Among the web 2.0 applications, a micro-blog (Weibo in Chinese), resembling the combination of a Twitter-like Internet service has gained substantial popularity in China. Sina Weibo is the market leader with approximately 50% of the market share. Around 80% of the users on Sina Weibo are young people. Hence, it is necessary to analyze young Chinese users of Sina Weibo and examine whether Sina Weibo fulfills the needs of young people and whether Sina Weibo meets their expectations. The study used the theory of uses and gratifications and the theory of expectancy-value as theoretical foundations. This study summarized six gratifications items (including social interaction, social networking, information seeking, information sharing, entertainment and recognition) from previous studies, and used these gratifications items to analyze: (1) the relationships between demographics and gratifications obtained; (2) the relationships between Sina Weibo usage and gratifications obtained: (3) the correlations between gratifications sought and gratifications obtained. This study used quantitative method to obtain data from a questionnaire and all the data were input to SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) for analyzing. The questionnaire was conducted and was distributed in Sojump.com. The results showed that Sina Weibo meets their users’ needs from six gratifications dimensions.

News media play a key role in U.S. society, helping to inform members of the public as gatherers and reporters of information, as well as by serving as government watchdogs. In the ongoing search for and reporting of information, media professionals must be aware of how they report on crime by being cognizant of how they represent killers, victims, and their families, and by being aware of how they represent any gratifications those groups may receive from the media coverage. This study considers the interactions between serial killer Dennis Rader, investigators and media organizations, and how some of these groups may use the media as a tool to gratify or achieve their goals, as reported or represented in newspaper articles. This analysis will examine news stories concerning one of the most well-known serial killers in American society through a mixed-methods approach study that includes a qualitative thematic analysis and a limited quantitative content analysis.

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Seong-Hun Yun / Despite its increasing use and potential benefits for college education, podcasts have been little studied in the literature of the use and gratifications theory. To explore podcasts use among college students, this study investigated their motivations to use and their use behavior/attitude with respect to the medium. Based on a survey sample of 636 college students at a Midwestern university, this study found that students may have six motivations for podcasts: 1) Voyeurism/Social interaction/Companionship, 2) Entertainment/Relaxation/Arousal, 3) Education/Information, 4) Pastime/Escape, 5) Habit, and 6) Convenience. Of the six identified motivations, Education/Information clearly showed that podcasts have become widely used among students as an appealing medium for their school work. Moreover, as similar as the cellular phone study, this study identified a Fashion motivation for podcasts use. Lastly, this study found and discussed noticeable differences and similarities between podcasts and television regarding users' motivations, the interrelationships among motivations, and the predictive relationships between motivations and use behavior/attitude.

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / William Adams / Fort Riley, KS, has several command information (CI) products – a Post newspaper, a weekly television news show, Channel 2, and two Web sites. This uses and gratifications study aims to expand on a 2002 Fort Riley study to better understand the CI media sought by soldiers and civilian employees and their level of satisfaction with those products. A total of 158 Fort Riley soldiers and civilian employees were surveyed. Results supported previous CI studies, which indicated the Post newspaper and Web site are the most utilized and valued CI products. Results also showed slight changes in CI product usage from the 2002 study.

In recent years technology has developed significantly and rapidly become an intricate part of people’s daily life in the globalised world. There is a growing recognition that within intimate relationships, technology usage has many functions which can create both negative and positive impacts on intimacy.  Yet research on intimacy in online social relationships is still underdeveloped. This paper maps the literature on long-distance relationships and how its participants use information and communication technologies to overcome the physical detachment. The purpose of this study is to examine whether intimacy changes over Erasmus+ exchange studies in long-distance romantic and parental relationships. Data from an online survey of 100 Erasmus+ exchange students residing in Budapest, Hungary were analysed to see whether the quality of their relationship worsens during the exchange period. Based on the data collected it can be concluded that the majority of respondents does not experience critical decay in neither of their relationships and that preparation for distance communication with ICTs is not strongly connected to preventing a decay in intimacy.

Objektivitet anses vara en central del av journalistik i en demokratisk och västerländsk värld, som bör vara ett vägledande ideal för de yrkesverksamma i deras arbete med att samla och presentera information. Deras professionella uppgifter består bland annat av att återge en sann bild av verkligheten, att visa lojalitet mot medborgare samt att vara opartiska och oberoende. Kritik riktas stundtals mot journalisters brister i att presentera nyheter som fullt ut följer objektivitetens principer, med argument om att journalistiken påverkas negativt av ökade kommersiella intressen. Sport är en genre inom nyhetsrapportering som har ett lågt anseende och utesluts från mer prestigefylld journalistik, som detta till trots är populär att konsumera ur ett publikperspektiv. Denna undersökning har haft sportjournalistikens låga status tillsammans med människors förhoppning om att fylla särskilda behov med hjälp av sportkonsumtion, som utgångspunkt för att vidare studera objektivitet inom området. Med detta som bakgrund ämnar studien att klargöra och belysa om publiken har förväntningar på objektivitet i sportjournalistik och i sådant fall vilka förväntningar.   Metoden som tillämpats för att kunna undersöka publikens åsikter kring ämnet är kvalitativ, detta i syfte om att skapa djupare förståelse för publikens attityder och uppfattningar. Fyra fokusgruppsintervjuer har genomförts där de personer som intervjuats har representerat en grupp sportintresserade unga vuxna i åldern 20–30 år, med totalt 24 deltagande, samtliga bosatta i Karlstad, Sverige.   Resultat av studien visar att publiken gör skillnad på vilka krav som kan ställas på att följa journalistiska etiska riktlinjer utifrån; medial kanal, enskilda sportjournalister, public service, kommersiella kanaler och lokal- och nationell nyhetspress. Ett samband kan i denna studie synliggöras mellan publikens uppfattning om sport som en nyhetskälla av lättsam och underhållande natur, som således skapar lägre förväntningar på att objektivitetsidealet efterföljs. Det bör poängteras att olika faktorer inom journalistisk objektivitet, förväntas att uppnås av publiken med väldig variation. Trovärdigheten hos sportjournalister tenderar att bedömas av publiken efter huruvida de uppgifter och resultat som presenteras är korrekta medan ett oberoende mot de som bevakas anses vara mycket svårt och ovanligt att uppfylla.   En annan viktig aspekt som belysts i studien är att sportjournalistik berörs av det geografiska läget för nyhetsredaktionen, där ett prioriterat medialt utrymme för lokala och nationella lag tillsammans med redaktionernas beroende av goda relationer till föreningar och lag, uppfattas som orsaker till bristande objektivitet.

In contemporary society, political satire shows are prominent programs that seem to resonate with the viewing public. This thesis seeks to observe the meanings that generation Y attach to the Canadian political satire show, This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Focusing on the Canadian context, this research examines how members of generation Y view political satire shows, specifically This Hour Has 22 Minutes and if this show caters to their attitudes, concerns and interests more so than traditional news media. The theoretical framework guiding this study is the uses and gratifications theory. This research implements a qualitative phenomenological research approach in the form of focus groups. This study concludes that this generation still maintains, however, that when looking to be informed, they connect more with traditional news media given that these programs provide them with all the facts and stories in a more reliable manner. This study contributes to the field of communication because it demonstrates the rationale and experiences of generation Y in relation to political news.

Over the last years, the music industry has been disrupted by music streaming services which shifted the focus from owning music to accessing it. While the previous research focuses on the economic aspects, the social and cultural consequences remain largely unexplored. Existing research from an audience perspective is often focusing on one particular practice around music streaming and is mainly coming from and focusing on northern EU-countries. However, a broader contemplation of the sociocultural practices around music streaming is still missing. This thesis examines which sociocultural practices have emerged among urban and middle class Millennials in Germany when using the market-leading streaming provider Spotify and which affordances and gratifications these are based upon. The study is based on ten semi-structured interviews with German Millennials aged between 20 to 30 years. Three of these study participants are using a free Spotify account and seven the premium version. By conducting a thematic analysis against the theoretical background that interlinks practice theory, affordance theory and uses and gratifications theory, the practices are described and examined based on the underlying affordances and gratifications.The study found sociocultural practices around the themes social setting, listening mode, Spotify networks and music collection and outlines the underlying affordances and gratifications. During individual listening situations, users engage in the practices of mobile listening and mood management, while listening in social settings focused around navigating the group dynamics and the creation of context-sensitive playlists. The users also aim to create an unstructured and undisrupted music flow but are mainly listening in a passive manner while carrying out other activities. Due to social norms and privacy issues, the participants either reject the network function or build only small networks through which they were sharing and discovering music as well as creating playlists with friends. Lastly, users were building, organizing and maintaining individual music collections.

Trustworthy and accessible news content is fundamental to democracy and demanded by groups within social spaces of varying structures. News outlets have always, and continue to be in a state of development, adapting to social changes and accommodating the advances new technologies afford the structure of the industry of news.The aim of this thesis is to research the news consumption habits of Spanish undergraduate students at a time when the print newspaper industry, for many years the key disseminator of news relied upon by the general public, is in a state of financial crisis and its future, in its current form, is in jeopardy.Using a quantitative survey of 144 students and supported by a linked theoretical framework of News Consumption, Social Space and Uses & Gratifications, the study illustrates a generation of news consumers with a healthy appetite for news, whose cultural, economic and social capital are manifested via the diverse portfolio of news media they elect to consume from. Adopting a gratifications approach reveals that the efficiency and comfort mobile devices provide users for news consumption is one of the determining factors when deciding upon which forms of news disseminators respondents wish to engage with; user agency takes precedence over the notions of trust felt for the integrity of journalistic publications.The study provides a unique insight into the news consumption habits of Spanish undergraduate students enrolled in private university education, which although not representative of the wider population, is a study of an increasingly significant social group in Spain, their news consumption choices and the relation to the social space they inhabit.

Social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and My Space have experience rapid worldwide growth. It is crucial that this global phenomenon be investigated within the South African context. Social networking is a relatively new trend in South Africa and there is a paucity of academic literature on the topic. This quantitative study investigated one of the most popular social networking websites to date, namely Facebook. Facebook is a social networking website which was launched in early 2004. The primary research question focused on determining the usage patterns of South African Facebook users. In specific, the study investigated the purposes for which the site was used, the self-reported substitution of Facebook usage for face-to-face interaction and the relationship between Facebook affinity and Facebook use. A survey research design was used to collect data via an electronic questionnaire posted on Facebook. The theoretical point of departure was post-positivist. Media theories applied to the phenomenon under investigation include the uses and gratifications theory and the theory of the niche. The findings suggest that Facebook is primarily used for its intended purpose of communication. The respondents reported the gratification of versatile (multipurpose) communication. Furthermore, only half of the sample reported privacy concerns regarding Facebook. There was no significant indication that Facebook is a substitute for face-to-face interaction. Half of the sample claimed that their interpersonal contact has increased as a result of Facebook use. In addition, in accordance with expectations, the more affiliated a person is to Facebook, the more they will use Facebook. The findings of this study conform to other studies concerning social networking and provide a South African view of the global phenomenon of social networking websites. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Psychology / unrestricted