This work takes off in earlier studies concerning motivational factors to interact in various social media in relation to societal and political discussions. The aim for this study is to garner a deeper understanding about how users on Twitter are motivated to take part in debates beneath the hashtag #svpol. Also, this work contributes with the personal experience of entering the Twittersphere as a new user without the capital of trust or knowledge prerequisite to the participation in the community of #svpol. Through semi-structured interviews six respondents shared their experiences of political dialogue on Twitter. Further, this study presents a new form of gathering data by using Twitter as a channel for textual responses through the function of Direct Messages where 3 respondents answered in text. The results presented confirms earlier theory in some respects regarding motivational factors to engage in political commentary and debate on Twitter. Also, this study presents nuances which can be recognized as pre-dispositioning motivational factors addressed in earlier research. The respondents in this work show differences in their social orientation displaying both relation orientation and antagonistic features in the community of #svpol. Their motivation and gratifications differ, and the result are discussed and concluded in the final chapter. This study does not generalize by the findings presented, rather it describes a small window of the community of #svpol and political commentary on Twitter. Rather than posing any absolute truths or widely held conceptions, this study contributes by giving some depth to the notion of nine Twitter users and their perception of the activity beneath #svpol on the Twitter platform. This work also shines light hardships which a researcher might encounter on the way to a qualitative approach to Twitter users in a general, largely anonymous, network within a national setting.

Esports som åskådarsport har fått en betydande publik under det senaste decenniet, det lockarnästan en halv miljard människor över hela världen och har även fått stöttning från storakända företag. Anledningen till varför människor tittar på esport är dock fortfarande inte välundersökt. Uses and Gratifications är en metod som fokuserar på åskådare och betraktar demsom aktiva konsumenter. Utifrån Uses and Gratifications teorier är syftet till denna kvalitativastudie att ta reda på vilka faktorer som kan påverka människors motivation att se på esport,samt hur esport definieras av och konsumeras av människor. Tio personer som är intresseradeav esport deltog i semi-strukturerade intervjuer, och resultatet visade att hedonisktillfredsställelse, social tillfredsställelse, funktionell tillfredsställelse och teknologisktillfredsställelse kan alla ha inverkan på konsumtionen av esport. Respondenterna ser esportsom ett bra sätt att passera tid och bli underhållna, de får social tillfredsställelse när deinteragerar med likasinnade personer. I spel kan de dokumentera och visa sina framsteg, ochpresentera och dela information om sig själva i relation till esport. De flesta respondenternaser fram emot esports framtid. / Esports as a spectator sport has gained a significant audience during the last decade, attractingalmost half a billion viewers worldwide and input from large well-known companies, but thereason as to why people watch esports is still not well studied. Adopting uses and gratificationapproaches - which is an approach that focuses on the audience and view them as activeconsumers, the aim of this qualitative study is to learn about what factors influence peoples’motive to watch esports, as well as how esports is being defined by people and how it isconsumed. Ten people who are interested in esports participated in semi-structured interviews.The result showed that hedonic gratification, social gratification, utilitarian gratification andtechnology gratification all can have impact on the consumption of esports. The respondentsconsider esports as a good way to pass time and to be entertained. They gain socialsatisfaction when interacting with likeminded people. In games, they are able to documentand show their progress, and to present and share information about themselves in relation toesports. Most of the respondents look forward to the future of esports.

Social games have become popular on social media such as Facebook and MySpace. While there are plenty of market reports regarding social media, the related academic research is limited. This study applies Homans’ cost‐reward structure from Social Exchange Theory to investigate how social games change people’s social behavior on social media. The concepts of rewards are drawn from the gratifications of social media use, and the concepts of costs are drawn form the symptoms of media addiction. In a survey of 323 college students, participants’ perceived rewards and costs of Facebook use and game play are measured. The results indicate social game players perceived significantly higher costs of Facebook use than non‐players. In addition, costs of Facebook use and costs of game play also play important roles to influence social game players’ willingness to play more social games. Discussion and limitations are provided. / text

This paper explores the use of the social networking site, Facebook, by the GenerationX cohort (those born 1966-1980 inclusive) currently living in the United Kingdom(identified as a somewhat under-studied group to date). Utilising a ‘Uses &Gratifications Theory’ and ‘(Media) Dependency Theory’ approach and the quantitativeempirical data collection method of an extensive online ‘self-fill’ questionnaire, a totalof 233 individuals from this cohort voluntarily provided the sought-after information,with data collected during early September 2018. An expanded version of Denis McQuail, Jay G. Blumler and J.R. Brown’s 1972 mediagratifications groups/descriptors is proposed and used for this paper’s analysis of results(see section 6.2.4) while a new single media term,‘online collaborative network’, isrecommended by the author as an alternative to current myriad of ‘social media’,‘social networking [site]’ and ‘collaborative media’ all used for the likes of Facebook(see section 9.2.2). Key project results suggest that the UK Generation X cohort spend an average of 75minutes per day using Facebook; that the most-utilised access method is via a mobilephone (89.7%); that the top two ‘uses’ of the social network are both passive ones(‘Scrolling through the homepage News Feed’ and ‘Spending time viewingPhotos/Videos uploaded by others’) and that the top three gratifications obtained fromFacebook use are ‘Contact with Friends’, ‘Contact with Family’ and (to) ‘Pass Time’. Additionally, results provide an interesting and potentially shocking overview ofexclusive dependency upon Facebook for the satisfaction of particular media needs,including the maintenance of contact with certain friends (87.6%) and certain familymembers (61.4%) and, worryingly, as an only source of news (15%).

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The present study explored Swedish students’ motives for using Facebook and how those motives were influenced by various factors. By employing a uses and gratifications (U&G) approach, students’ motives, use intensity and network size were examined and assessed through quantitative measures. Data collected from university students (N = 139) via a web-based survey revealed that students’ primary motives for using Facebook are relationship maintenance, passing time, entertainment and social information which suggests that Facebook is about social interactions, having fun and knowing about the activities and events taking place among one’s peers. Additionally, the results showed no major differences between males and females in their motives. Data analysis of students’ use intensity showed that high-intensity users were generally more motivated to use Facebook regardless of motive, than low-intensity users. Furthermore, regression analysis revealed no significant correlations between motives for using Facebook and network size. Findings are discussed within the framework of uses and gratifications and in relation to prior U&G research of Facebook and social media.

The master thesis entitled "Podcasting - audio content in the digital era and its listeners in Czechia" is devoted to the phenomenon of podcasting which connects the traditional audio format with new digital technologies. It deals with its history and current state both abroad and in Czechia. It also describes the specifics of podcasting, compares it with radio programs, mentions the importance of podcast applications or the funding issue of independent podcasts. It focuses attention on the role of the audience in today's world and the associated concepts of participatory culture and user generated content. The audience is also associated with the uses and gratifications theory which tries to understand why people consume media content. The aim of the research part of the thesis was to obtain information about Czech podcast listeners with whom semi-structured interviews were conducted. The collected data were then processed using the grounded theory method. The findings are organized into five chapters in order to answer five research questions. They revealed the motivations of Czech listeners for listening to podcasts, their perception of podcasts in comparison with radio programs, their attitude to listening to Czech and foreign podcasts, their perception of podcast presenter and their attitude...

<p>This study uses Incivility Spirals and Uses and Gratifications frameworks to explore how people discuss scientific topics on the social media site Reddit. Specifically, the goals of this project were to develop a new typology of online messages, examine how different factors influence online discourse, and determine whether uses and gratifications vary between Subreddits. The dataset consisted of comments on the top ten posts of 2019 from r/EverythingScience and r/Science. These Subreddits were examined because, although they both focus on science, they differ in terms of group rules and moderator style. Human coders and the text analysis software Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count were used to evaluate the comments on a series of dichotomous and continuous variables. These variables were used in a two-step cluster analysis to identify message typologies. Results indicate that there were three types of messages in the dataset: Polite Participation, Emotional Interrogation, and On Topic Information. Further analysis demonstrated that group norms and the first comment in a conversation impact the quality of discourse that takes place. Conversations on r/Science (the more strict Subreddit) that begin with an On Topic Information comment are more likely to be extremely deliberative, while conversation on r/EverythingScience that begin with an Emotional Interrogation comment are more likely to result in incivility spirals. Results also suggest differences in gratifications between Subreddits, with Redditors using r/Science for productive discussion and r/EverythingScience for heated debate. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, along with avenues for future research. </p>

Sharenting is a new term used to define the action of parents posting about their children online. Social media provides parents with an easy to use outlet for image distribution to all family and friends that simultaneously archives the images into a digital baby book. While convenient, once publicly posted anyone can gain access to the images of the children. Instagram is a favorable social media channel for sharenting. A popular hashtag on Instagram, #letthembelittle, contains 8 million posts dedicated to child imagery. A set of 300 randomly selected images under the hashtag were coded. Images tended to contain personal information such as the child’s name, age, and location. Communication Privacy Management and Uses and Gratifications theories provided the theoretical frameworks for this study. The results suggested a possibly dangerous pattern of parental oversharing that could negatively impact the child and the child’s safety.

Why do supporters to ice hockey teams in Sweden engages with their team on Twitter? The Swedish Hockey League season 2020/2021 was different than the previous ones in the league history. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the league to play games without any spectators. This study aims to understand why fans, to the teams who came in 13th and 14th in the league table during the season, engages with the teams Twitter accounts. The study will do that with the help of uses and gratifications theory, agenda setting theory and priming theory. The method used in the study was to check tweets from the teams during a specific time period and code the tweets to get a result and find a conclusion. The result showed that fans to the two teams engages with the teams Twitter accounts when they either win or lose games. The conclusion showed that fan engagement was mostly driven by results.