Smartphones continue to grow increasingly ubiquitous for a variety of reasons. This study employed an online survey experiment in order to determine whether perceptions of environmental/locational privacy or individual levels of self-monitoring have any effect on smartphone uses and gratifications. While perceptions of locational privacy did indeed have a modest effect on smartphone gratifications sought, self-monitoring did not, and no interactions were detected between locational privacy and self-monitoring. Implications for these findings as well as avenues for future research are discussed.

Denna studie går ut på att undersöka vilka mediekanaler unga förstagångsväljare använde sig av för att få politisk information innan och under riksdagsvalet 2010. Syftet är också att undersöka hur traditionella massmedier, som tidigare varit den dominerande källan för politisk information, står sig i relation till sociala medier i den fragmenterade medievärld vi lever i idag. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten är utifrån Uses and Gratifications-teorin samt tidigare forskning rörande förstagångsväljare och sociala medier. Metoddelen är kvantitativ i form av en frågeundersökning med gymnasieelever som läser sista året på gymnasiet. Datainsamlingen genomfördes i Sundsvall och Jönköping under december 2010.   Resultatet visar att unga förstagångsväljare fortfarande anser att de traditionella medierna, främst TV, är de viktigaste för deras politiska information. Det framgår också i resultatet att det politiska intresset hos unga ökar under valår. Vad gäller sociala medier som kanal för politisk information ansåg respondenterna att Facebook var den mest betydelsefulla källan för information.

Internet has changed People¡¦s life and brought new communication problems. Community website is a platform which combines website¡¦s content and community. This platform had changed users not only to be a message receiver, but also to be a sender, who is more active. This characteristic promises the active audience, one of the basic assumptions in Uses and Gratifications Theory. Otherwise, in previous researches, computer mediated communication lacks of some media cues. But as basic network setting has changed, the conclusion maybe has been changed. In order to understand what are user¡¦s motivations and if there are any differences among different media. This survey conducts 41 questions to evaluate user¡¦s needs and the degree of social presence based on previous studies. As a result, there are 442 valid questionnaires in this study. As for motivations, a factor analysis revealed five motivations to use community websites: communication, information, surveillance, persuasion, and entertainment. Communication is the most important motivation of all. As for social presence, the ranking decreasingly is instant message, real-time video, e-mail, chat room, and forum. These two properties, motivations and social presence, obviously affect user¡¦s using intensity.

Past research has suggested that exposure to media in which the audience can observe positive interactions between a member or their group and a member of an outgroup can have a positive impact on audience attitudes towards the outgroup. This dissertation examines the reasons why individuals might voluntarily watch these types of intergroup media. Participants were exposed to two television show proposals in which three media features were experimentally manipulated: The social comparison between groups, the stereotypicality of outgroup character, and the presence of intergroup romance. The findings indicate that individuals were motivated to consume media that reduced uncertainty about other groups and increased the perceived status of their own. In addition, although not consistent across the two proposed shows, several of the manipulated media features were found to interact and/or relate indirectly to the attractiveness of the television show through the gratification of these motivations. The theoretical relevance and applicability of these findings is discussed.

Researchers points out that social media has become a powerful venue to spread news, both for the news business and the users. Although the news diffusion has become a phenomenon to be reckoned with, we have found no research in Sweden about what motivate users of social media to share news. This thesis work therefore investigates news sharing on the social network Facebook by examining user motives in the light of the media theory uses and gratifications. A web survey was conducted and distributed to students at a Swedish university. The result showed that expression was the strongest motive to share news on Facebook, and the item that was highly valued by the students was to give other valuable information. The result also showed that other motives for sharing news was socialization, information, status and entertainment.

Due to the evolution of new media technologies, social networking websites have become major avenues for online media consumption. Twitter is one of many proven beneficial for online users. It is utilized for many different reasons, one of which includes music. It is then necessary to know how beneficial Twitter is for music fans and consumers. This study attempts to analyze the benefits of Twitter for music fans and consumers. Using an online survey, different gratification items are measured. Results reveal that some music fans and consumers do use Twitter for music purposes and that there is a statistically significant difference in terms of gratifications between those who use Twitter for music purposes and those who do not.

Sports in the 21st century have become popular across multiple industries, and a major boon to a television industry dealing with increasing audience fragmentation. So an understanding of fans' behavior is important to all parties. This study, an online survey consisting of 242 responses, examined fandom and its relationship with time spent using social networking sites and found no statistical correlation. Six uses and gratification factors obtained: human connection, network content, distraction/amusement, social integration, social surveillance, and active entertainment. The low comparative saliency of the social integration factor suggests that perhaps fandom is distinct from other ways of identifying with similarly-minded individuals (e.g. political and/or religious affiliation), or that perhaps fandom as a factor is less than sufficient to explain how/why sports fans use social networking sites.

In a new media landscape, social media have become a new way of interacting for internet users. It has also given birth to new professions and new empowerments. One of the new existing players in the modified field of media is influencers.  Influencers affect people in a variety of ways, for instance in commerce and opinions. They do this on different platforms and with different tools of persuasion. International researchers have been studying general media use on social media, influencing marketing and what motivates the choices of social media users. They have also investigated the motives when it comes to why users choose to follow influencers. The Swedish research field in this area isn’t as satisfying as the international research, though. Swedish researchers have been studying influencers from an influencer point of view. This study’s vision is, therefore, to broaden the influencer research, with a user perspective. The theoretical framework uses and gratifications is a common way to investigate users, and their motivations to make certain choices, using media. A survey was conducted and sent to grown up females. The survey focused on what motivated them to follow influencers on Instagram, and whether they had been influenced by the influencers in any way. The result of the study gave us different insights. A factor analysis showed that there were four different motivations for following influencers, and that the strongest motive was entertainment. The entertainment motive also contained the most highly valued item which was the motive to be amused. The factor analysis also found the motives; socialization, social status and new trends. The study also showed that there weren’t any strong correlations between the four motives and the users’ history in being affected by the influencer. However, there was a correlation between the affected-variable and the two items following new trends and to keep updated about new products.

Social media, example Facebook, has made it possible for people to easily be a part of news sharing and to produce news. As a result of this, there are opportunities for each and everyone to influence and to be more involved in news dissemination but at the same time there are risks involved. It has been shown to be common for misinformation to spread through social media where it rapidly reaches a large group of people, which can result in a false image of reality. In this study theories about Uses and Gratifications and source credibility have been brought together for an analysis. The purpose was to investigate what our respondents thought about the benefits of an active audience when it comes to sharing news, but also to investigate the negative sides of news sharing and the risks that follow. The study presents various needs that are satisfied with news sharing on Facebook. With a focus on Facebook the study also presents opinions, behaviors and attitudes about source credibility and news sharing amongst young adults. Young adults have shown to be very active on social media where they also consume a lot of their news intake – which is why we selected this group of people in our study. To find out what young adults think about our subject previously mentioned, we formed focus groups of participants in the ages of 18-29 where they discussed questions about the subject. This study’s most significant finding is that news sharing on Facebook is mostly about satisfying a need of attention – a need to show other people that one has knowledge about recent news and a need to be confirmed by others, in example via comments. Another discovery is that the participants in this study mean that the only way to value sources on social media is to compare different sources with one another. But it was shown that other factors are also important when they value sources on social media. / Sociala medier, exempelvis Facebook har gjort det möjligt för allmänheten att på ett enkelt sätt vara med och bidra till nyhetsskapandet och nyhetsspridning. I och med detta finns det möjligheter för alla att påverka och vara delaktiga i nyhetsspridningen, men samtidigt medföljer även risker. Det har visat sig vara vanligt att falsk information sprids via sociala medier där den snabbt når ut till många människor, vilket kan ge en missvisande bild av verkligheten. I denna studie förs teorier om Uses and Gratifications samman med området källkritik, för att dels undersöka hur våra respondenter resonerar kring fördelar med att alla aktivt kan vara delaktiga i nyhetsspridningen och dels undersöka hur de resonerar kring de negativa sidorna, vilket området källkritik tar upp genom olika risker. Studien redogör för olika behov som uppfylls vid nyhetsspridning på Facebook samt vilka åsikter, beteenden och attityder unga vuxna har kring källkritik och nyhetsspridning på sociala medier, med fokus på Facebook. Varför just unga vuxna undersökts är eftersom den gruppen generellt är mycket aktiva på sociala medier och att de till stor del får reda på nyheter via exempelvis Facebook. För att få reda på hur unga vuxna resonerar kring ovanstående genomfördes fokusgrupper där deltagare mellan 18-29 år fick möjlighet att diskutera frågor kring ämnet. Utmärkande av resultatet i studien är att nyhetsspridning på Facebook till stor del handlar om att uppfylla ett behov av uppmärksamhet. Behov av att andra ska se att man har koll och behov av att få bekräftelse genom exempelvis kommentarer. En annan upptäckt är att deltagarna i studien menar att sättet de värderar källor på sociala medier är att jämföra informationen från olika källor, men däremot spelar flera andra faktorer roll även om deltagarna är mindre medvetna om dessa faktorer då de värderar trovärdigheten.

The purpose of this essay is to understand and analyze why people read a local newspaper and which needs it can fulfill. The newspaper indistry is changing and so is the way we consume news. Today the readers are seen as an active group of people who choose the media, which fulfills their needs in the best possible way. This essay is based on a case study of the local newspaper Barometern. We used a qualitative research method and have done eight interviews. The people we interviewed where in the age of 30-40 and are subscribers or frequent readers of Barometern. The empirical material that where generated from the interviews made out the basis of our analysis. The conclusion of this case study is that people have six different needs of which they seek fulfilling. Of these six needs, Barometern satisfies five of them. For deeper analysis of how these needs are satisfied, continue reading chapter five. Since we worked with a qualitative method we don't intend to make any generalizations of our conclusions. The conclusions only apply to our study of Barometern.