The popularity of social networking sites on the World Wide Web has exploded during the past two decades. As more and more K-12 public school teachers choose to actively participate on social networking sites, school leaders and school boards face the increasingly difficult decision about whether or not to enact policies which will enable them to discipline teachers for their online behavior. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the development, interpretation, and significance of one such policy.

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.

Este estudo aborda a utilização das mídias sociais como ferramenta para gestão de marcas. O tema se demonstra relevante por tratar de três assuntos considerados importantes na atualidade: gestão de marcas, marketing de relacionamento e redes sociais no ambiente virtual. A proposta do estudo é explorar se as organizações estão estabelecendo um relacionamento com seus clientes de forma que este promova o brand equity por meio do uso das redes sociais. Para se atingir os objetivos do estudo, foi realizada uma pesquisa exploratória de cunho qualitativo em que os dados foram coletados a partir do método netnográfico, ou seja, a partir da observação das informações que foram disponibilizadas publicamente nas páginas das marcas Coca-Cola, Microsoft e Google no site Facebook. A análise da pesquisa permitiu concluir que as três marcas observadas estão atuando no Facebook com o objetivo de se relacionar com seus consumidores, sendo que seu uso permite o engajamento natural das pessoas - seja por meio das mensagens postadas, que devem ser simples e conter em sua essência um conteúdo que promova o diálogo, a interação e confiança entre os participantes, evitando um teor que fale de si mesmo, ou seja por meio das ferramentas disponibilizadas. / This study addresses the use of social media as a tool for brand management. This is a (highly) relevant theme because it deals with three matters of current importance: brand management, relationship marketing and social networking in the virtual environment. The purpose of this study is to explore whether organizations are establishing a relationship with their customers so as to promote brand equity through the use of social networks. To achieve the objectives of the study, an exploratory qualitative character survey was conducted where data was collected from netnographic method, in other words, from the observation of the information that was publicly available on Coca-Cola, Microsoft and Google\'s pages on Facebook. The research analysis concluded that the three brands are seen using Facebook in order to relate to their customers, and its use promotes the natural engagement of persons - whether through postings, which should be simple and contain in its core a content that promotes dialogue, interaction and trust among participants, thus avoiding the company to speak of itself, or through the tools available.

Background: This study examines longitudinal associations of frequency of social media use, cyberbullying involvement, and online social network characteristics with depressive symptoms, social anxiety symptoms, and mental well-being at one year follow-up in a multi-ethnic sample of early adolescents living in areas of East London characterised by high levels of deprivation. Studies of the impact of adolescent social media use on mental health have primarily used cross-sectional data; longitudinal research is needed to investigate temporality and lasting mental health effects. Method: Longitudinal analyses (n=2480) of data from the NIHR funded Olympic Regeneration in East London (ORiEL) study examined the impact of baseline (aged 12-13) social media use including: frequency of instant messaging (IM) and social networking site (SNS) use, cyberbullying, and online network characteristics (network size and communication with strangers); on adolescent mental health outcomes including depression (measured using the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire), social anxiety (measured using the Mini Social Phobia Inventory) and well-being (measured using the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale) one year later. Results: After adjustment for gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, school and baseline mental health, cybervictims (13.6%) and cyberbully-victims (20.4%) had greater odds of reporting symptoms of depression (victims: OR=1.44, 95% CI [1.00, 2.06]; bully-victims: OR=1.54 95% CI [1.13, 2.09]), and symptoms of social anxiety (victims: OR=1.52, 95% CI [1.11, 2.07]; bully-victims: OR=1.44 95% CI [1.10, 1.89]) than their uninvolved peers. Communication with strangers (24.7%) was also associated with increased odds of depression (OR=1.35, 95% CI [1.04, 1.76]) at follow-up. Conclusions: Poorer mental health outcomes were reported by students who encountered risks online (i.e. those using IM at high frequencies, those who communicated with strangers online, and those victimised by cyberbullying). Given the prevalence of these risk factors, clinicians and public health practitioners should address social media activity when assessing adolescent mental health.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2016-09-16T13:29:37Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Guilherme Lopes Matsushita.pdf: 2680968 bytes, checksum: b14fa3efa97b57ce3b979654c6c32e12 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-16T13:29:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Guilherme Lopes Matsushita.pdf: 2680968 bytes, checksum: b14fa3efa97b57ce3b979654c6c32e12 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-04-06 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / With the recent emergence and the explosion of users in social networks, Internet users have come to know more about other people or companies through information obtained from online groups or communities and therefore meet new opportunities. An avalanche of diverse and unstructured information is created every minute, for billions of devices connected to the Internet all the time. Analyze, process, understand and evaluate these data, it’s a challenging task, given the volume, velocity and variety of information from these social networks. However, a better understanding of the process of monitoring networks and the use of tools of this kind are essential for people, companies and the academic world. The application of monitoring systems, information management and the possibility of bringing brands to people, are some positives that this research will provide better knowledge of the problems. In this research will be analyzed monitoring tool of social networks SCUP, its details, its features and the tool related to business management. In conclusion, we present all the peculiarities of the software and the possibilities applicable in the corporate environment, as aid to decision making / Com o surgimento recente e a explosão de usuários nas redes sociais, os internautas passaram a conhecer mais sobre outras pessoas ou empresas por meio de informações obtidas de grupos ou comunidades on-line e assim conhecer novas oportunidades. Uma avalanche de informações diversas e não estruturadas é criada minuto a minuto, por bilhões de dispositivos conectados na Internet à todo o momento. Analisar, processar, compreender e avaliar esses dados, é uma tarefa desafiadora, levando em conta o volume, a velocidade e a variedade das informações obtidas nessas redes sociais. Porém, uma melhor compreensão do processo de monitoramento das redes e a utilização de ferramentas desta natureza, são essenciais para as pessoas, as empresas e para o universo acadêmico. A aplicação de sistemas de monitoramento, a gestão da informação e a possibilidade de aproximar marcas às pessoas, são alguns pontos positivos que esta pesquisa irá apresentar conhecendo melhor a problemática. Nesta pesquisa será analisada a ferramenta de monitoramento de redes sociais SCUP, seus detalhes, suas funcionalidades e a relação da ferramenta com a gestão empresarial. Como conclusão, são apresentadas todas as particularidades do software e as possibilidades aplicáveis no ambiente corporativo, como um auxílio às tomadas de decisão

Social networking platforms (SNPs) are complex distributed software applications exhibiting many challenges related to data portability. Since existing platforms are propriety in design, users cannot easily share their data with other SNPs, however decentralisation of social networking platforms can provide a solution to this problem. There is a difference of opinion, the way the research and developer communities have pursued this issue. Existing approaches used in decentralisation provide limited structural detail and lack in providing a systematic framework of design activities. There is a need for an architectural framework based on standardised software architectural principles and technologies to guide the design and development of decentralised social networking platforms in order to improve the level of both data portability and interoperability. The main aim of this research is to develop an architectural solution to achieve data portability among SNPs via decentralisation. Existing proposed decentralised platforms are based on a distributed structure and are mainly for a specific aspect such as access control or security and privacy. In addition to this, existing approaches lack in practicality due to underdeveloped and non-standardised design. To solve these issues a new architectural framework is needed, which can provide design and development guidelines for the decentralised social networking platform. The goal of this thesis is to study, design and develop an architectural framework for social networking platforms that can incorporate the requirements of the decentralisation, to make portability possible. The synergies between the software engineering principles and social web technologies are investigated to create a standard approach. The proposed architecture is based on component-based software development (CBSD) and aspect-oriented software development (AOSD), a unified approach known as CAM (Component Aspect Model). The foundations of the proposed architecture are based on decentralised social networking architecture (DSNA), architectural style which is derived from CAM. Components and aspects are the building blocks of the proposed decentralised social networking platform architecture. From a development perspective, each component represents a social network functionality and aspects represent the properties and preferences that are used to decentralise the functionality. The model for the component composition is a major challenge because the use of CAM for social networks has not been attempted before. The proposed architecture comprehensively integrates the DSNA architectural style into each architectural component. Portability among SNPs by means of decentralisation can be summarised into three steps. (1) Definition of the architectural style, (2) implementation of the architectural style into components and (3) integration of the component composition. To date component composition approaches have not been used for social networks as a way to develop social network functionality. The concept of middleware has been adapted to achieve the composition feature of the architecture. In the architecture Social Network Support Layer (SNSL) functions as middleware to facilitate component composition. Existing middleware solutions still lack integration of CBSD and AOSD concepts. This limitation is characterised by, a lack of explicit guidelines for composition, a lack of declarative specification and definition model to express component composition and a lack of support for role allocation. This research overcome these limitations. The application of the architecture is based on the W3C SWAT (Social Web Acid Test) scenario. A Messaging application is developed to evaluate the scenario based on the Design Science Research Methodology. The architectural style is defined in the first stage of design followed by the component-based architecture. The architectural style is defined to guide the architecture and the component composition model. In the second stage, the design and implementation of composition technology (that is SNSL) are developed with architectural style and the rules defined in the first stage. The refined version of the architecture is evaluated in the third stage, according to WC3 SWAT test. The definitive version of the proposed architecture with the benchmarked result can be used to design and build social networking platforms, allowing users to share and collaborate information across the different social networking platforms.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / Background: The purpose of this study was to determine the association between social media dependence and depressive symptoms and also, to characterize the level of dependence. It was a transversal, analytical research. Subjects and Methods: The stratified sample was 212 students from a private university that used Facebook, Instagram and/or Twitter. To measure depressive symptoms, Beck Depression Inventory was used, and to measure the dependence to social media, the Social Media Addiction Test was used, adapted from the Internet Addiction Test of Echeburúa. The collected data were subjected for analysis by descriptive statistics where STATA12 was used. Results: The results show that there is an association between social media dependence and depressive symptoms (PR [Prevalence Ratio] = 2.87, CI [Confidence Interval] 2.03–4.07). It was also shown that preferring the use of Twitter (PR = 1.84, CI 1.21–2.82) over Instagram (PR = 1.61, CI 1.13–2.28) is associated with depressive symptoms when compared to the use of Facebook. Conclusion: Excessive social media use is associated with depressive symptoms in university students, being more prominent in those who prefer the use of Twitter over Facebook and Instagram. / Revisión por pares

This project expands root-metaphor analysis by examining the closure of a once popular social networking site, advancing critical interrogation of ownership vs. the idea of online spaces as “communities.” Yahoo! 360° participants used private sphere root-metaphors of home, family, and community constituting a space of intimacy, camaraderie, and care. The closing exposed previously unseen power differentials between participants and Yahoo! Participants reacted by using the metaphor of war and violence to frame the actions of Yahoo!

<p>This study aims to understand and explain how small sized</p><p>entrepreneurship currently uses social networking sites</p><p>through out the process of launching and marketing</p><p>their products. This also includes the use of word of mouth,</p><p>which features social networking technology. Lastly, we</p><p>intended to give recommendations to problems that small</p><p>sized entrepreneurship is facing in order to make the best</p><p>use of social networking channels and to ensure that these</p><p>channels are used in the most effective way.</p>

This study aims to understand and explain how small sized entrepreneurship currently uses social networking sites through out the process of launching and marketing their products. This also includes the use of word of mouth, which features social networking technology. Lastly, we intended to give recommendations to problems that small sized entrepreneurship is facing in order to make the best use of social networking channels and to ensure that these channels are used in the most effective way.