Since the introduction of online HTTP-cookies, the technology has been widely discussed, both in terms of its actual function, as well as what it can do to users’ behaviors on the Internet. Cookies are small unique text files found within websites on the Internet that can collect and store personal information in order to enhance the users’ experience, as well as to provide the website with essential information about the user. By a literature review that was conducted on the subject, an unawareness among Internet users of how websites use cookies was found. Most users do not know what kind of information a cookie can store and how their privacy today can be violated. With this in mind, we conducted a internet based survey and a focus group interview to study journalism students and media and communication students knowledge about websites usage of cookies and furthermore, how the students opine the technology. This, since they are expected to have a higher knowledge than the general student about the subject since they are studying to assumably work within branches where they may have important parts regarding ICT in the future. By applying Michel Foucault theory Panopticon, Jürgen Habermas The Public Sphere and Sandra Petronio’s Communication Privacy Management Theory to the result of the study, we could see that there is a general unawareness among the students about what kind of information a cookie can collect. Also, the students express negative opinions regarding this harvesting of information, yet little effort is made to obstruct or deny web sites’ use of cookies.

In the age of the Internet, extreme groups have seen resurgence in the way they can communicate and recruit through the new medium whether they are white supremacists or hacktivists. Examining the history and modern behaviors of both white supremacy groups and Anonymous, this paper aims to research and answer how the different groups use the Internet to influence identities and if the methods to do so differ from the old ones and through the use of several concepts, mainly the Echo Chamber and the Filter Bubble, narrow down the effects that leads to a person joining an extreme group.

Dual process theories of mind have been developed over the last decades to posit that humans use heuristics or mental shortcuts (automatic) and analytical (reflective) reasoning while consuming information. Can such theories be used to support users' information consumption in the presence of problematic content in online spaces? To answer, I merge these theories with the idea of affordances from HCI to into the concept of dual process cognitive affordances, consisting of automatic affordance and reflective affordance. Using this concept, I built and tested a set of systems to address two categories of online problematic content: misinformation and filter bubbles. In the first system, NudgeCred, I use cognitive heuristics from the MAIN model to design automatic affordances for better credibility assessment of news tweets from mainstream and misinformative sources. In TransparencyCue, I show the promise of value-centered automatic affordance design inside news articles differentiating content quality. To encourage information consumption outside their ideological filter bubble, in NewsComp, I use comparative annotation to design reflective affordances that enable active engagement with stories from opposing-leaning sources. In OtherTube, I use parasocial interaction, that is, experiencing information feed through the eyes of someone else, to design a reflective affordance that enables recognition of filter bubbles in their YouTube recommendation feeds. Each system shows various degrees of success and outlines considerations in cognitive affordances design. Overall, this thesis showcases the utility of design strategies centered on dual process information cognition model of human mind to combat problematic information space. / Doctor of Philosophy / Over the last several decades, billions of users have moved to the internet for everyday information gathering, allowing information flow around the globe at a massive scale. This flow is managed by algorithms personalized to each users' need, creating a complicated trio of producer-algorithm-consumer. This has resulted in some unforeseen challenges. Bad information producers takes the advantage of system to promote problematic content, such as, false information, termed as misinformation. Personalized algorithms have created filters of what people see oftentimes isolating them from diverse perspectives of information, creating a distorted perception of reality. Augmenting the online technology infrastructure to combat these challenges has become crucial and the overall goal of this thesis. Cognitive psychologists theorize that two cognitive processes are at play when people consume information, also known as dual process theories. Can we design new tools to combat these challenges by tapping into each of these processes? In this thesis, I answer this question through a series of studies. In each of these studies, I combine this theory from psychology with design guides from Human-Computer Interaction to design socio-technical design. I evaluated each of these systems through controlled experimentation. The result of these studies informs ways we can capitalize on users' information processing mechanism to combat various types of problematic information online.

The purpose of Att vara en i mängden… – En studie om religiös isolering på Facebook (Running with the pack… – A study on religious isolation on Facebook) is to gain an understanding of religious isolation between Christian, Jewish, Muslim and non-religious people. Further, the purpose is also to gain insight on how Christians, Jews and Muslims experience Facebook as a platform for expressing religious identity. The study was made using a concurrent mixed method, combining quantitative and qualitative methods, targeting Swedish Facebook users. The theoretical framework behind the study is The Spiral of Silence, by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann.The results indicate that religious isolation exists, and that it effects how prone users are to self-disclose about their religious identity. Also, the study shows that public opinion does not affect how prone users are to self-disclose. Rather, it is determined by the perceived opinion of the people in the user’s Facebook network. Due to the algorithm used by Facebook to filter users’ newsfeed, the recommendation to all Facebook users is to deliberately show interest to a diversity of religious content

The media play an indisputable role in human life. Thus, we come across media communication daily in today's world. Online social networks have had a significant role in such communication over the past decade. The Facebook social network presents an example of such a phenomenon, which does not have a rival in terms of its size in the Czech Republic. It has rapidly become a communication media through which millions of people around the world consume various content. In recent years, this platform has been applying and continually adjusting its algorithm to provide users with personalized content. The personalized content is provided on the basis of the algorithm which evaluates what might be appropriate or interesting for people. From this point of view, this thesis called Filter bubbles on Facebook social network is examining the existence of a so-called filter bubble phenomenon. The information bubbles present information isolation in which people lack a diversity of information which would help people to get into an opinion diversification, and therefore to have an opportunity to have a new point of view about a certain phenomenon. Through the combined qualitative method of diaries and subsequent interviews, it explores how young people consume news content on this social network and, above...

The purpose of this paper is to explore web use and web navigation behavior. This paper presents findings from qualitative research based on interviews and diarie studies. The basis of this study is Eli Parisers work about “the filter bubble”. As personalization systems shape our experience of the web, based on who we are, our bubble of knowledge and information becomes smaller. But it’s not only how technology works to show us a narrow part of reality. Our own choices about websites, content and the activities on the web, lead us into another type of bubble. A behavior bubble. A bubble where all the content we consume is interesting. The conclusion of this paper is that narrow web navigation behavior can be observed among all subjects studied irrespective of age and devices used, whereas monotonous web navigation behavior only can be identified among individuals using a smartphone for web browsing.

abstract: The “filter bubble” has been a heated discussion topic since several years ago. In addition to possible algorithmic contribution to this phenomenon, people’s selective exposure tendency may be another primary cause of the “filter bubble” on social media. Prior research indicates that, under the influence of selective exposure tendency, people tend to perceive pro-attitudinal news as more credible than counter-attitudinal news, with strong partisans more likely to be affected. The proposed thesis seeks to examine whether the perceived credibility of a news source and story on social media is influenced by selective exposure and strength of partisanship. Through an experimental study via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, 468 participants chose or were assigned to read an ostensible news story from a social media feed with the news source and ideological slant varied between participants. The results showed that people reported higher perceived source and story credibility when the source and stories were pro-attitudinal (consistent with their political ideology) as opposed to counter-attitudinal, regardless of participants’ age, race, perceived credibility of news from social media, in general, and strength of partisanship. However, contrary to the hypotheses, selective exposure behavior (i.e., choosing a preferred news source before reading a news story) did not affect credibility perceptions when participants read counter-attitudinal news from a pro-attitudinal source. Last, strength of partisanship did not moderate the influence of selective exposure on credibility perceptions. In sum, this study suggests that although selective exposure tendency may affect people’s credibility perceptions and contribute to “filter bubbles,” the impact of selective exposure behavior may be overestimated in terms of perceived source and story credibility of news on social media. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Public Administration 2020

Purpose – At the beginning of this year the number of social media user worldwide was recorded to be at 3.80 billion and is estimated to keep rising (Kemp, 2020). Along with this connectivity, new concepts have been acknowledged that have caused some controversy. These concepts have been named echo chambers and filter bubbles. This study investigates how social media users experience personalisation algorithms and the perceived existence of filter bubbles and echo chambers on various social media platforms and channels. Furthermore, it explores to what extent these users make use of strategies when navigating their social media feeds and if they believe that said strategies have any effect on personalisation algorithms, filter bubbles, and echo chambers. Method – Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 participants currently studying at Jönköping University. The interviews were then transcribed and analysed using a thematic approach.  Findings – The perception of students at Jönköping University is that filter bubbles and echo chambers exist in a varying degree of visibility and commonality depending on the situation and medium. These are also experienced to be interconnected with personalisation algorithms. The experience of personalisation algorithms is mainly positive, as it allows the users to easily navigate the feed but negative implications are also mentioned.  These are isolation, the negative strengthening and creation of filter bubbles or echo chambers. However, the algorithm is not believed to be the only thing responsible for the creation. The users believe that their own navigation and strategies can have such an effect. The strategies that users use are (1) Passive navigation, (2) Source evaluation, (3) Multiple source searching, (4) Responsibility taking, and the (5) Creation of filter bubbles. The effect these have on filter bubbles, personalisation algorithms and echo chambers is helping, to an extent, alleviate some of the negative effects that these are experienced to have. However, the passive navigation and creation of filter bubbles have a somewhat opposite effect as they help the creation or maintaining of filter bubbles and personalisation algorithms. Implications – The findings in this study build on existing evidence of echo chambers being more easily formed when the topic of discussion is of a political nature, as it is described by Barberá, Jost, Nagler, Tucker, and Bonneau (2015) in their research on how echo chambers form on Twitter. Furthermore, these findings could be considered to disagree with the research of Dubois and Blank (2018) who found that people who had a high political interest were less likely of ending up in an echo chamber. Although, due to their research taking all media into account, such as television, radio, newspaper, and so forth, while the current study is focused on social media alone the comparison is a bit more difficult to make. Finally, in the study made by Seargeant and Tagg (2019), it was concluded that the personalisation algorithms are not the sole contributor to filter bubbles forming on Facebook and that the users play a key role in how their online environment is shaped. The results of this study build on their research that the users do use strategies when navigating that affect what is being shown to them on their social media feeds. However, the participants of the current study claimed that the algorithms played a pretty large role too, which is not quite in line with the research conducted by Seargeant and Tagg (2019). Limitations – The generalisability of this study is limited due to the small sample size chosen to conduct this study, although instead, it provides deeper insight into the relationship between humans and their social media platforms and channels. Moreover, a bias that should be acknowledged is that when conducting interviews there is a risk of encountering response bias, which is when the participants assume the purpose of the study and adapt their answers to fit what they believe the researcher(s) want to hear. To avoid this precautions were taken when designing the questions to make sure that they would not lead the participants in any directions.

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Sociala medier blir en allt viktigare nyhetskanal för unga vuxna. Denna utveckling har gjort att medieforskare ifrågasätter huruvida sociala medier är kapabla att utbilda och informera på samma sätt som de fysiska formaten gjort med tidigare generationer. Vissa har funnit att möjligheten att filtrera nyhetsflödet innebär en risk att användaren försätter sig i en filterbubbla där endast åsikter och tankar som stämmer överens med deras egna kommer igenom. Andra menar istället att sociala medier ger ett rikare utbud med större variation. Klart står att journalistens roll som grindvakt för vad som publiceras blir mindre viktig och att vem som helst numera kan yttra sina åsikter och potentiellt nå ut till en stor massa med dessa. Denna studie undersöker och ger insikter om hur unga vuxna sållar i sitt Facebookflöde, hur de definierar tillförlitlighet i nyhetsmedia och hur de utifrån detta avgör vad som är tillförlitligt och inte i sitt flöde. Studien består av kvalitativa intervjuer och ett observationsexperiment där respondenterna får scrolla igenom ett fiktivt Facebookflöde. Resultaten visar att bedömningen som görs ofta är medveten och går mycket snabbt, samt att det är få inlägg som anses leva upp till deras definition av tillförlitliga. Även om Facebook visar sig vara en vanlig nyhetskälla är det få av respondenterna som anser den vara bra och tillförlitlig. / Social media is becoming a more and more important news medium for young adults. This development has lead media researchers to question whether social media is as capable of educating and informing these young adults as the legacy media did the generations before them. Some argue that social media, with its ability to filter the news feed, might place users in a filter bubble lacking any challenging views. Others argue that social media encourages a diverse news and information feed. What's clear is that the role of the journalist as gatekeeper has diminished, and that anyone is now able to voice their opinions to a big audience. This study investigates how young adults sift through their Facebook feed, how they define reliability in news media, and how they assess their social news feed based on this. The study consists of qualitative interviews and an observational experiment where the respondents scrolled through a fictive Facebook feed. The results show that the assessment made is often very quick and deliberate, and that few news posts live up their definition of reliable, namely objective and transparent. Although Facebook is a common news source, few consider it to be a good and reliable one.