In addition to recruitment pressures felt by all in higher education, community colleges have the unique challenge of communicating with students of all ages, interests, and academic levels, and doing so with limited staff and resources. Many recruiters have turned to social media as an important tool for reaching potential students. However, for community colleges with few staff, social media communication can be difficult and time-consuming. This study explores how community college administrators are using social media as a recruitment tool, and how this use aligns with students' needs and expectations. This two-part study employs uses and gratifications theory to guide qualitative interviews with the social media administrators at three Virginia community colleges and focus groups with current students at each of the colleges. This study takes a unique approach to theory by comparing the uses and gratifications of both the message creator and user. Social media administrators at the community colleges were found to use social media to gratify their awareness, recruitment, and reach/engagement needs. Students thinking about the recruitment process were found to expect community colleges' social media content to gratify their needs for socialization, discovery, and access. Administrators are meeting many of the students' reported social media recruitment needs but could use the data provided in this study to improve their social media efforts in a few emerging areas. / Master of Arts

Varför sitter människor i flera timmar och tittar på när någon annan spelar ett dator/tv-spel? Idag har spelstreaming vuxit sig stort och flera miljoner väljer att titta på spelandet. I vår undersökning kommer vi att svara på vad som motiverar vissa människor att titta på spelstreams genom en kvalitativ intervjustudie. Från den data som vi samlar in från intervjuer tar vi ut de motivationsfaktorer som nämns och delar in dem i fem behovskategorier: cognitive, affective, personal integrative, social integrative samt tension release. Genom vår studie så blev det klart att samma person kan titta på spelstreams vid olika tillfällen, med olika motiv. De två absolutvanligaste motiven till att se på spelstreams var underhållning och att lära sig något. / Why do people sit for hours to watch someone else play a videogame? Today gamingstreaming has grown large and millions of people choose to watch others play games. In our study we will answer what motivates people to watch gamingstreams through a qualitative interview study. From the data that we collect through interviews we will extract the motivationsfactors mentioned and sort them by five need-categories: cognitive, affective, personal integrative, social integrative and tension release. Our study showed that the same person can watch gamingstreams with different motives at different times. The two most common motives for watching thestreams was entertainment and learning something new.

Syftet med denna studie är att ta reda på hur stor andel studenter det är som tar del av nyheter på Facebook, och identifiera vad som kännetecknar dessa personer. Undersökningen görs med grund i att nyheter får allt mer utrymme i facebookflödet vilket är något som bidrar till större klyftor i människors nyhetskonsumtion. Fortsättningsvis blir det relevant att utvidga förståelsen för vilka dessa konsumenter är. Studien har genomförts med en kvantitativ metod i form av en enkätundersökning. Empirin har framtagits genom att 114 respondenter fått svara på sammanlagt 17 frågor gällande individuella faktorer, sin nyhetskonsumtion på Facebook samt vilka fördelar de ser med plattformen. Urvalet har begränsats till studenter på Karlstads universitet inom fyra olika utbildningar: ingenjör, medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap, ekonomi och handel samt sjuksköterska. Respondenterna har nåtts genom att enkäten publicerats i respektive utbildnings facebookgrupp. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten för studien är uses and gratifications, sociala fält, primära och sekundära nyhetspubliker samt tidigare forskning som berört nyhetskonsumtion både i traditionell mening och på sociala medier. Det finns en bred vetenskaplig grund vars fokus ligger på hur medierna påverkar publiken, men uses and gratifications belyser istället motsatsen, nämligen vad publiken gör med medierna. Därför blir framförallt denna teori den som genomgående berörs i studien. Resultatet i undersökningen visar att 92 procent av alla tillfrågade studenter tar del av nyheter via Facebook. Frekventa läsare, det vill säga de som gör det dagligen eller flera gånger i veckan, utgör 49 procent och därmed nästan hälften. Dessa flitiga konsumenter kännetecknas främst av att vara sjuksköterskor, kvinnor och av att ha studerat en kortare tid. I motsats är de minst benägna läsarna av facebooknyheter medie- och kommunikationsstudenter, män och personer som studerat en längre tid. Skillnaderna har sin grund dels i att kvinnor generellt använder det sociala nätverket mer än män, och dels i att olika utbildningar har skilda preferenser. Sjuksköterskor konsumerar frekvent nyheter på Facebook på grund av dess bekvämlighet och för att nyheterna ligger i deras intresse, medan mediestudenter oftare vänder sig till andra källor som ett resultat av att de vill täcka särskilda informationsbehov. Uppväxthem och föräldrarnas utbildningsnivå har inte visat sig vara av större betydelse för vem som är den mest frekventa nyhetskonsumenten på Facebook, inte heller graden av politiskt intresse. Här konsumerar både de med högt, medel och lågt intresse för politik dagligen nyheter på plattformen. Dock kan man se en tydlig dynamik mellan den förstnämnda och sistnämnda. De högt politiskt intresserade är de som i högst utsträckning följer en nyhets ursprungliga avsändare, samtidigt som dessa uppvisar en mer positiv inställning till interaktiviteten på Facebook där de kan dela, kommentera och diskutera nyheter. Därigenom blir de en primär nyhetspublik vilka sorterar ut och tolkar nyheter för de lågt politiskt intresserade, som i sin tur utmärks som en sekundär. Således influerar den primära publiken den sekundära med sina värderingar, åsikter och uppfattningar vilket enligt forskningen kan medföra en demokratisk utmaning. / The purpose of this study is to find out how big percentage of students that reads news on Facebook, and to identify what characterizes these people. The study is made with the knowledge that news seems to take more space in Facebook’s feed, which is something that contributes to larger gaps in people’s news consumption. Therefore, it will in the long run be relevant to extend the understanding of who these consumers are. The study has been carried out with a quantitative method in the shape of a survey. The empirical data has been retrieved by letting 114 respondents answer 17 questions concerning individual factors, their news consumption on Facebook and what advantages they see with the social platform. The sample has been limited to students at four different educational programs at the university of Karlstad; engineering, media and communications, economy and trade and nursing. The respondents have been reached by publishing the survey in the different groups on Facebook, belonging to each education. The theoretical starting point of the study is Uses and gratifications, Fields, Primary and secondary news audiences and previous research about news consumption both in a traditionally sense and on social media. There is a wide scientific belief that focuses on how the media is affecting the audience, but uses and gratifications instead, highlights the contrary - namely what the audience is doing with the media. That is why this theory is mainly used in this study. The results shows that 92 percent of all respondents read news on Facebook. Frequent readers, meaning the people that consume news on Facebook each day or several times a week, make up 49 percent of the total amount of students and thereby almost half of the totalt respondents. These frequent consumers are characterized mainly by the fact that they are students at the nursing program, females, and have been studying for a shorter period of time. In contrast, the least likely readers are students at the media and communications program, males, and those who have studied for a longer period of time. These differences are seen firstly because of the fact that females tend to spend more time on Facebook in general, and secondly since different educations have different preferences. The nurses frequently consumes news on Facebook because of its convenience and because they find that the news lies within their interests, while media students more often turn to other sources as a result of wanting to cover a certain need for information. Childhood home and the parent’s level of education have not shown to be of great significance to decide whether a person consumes news on Facebook, and neither has political interest. Both people with high, medium and low interest in politics daily consume news on the social platform. However, it is possible to see a clear dynamic between the first and last. Individuals with a high political interest tend to follow the original source of the news, whilst displaying a positive attitude to the interactivity on Facebook and the possibility to comment, discuss and share news. Because of this, they function as the primary news audience who sorts out and interpreters the news for the low politically interested, which, in turn, is characterized as the secondary news audience. Thus, the primary news audience influences the secondary with values, opinions and perceptions of the news, which according to research is something that could induce a democratic challenge.

Följande studie hanterar ämnet eSport. Med hjälp av uses & gratifications theory kommer eSportpublik studeras och analyseras, med syftet att förstå vilka motivationer som leder till att man vill titta på eSport. Studien kommer med hjälp av kvalitativ metod, det vill säga intervjuer och observationer, med tillämpande mini enkäter i observationerna studera publiken som tittar på eSport. Uses & gratifications är en teori som ofta tillämpas vid kvalitativ metod då de gratifikationer man analyserar är enkelt tillämpbara i intervjufrågor. Studien kom fram till att de viktigaste gratifikationerna för eSportpublik var underhållning samt tidsfördriv. Viktigt är det att notera att dessa faktorer var uppmuntrande för tolkning, där informanter har gett olika definitioner av samma faktorer, samt ger flera förklaringar på samma ord. Det är utifrån denna syn som arbetet har analyserats och ge ett definitivt svar på frågan varför publiken tittar på eSport. / The following essay studies the subject of eSport. The concept audience will be analysed with help of the uses & gratifications theory to create an understanding about the audience in eSport. The study will also with the help of qualitative methods, to be specific interviews and observations, with an applied mini- survey in the observations study the audiences of eSport. Uses & gratifications is a theory that a lot of the time is applicable in qualitative methods because the gratifications that are analyzed very often are easily applicable when writing questions for interviews. The result was that the most important gratifications for the audience of eSport was entertainment and killing time. It’s also important to note that these factors were encouraged for interpretation, and given multiple explanations regarding the same word. It’s based on this view that the study has been analyzed and given a definitive answer on the question why the audience watches eSport.

The general purpose with this study was to investigate what happens when several different participants engage in the process of communicating a mutual message throughout a common paper. With “Skellefteå-tidningen” an official paper from the the municipality of Skellefteå, as an example, both the sender (i.e. the editorial staff) and the receiver (i.e. the reader) perspective is studied and analyzed. The result of these two perspectives are compared to see if the intended sent message is the message that the reader of the paper interpret.   The aim of this study was to investigate how the concerned parties within the municipality of Skellefteå cooperate to make a common product with a mutual message and purpose. The study also aimed to investigate how the citizens of Skellefteå, the receivers of the paper, experience the sent message. The material this study is based on was collected through qualitative interviews with the senders of the paper and focus group interviews with representatives from the receivers. In this study we have used both organizational communication theories and theories on uses and gratifications.   The result of the study indicates that concerned parties within the municipality of Skellefteå have different views on how they want to convey the general message in the paper. Some want the message to focus on Skellefteå as a place while the others want to focus on how and what the municipality of Skellefteå do as a government agency. The senders of the paper, despite their different view on how to send the message, agrees that the general message within the paper should be that Skellefteå is a great place where you can be proud to live. The results also shows that this is in fact the message that the readers interpret after reading the paper. The study show that the paper Skellefteå-tidnignen is a product that fills its purpose. It offer the reader a wide range of material to read and therefore the reader can, with the paper, fullfil many different needs. One other conclusion of this study is however that the senders have difficulties in making the citizens of Skellefteå open and read the paper.

<p>Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur människor upplever att ständigt vara tillgänglig med sin mobiltelefon och/eller Internet. En kvalitativ metod med semistrukturerade intervjuer har använts, där tolv personer, sex gymnasieungdomar och sex vuxna personer, har intervjuats. Hälften av de intervjuade bor i södra Sverige, hälften i norra. För analysen har McQuails grupperingar inom Uses and gratifications-teorin använts, liksom cultural studies teorier. Resultatet visar att de intervjuade ser det både som en möjlighet och ett krav att vara tillgängliga och uppkopplade, att Internet och mobiltelefon verkar bidra till att arbete/skola och fritid flyter ihop samt att de äldre intervjuade i något högre grad än de yngre upplever negativa aspekter av att vara ständigt tillgänglig. Vi har inte kunnat urskilja några skillnader mellan de intervjupersoner som bor i södra Sverige och de som bor i norra. När vi med utgångspunkt från McQuails kategorier inom Uses and gratifications-teorin har grupperat de belöningar som de intervjuade kan tänkas uppnå, har vi funnit exempel på belöningar inom samtliga kategorier; avkoppling, personlig identitet, personliga relationer och bevakning.</p> / <p>The purpose of this essay is to examine how people experience always being available on their mobile phone and/or Internet. A qualitative method of semi structured interviews has been used, where twelve respondents, six students in upper secondary school and six adults, have been interviewed. Half of the respondents live in southern Sweden, half in northern. The clusters that McQuail developed within the uses and gratifications theory, as well as cultural studies theories, have been used for analyzing our findings. The results show that the respondents see it both as a possibility and a demand to always be available and online, that Internet and/or mobile phones seem to contribute to the merging of work/school  and leisure time, and that the adult respondents to a greater degree than the younger respondents experience negative effects of always being available. We have not been able to distinguish any differences between respondents living in southern Sweden and those living in the north. When grouping our respondents’ obtained gratifications according to McQuails clusters within the uses and gratifications theory, we have found examples in all the categories; entertainment, personal identity, integration and social interaction, and information.</p>

<p><p><strong>Purpose:</strong><p>The purpose of this paper is to investigate and clarify some of the factors that influence organizations to adopt or reject the social media, and if the emergence of social media influenced the organization's communication.</p><p><strong><p>Metohodology:</p></strong></p><p>A qualitative methodology has been used to execute the study. The source has been semi structured interviews with chosen representatives from several organizations.</p><p><strong><p>Theoretical perspective:</p></strong></p><p>The theoretical basis for the execution of the methodology is based on the provisional theoretical demarcation uses and gratifications theory. For analysis diffusion of innovations theory is applied.</p><p><strong><p>Emperical findings:</p></strong></p><p>The empirical material includes interviews with representatives from twelve selected organizations, defined as companies in the industry and authorities, in seven different industries.</p><p><strong><p>Conclusion:</p><p> </p></strong>The main factors affecting an adoption of social media is the organization’s open structure, the ability to see opportunities with social media and that they are seen as a natural part of development in the communications field. The main factors affecting a rejection of social media is ignorance, the organization's governance and that there must be a need that social media can fill. Neither users nor non-users believe that social media can replace traditional media. They are a complement to existing media, where the oral personal communication is superior to other forms.</p></p></p>

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur människor upplever att ständigt vara tillgänglig med sin mobiltelefon och/eller Internet. En kvalitativ metod med semistrukturerade intervjuer har använts, där tolv personer, sex gymnasieungdomar och sex vuxna personer, har intervjuats. Hälften av de intervjuade bor i södra Sverige, hälften i norra. För analysen har McQuails grupperingar inom Uses and gratifications-teorin använts, liksom cultural studies teorier. Resultatet visar att de intervjuade ser det både som en möjlighet och ett krav att vara tillgängliga och uppkopplade, att Internet och mobiltelefon verkar bidra till att arbete/skola och fritid flyter ihop samt att de äldre intervjuade i något högre grad än de yngre upplever negativa aspekter av att vara ständigt tillgänglig. Vi har inte kunnat urskilja några skillnader mellan de intervjupersoner som bor i södra Sverige och de som bor i norra. När vi med utgångspunkt från McQuails kategorier inom Uses and gratifications-teorin har grupperat de belöningar som de intervjuade kan tänkas uppnå, har vi funnit exempel på belöningar inom samtliga kategorier; avkoppling, personlig identitet, personliga relationer och bevakning. / The purpose of this essay is to examine how people experience always being available on their mobile phone and/or Internet. A qualitative method of semi structured interviews has been used, where twelve respondents, six students in upper secondary school and six adults, have been interviewed. Half of the respondents live in southern Sweden, half in northern. The clusters that McQuail developed within the uses and gratifications theory, as well as cultural studies theories, have been used for analyzing our findings. The results show that the respondents see it both as a possibility and a demand to always be available and online, that Internet and/or mobile phones seem to contribute to the merging of work/school  and leisure time, and that the adult respondents to a greater degree than the younger respondents experience negative effects of always being available. We have not been able to distinguish any differences between respondents living in southern Sweden and those living in the north. When grouping our respondents’ obtained gratifications according to McQuails clusters within the uses and gratifications theory, we have found examples in all the categories; entertainment, personal identity, integration and social interaction, and information.

Purpose:The purpose of this paper is to investigate and clarify some of the factors that influence organizations to adopt or reject the social media, and if the emergence of social media influenced the organization's communication. Metohodology: A qualitative methodology has been used to execute the study. The source has been semi structured interviews with chosen representatives from several organizations. Theoretical perspective: The theoretical basis for the execution of the methodology is based on the provisional theoretical demarcation uses and gratifications theory. For analysis diffusion of innovations theory is applied. Emperical findings: The empirical material includes interviews with representatives from twelve selected organizations, defined as companies in the industry and authorities, in seven different industries. Conclusion:   The main factors affecting an adoption of social media is the organization’s open structure, the ability to see opportunities with social media and that they are seen as a natural part of development in the communications field. The main factors affecting a rejection of social media is ignorance, the organization's governance and that there must be a need that social media can fill. Neither users nor non-users believe that social media can replace traditional media. They are a complement to existing media, where the oral personal communication is superior to other forms.

Public service media has a big role in the traditional media in Sweden. Historically, they constructed a shared cultural reference and applied news and facts to people to make it possible for them to be educated citizens. However, public service and other traditional media have a difficulty reaching young people today. At the same time young people are the group that consumes the most amount of media. Therefore, it is relevant to study what they consume and what they discard - and why. Especially why they don’t consume the content provided by Swedish public service media. Because if they don’t consume it now, will they in the future?       This qualitative study aims to examine how young people in Sweden use public service media and whether they value it as a public service. To do this, we conducted four focus groups with a total of twelve 18-year-olds. The result shows that even though few of them choose to consume content from the public service media, most of them have a positive association of it and value it as a public service. Many said that they trust that they follow their assignment to serve the public and that they produce objective and accurate news. However, the knowledge about the way public service media is organized and financed was shallow at best. It appears that the main reason they don’t consume the content is that they don’t come across it where they consume media. The interviewees that did consume public service media content did so on a different platform such as Spotify or YouTube. So the difficulty in reaching the young audience might not be because of the content, but that they don’t even know of its existence.