-completion survey. The Facebook pages of South African cause organisations were used to invite community members to complete the survey. Respondents were participants in the Facebook-based communities of South African cause organisations (n = 67). The research instrument included a scale for SoVC (12 items) and a scale for PFC (6 items). An exploratory factor analysis was done to identify the latent factors of SoVC in this context. Adequate support was found for the conceptualisation of three factors of SoVC, namely, General Benefit, Friendship, and Helping. This was followed by a series of multiple regression analyses aimed at testing the relationships between PFC and SoVC and its factors. SoVC and PFC were found to be highly correlated. Furthermore, PFC was found to significantly predict SoVC. It was also found to predict the SoVC factor conceptualised as General Benefit. Finally, SoVC was found to predict PFC. Notably, PFC was found to be less able to predict SoVC than was SoVC able to predict PFC. Implications for the moderators of cause-related virtual communities are discussed. / MB2016

Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of Degree Master of Arts in Sociology In the Graduate School of Humanities School of Social Sciences Department of Sociology University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg 2016. / The advent of new media, more specifically social media, has galvanized and radically revolutionized how religion is experienced, lived and expressed in (South) Africa. Social media has transmogrified the orthodox and normative modes of religious engagement and interaction. Day-to-day religious practices have become highly reliant on the (new) media. It is only logical therefore to foreground and locate the (new) media within the deeper inquiries relating to social phenomenon and social life. Social media has become the benchmark for understanding the transitions with regards to conceptualizing social phenomenon like Neo-Pentecostalism, which in recent times has taken the African continent by storm. This study explores how church performances and practices of controversial South African Neo-Pentecostal church End Time Disciples Ministries, led by notoriously shady and delinquent Prophet Penuel are represented on Facebook. The study is interested in analysing the online representations of church performance of this particular church. Moreover, the study committed at understanding how audiences (those who engage and interact on Facebook page) decode and interpret the messages and representational exhibitions disseminated through the church’s Facebook page. Through the employment of a rigorous Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA), both visual and lexical semiotic choices on the Facebook page were analysed in order to demystify discursive, ideological and investments of power. It must be lamented that the intersections between religion and new/social media have been marginally ignored within qualitative epistemic inquiries. This study provides a breath of fresh air in that regard. The current status quo enlightens us that social relations have become vehemently digitized. It is therefore relevant and expedient for digital platforms to be taken seriously within sociological intellectual inquests. Church performances are receiving great impetus and potency on new/social media domains but minimal scholastic investment has been channelled in that direction. The End Time Disciple Ministries Facebook page is a platform where the most salient and non-salient representational projects of violence, power, exploitation, manipulation, hegemony, patriarchy are exhibited for public broadcast and consumption. / MT2017

While most media-memory research focuses on particular cultural repository sites, memorials, traumatic events, media channels, or commemorative practices as objects of study to understand the construction of collective memory, this dissertation suggests it is our activity, participation, and interaction with digital content through multimodal platforms and social media applications that demonstrate how communities articulate shared memory in the new media landscape. This study examines the discursive interpretations of cultural heritage practitioners and participations from the Getty Research Institute, the Prelinger Archive and Library, and the Willamette Heritage Center to better understand how multimodal platforms are being used, how this use is changing the roles of the heritage practitioners and participants in the construction of meaning, and what types of multimodal memory practices are emerging. This research also underscores a reassessment of what constitutes heritage artifacts, authenticity, curatorial authority, and multimodal participation in digital cultural heritage. My methodological approach for this research takes a multilateral form of data collection, including in-depth interviewing, participant observations, and thematic analysis, informed by the theoretical frameworks of collective memory, remediation, and gatekeeping and unified by the social theories of art practice, social constructionism, symbolic interactionism, and actor-network theory. My primary recommendation from this research is that our digital practices of contributing, appropriating, repurposing, and sharing digital content represent new forms of memory practice in a multimodal context. I propose that these multimodal memory practices of interacting with digital content using different devices across different networks coalesce into platformed communities of memory, where communities are shaped and collective memory is shared by our interaction through social networks. I suggest that we need to think of social media output and metadata as being new forms of cultural heritage artifacts and legitimate social records. I also contend that metadata analysis presents new considerations and opportunities for studying the memory of digital content and institutional memory. It is my hope that these conclusions clarify our contemporary memory practices in the digital era so that we can better understand whose voices will be most prominent in the future articulation of how we remember the past.

Among college students in Ghana, the new media app WhatsApp has been widely adopted as a medium for both communication and sexual exploration. Drawing on a classical media effects theory Uses and Gratifications, this mixed method research is designed to investigate sexual practices staged on WhatsApp among college students in Ghana. This study surveyed 314 students, along with in-depth interviews with eight respondents from the African University College of Communications in Accra, Ghana, to investigate the practice of viewing and circulating sexually explicit materials on WhatsApp. Key findings from this study with the exception of impact of sexual content on both male and female college students, point to no statistically significant differences in sexual gratifications on WhatsApp. This thesis delineates the various forms of motivations regarding the use of WhatsApp as a sexual gratification platform.

The mediated closeness experienced by social media users is built on the ongoing accumulation of personal information by corporate owned social media platforms. Each user’s digital footprint becomes more intricate as this collection continues across their life’s procession, leaving something behind after they die. Social media platforms have become intimately insinuated into life and finally, into death. These haphazard archives were never created with death or grief in mind. But users die, and their friends and family use social media to grieve; death isn’t something a platform or its users can avoid. This thesis examines the ways that death and grief are experienced and how social media is facilitating and changing that process. The study approaches social media and death historically, discursively, and economically. It discusses the history of mediated death, the experience of grief over social media, and the political economy of the socially mediated dead.

Introdução: O Facebook é o maior site de rede social do mundo e uma importante ferramenta de comunicação. A maneira como os profissionais de enfermagem utilizam-no pode acarretar implicações éticas e legais para si e para as instituições de saúde. Objetivo: Conhecer as representações sociais de enfermeiros sobre o uso do Facebook por profissionais de enfermagem. Metodologia: Trata-se de estudo qualitativo realizado com doze enfermeiros do Estado de São Paulo por meio de entrevista com questões norteadoras. Após a aprovação do Comitê de Ética em Pesquisa, houve a obtenção dos depoimentos que foram gravados, transcritos e analisados de acordo com o Discurso de Sujeito Coletivo com fundamentação na Teoria das Representações Sociais de Serge Moscovici. Resultados: Após a análise emergiram cinco Ideias Centrais e seus respectivos Discursos do Sujeito Coletivo: O Facebook como ferramenta de comunicação do profissional de enfermagem; A imaturidade do profissional de enfermagem no uso do Facebook; A fragilidade da ética do profissional da enfermagem no uso do Facebook; A prudência como virtude do profissional de enfermagem no uso do Facebook e O uso do Facebook como instrumento gerencial. Conclusões: O Facebook é um importante instrumento de comunicação que contribui, em decorrência de seu uso, na geração de representações sociais da enfermagem. A imagem que o uso do Facebook tem consolidado do profissional da área é de imaturidade no uso da rede social e fragilidade ética pela possibilidade de quebra de privacidade e de confidencialidade. Essa última pode estar relacionada à falta de discussões e reflexões durante a formação e prática profissional e ao fato de ser um meio de comunicação relativamente novo que carece de divulgação de regulamentações. Os enfermeiros percebem tal situação e reconhecem a necessidade de desenvolver a prudência como virtude ética. Para tanto, recomendam ações, a fim de evitar possíveis infrações éticas, pautadas nos princípios éticos e no Código de Ética da Enfermagem, além de alertarem que essa mídia social tem sido cada vez mais utilizada como instrumento de análise para recrutamento e gerenciamento de recursos humanos na área. / Background: Facebook is considered to be one of the largest existing online platforms for social networking and is also an important communication tool communication tool. The way that nursing professionals use this tool may have important health and legal implications to themselves and to health institutions Objective: To explore nurses social representations about the use of Facebook by nursing professionals. Method: A qualitative study was conducted with twelve nurses from São Paulo State using guided questions one-to-one interviews. After the Research Ethics Committee approval, the interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using the Collective Subject Discourse, following Serge Moscovici\'s Theory of Social Representations. Findings: Five Central Ideas and their Collective Subject Discourses were identified: \"Facebook as a nursing professional communication tool\"; \"The nursing professionals immaturity when using Facebook\"; \"The fragility of the nursing professionals ethics in the use of Facebook\"; \"Discretion as an important virtue for nurses when using Facebook\" and \"Facebook as a management tool.\" Conclusions: Facebook is an important communication tool that contributes to social representations of the nursing profession. Nurses understand the use of Facebook by other nursing professionals as being immature and often unethical, which may compromise patients and professionals privacy and confidentiality. This might be a reflection of the lack of discussions about the use of social media by health professionals during training and practice and of the fact that Facebook is a relatively new communication channel with not well established and disseminated confidentiality regulations. Nurses recognize the need for improvement of nurses discretion as ethical virtue when using social media. Participants recommended the implementation of actions based on ethical principles and on the Code of Ethics of Nursing to prevent ethical infractions. They also warned about the potential implications around the use of social media as a means of recruitment and human resources management in the area.

This study will, with the help of young people aged 15, strive to increase the knowledge about the importance of social media (with a delimitation to Instagram and Snapchat) in the everyday lives and social relationships of young people. To achieve this, the essay will focus on how young people describe their own experiences and experiences through the collection of data in the form of interviews through focus groups. The collection of the empirical material has been done through qualitative research method. We have used focus group interviews aimed at five groups where the informants were selected by criteria-controlled selection. Social media provides advantages and disadvantages. It is really just the latest tool that makes it possible to do what we have always done through the ages, which is to communicate with each other and tell stories, but now in a more exciting and creative way than ever with social media as a tool.