Thesis (M.A. (Media Studies)) --University of Limpopo, 2013 / Social Networking Sites (SNS) are quickly becoming some of the most popular tools for social interaction and information exchange. This study investigates the benefits and risks of social networks by comparing two schools in Capricorn district namely Sekitla High School and Capricorn High School. Through increased internet and media literacy – ensuring all young people develop the skills to critically understand, analyse and create media content – these challenges can overcome and risks mitigated in a way that ensures the many benefits of SNS can be realised. The results reveal great significant difference in the online activity patterns between men and women. Girls tend to be in great danger than the boys. There is a disparity between the genders in terms of their attitudes, behaviours, and needs. Therefore the study concludes that there are certain risks in social networking and they can be overcome if the learners are more willing to help their teachers and parents by disclosing any information that can be a threat to them and their education by mainly using social networks for educational purposes. Key words; Gender, social networks, internet, benefits, risks, learners

Thesis (M.A. (Media Studies)) --University of Limpopo, 2013 / Social Networking Sites (SNS) are quickly becoming some of the most popular tools for social interaction and information exchange. This study investigates the benefits and risks of social networks by comparing two schools in Capricorn district namely Sekitla High School and Capricorn High School. Through increased internet and media literacy – ensuring all young people develop the skills to critically understand, analyse and create media content – these challenges can overcome and risks mitigated in a way that ensures the many benefits of SNS can be realised. The results reveal great significant difference in the online activity patterns between men and women. Girls tend to be in great danger than the boys. There is a disparity between the genders in terms of their attitudes, behaviours, and needs. Therefore the study concludes that there are certain risks in social networking and they can be overcome if the learners are more willing to help their teachers and parents by disclosing any information that can be a threat to them and their education by mainly using social networks for educational purposes. Key words; Gender, social networks, internet, benefits, risks, learners

Recent years witnessed incredibly increasing popularity of online social networking sites around the globe. The emergence of new social media, including online social networking sites, brings the communication world a brand-new area to explore. The success of Facebook and MySpace in the U.S. has attracted a considerate number of communication scholars to examine this phenomenon from different perspectives. As the most cutting-edge tool to investigate a newly-grown medium, uses and gratifications perspective focuses on why people use social media, and how people use them to satisfy their needs. In this study, the most popular online social networking site in China, Renren, was selected to investigate the uses and gratifications of Chinese college students. Four motivations, that is, socializing, entertainment, self-status seeking, and information seeking, were utilized to measure how much weight Chinese college students give to each motivation. Culture's impact on the usage of online social networking sites was also investigated. The concept of interdependent self-construal and independent self-construal was borrowed to examine how culture could play a role in SNS use among Chinese college students. The study found Chinese college students use SNS to gratify their needs of socializing, entertainment, information seeking, while self-status seeking seems to be a weaker factor of SNS use. Six themes emerged in the study including: 1) vision and outlook expansion, 2) friendship maintenance, 3) a sense of self-worth, 4) information seeking, 5) entertainment, and 6) cultivated as a habit, to pass time. In addition, Chinese college students seem to have independent self-construal rather than interdependent self-construal, but the tendency is weak and self-report statistics show they tend to give moderate answers regarding to the self-construal. The influence of different self-construals towards motives in using Renren is subtle. Further explanations of observed finding were provided in the thesis.

Master of Arts / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Dana M. Britton / The literature on friendship and social networks finds that individuals form social ties with people who are like them; this is termed "homophily." Several researchers demonstrate that social networks and social ties are homophilous with regard to race and class, for example. However, few studies have explored the relationship of homophily to the social ties of lesbians, and fewer still have explicitly examined sexual orientation as a point of homophily. This study intends to help fill that gap by looking at homophily among lesbian social ties, as well as how urban and non-urban residency might shape homophily and lesbian social ties. I gathered data that would answer the following central research questions: Are lesbian social ties homophilous and if so around what common characteristics? What are lesbians' experiences with community resources and how does this influence their social ties? How does population influence lesbian social ties? Data for this research come from 544 responses to an internet survey that asked lesbians about their social ties, their interests and activities and those of their friends, and the cities or towns in which they resided. Using the concepts of status and value homophily, I attempt to make visible some of the factors and forces that shape social ties for lesbians.

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Since the early 1960s, scholars and policymakers have struggled to understand the appropriate role of government in effectively using resources to alleviate poverty. While early U.S. anti-poverty efforts emphasized place-based strategies, such as government-directed infrastructure investments, approaches have gradually shifted to favor civil sector efforts that build community capacity. Efforts to strengthen community capacity have emphasized enhancement of community participation, improvement of governance and strengthening of accountability. Yet, despite the growing emphasis on capacity building, rural regions such as the US-Mexico border region, Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta and Native American country have remained poor.This dissertation argues that government institutions have failed to improve conditions in poor, rural regions because current efforts ignore the broader context and fail to understand the needs of both formal organizations and informal participants. This research argues that without an adequate conceptual framework for assessing these three factors - the structural environment, community-based organizations, and local society -- federal investments cannot change local conditions. A conceptual model integrating these factors is applied to the case of poor, unincorporated colonias located in Arizona and New Mexico counties bordering Mexico. The empirical application of the conceptual model relies on methods integrating both regional and local analysis. The regional analysis is used to develop a socioeconomic index of deprivation. The index accomplishes two objectives. First, it reveals patterns of deprivation, uncovering the relationship between the impact of location (proximity to metropolitan and border areas) on the level of socioeconomic deprivation. Second, it is applied to select five cases for further analysis. The local analysis integrates qualitative research and formal social network methods. Unlike other studies of community capacity, which mostly rely on qualitative case studies, formal social network analysis is used to identify structural differences regarding how community organizations and individuals build autonomy and linkage with local and non-local organizations to improve the quality of life.This research improves understanding - both from conceptual and methodological perspectives -- of how to analyze rural poverty so as to better design federal government programs that will better serve poor communities, especially those in unincorporated areas.

No description available.

In order to develop a better understanding of the process of development and deployment of automated systems, this thesis examines aspects of project execution and knowledge transfer in the context of a large automation project. <br /><br /> Background issues of project execution are examined, including the challenges of knowledge sharing in project development, as well as a brief discussion of measures of project success. The lifecycle of a large automation project is presented, including aspects of development and the development team, as well as design challenges inherent in the development process of a successful automation project which consisted of approximately 11,000 hours of combined effort by vendor and customer development teams. <br /><br /> Human factors aspects of large automation projects are explored, including an investigation of the workings of a large project team, by examining the cognitive aspects of the project team, as well as ecological aspects of the automation development process. <br /><br /> Using an interview methodology that can be termed the "echo method", project team members were interviewed in order to elicit helpful and unhelpful behaviours exhibited by other team members throughout the project. The results of these interviews are categorized and examined in the context of both knowledge management and social networks. Common themes in interview comments are identified, and related to both the areas of knowledge management and social networks. <br /><br /> Results indicated that team member experience and availability affect overall team performance. However, overlapping capabilities within a team were found to allow the team to adapt to changing circumstances, as well as to overcome weaknesses in team member availability. Better understanding of team interactions and capabilities supports improvements in project performance, ultimately delivering higher quality automation and streamlining the development process.