Virtual communities have become more and more popular in the Internet world. Members of a virtual community can disseminate information rapidly to create word- of-mouth (WOM) effect in marketing. Therefore, in-depth studies of the increase use of word-of-mouth marketing in the electronic world become more important. The object of this study is to use "the virtual book club¡¨, as the subject to investigate the factors that may affect member attitudes by the word-of-mouth. Four main factors were included in the research framework as independent variables, which are the knowledge of the message sender, knowledge of the receiver, quality of the message, and relationship strength between the sender and the receiver. Trust between the sender and the receiver is treated as a mediating factor. The dependent variable is the receiver¡¦s attitude. A quasi-experimental design was conducted and the findings include the following: 1. The knowledge level of the send can significantly affect the trust of the receiver. 2. The strength of the relationship can significantly affect the trust. 3. The quality of the message content can significantly influence the receiver¡¦s attitude.

xii, 188 p. This file has been removed at the author's request. A print copy of this title is available from the UO Libraries, under the call number: SCIENCE GV1469.34.S52 H63 2007 / As digital entertainment becomes more advanced, the medium of the video game has gained a broader audience. Today, more women are spending their leisure time enjoying video games. This research focuses on serious (or ‘hardcore’) women who play games traditionally believed to appeal primarily to males. Interviews and observation were used to explore their experience as gamers and as members of women-only communities. Results showed that these women are choosing the experience of playing shooter games because it is interactive, social, and enjoyable, not to be resistive. This study also analyzes the role of these women gamers within game culture, considers how they are being perceived, and identifies the ways the gaming community and games industry has responded to these women. Textual and discourse analysis was used to study social constructions of gender. This analysis showed that the ways women are framed by game culture and in the media limits their potential to be regarded as skilled gamers and legitimate contributors. / Adviser: Dr. H Leslie Steeves

A la fragmentación de la comunidad de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de español se suma la ausencia de una metodología científica que analice la calidad de las actividades educativas y culturales que se realizan en este ámbito académico. De esta forma no se valora su margen de mejora, su impacto ni su pertinencia reales. Propongo en esta investigación un modelo de planificación, ejecución y evaluación cualitativa y cuantitativa que permita conocer el grado de excelencia en la gestión y la satisfacción de sus participantes y destinatarios. El ámbito en el que se ha llevado a cabo esta propuesta ha sido la Enseñanza Superior de la República Popular China, donde he trabajado siete años. Entre 2017 y 2020 he cofundado con mis alumnos y coordinado la iniciativa colectiva Puente con el objetivo de demostrar que los estudios hispánicos tienen el potencial de reducir el desconocimiento cultural y la falta de comunicación e integración de la comunidad educativa, y plantear una serie de objetivos en común. Las redes sociales, la difusión de la narrativa oral china y una actitud comunicativa han servido como elementos unificadores para la celebración de cinco actividades a nivel nacional con un fin didáctico, académico y divulgativo. La meta propuesta supone una innovación y un complemento a la enseñanza reglada en el análisis del complejo contexto previo local más allá del aula. Tanto la metodología utilizada como los resultados obtenidos pueden resultar de utilidad para futuros estudios vinculados con la organización de eventos de enseñanza y aprendizaje no solo de español, sino también de otras lenguas y en otros entornos educativos. Y, en especial, tienen el potencial de promover el acercamiento y el entendimiento ante el creciente clima de tensión internacional. / Spanish: Advanced research in language and literature / Thesis directors: Vicente José Rodríguez Marcet (University of Salamanca) and Carmen González Vázquez (Autonomous University of Madrid).

This exploratory study examined the effect of cross-culture on the content of messages on message boards, more specifically through the sitcom programs shown in United States and Taiwan. The theoretical framework is based on the theory of culture: Individualism vs. Collectivism. However as shown in the study factors such as country of origin as well as viewers’ profile will play a role and have its effect in the findings. Content analysis was applied to analyze the data. The results of this study have important implications for cross-cultural consumer studies and marketing practices. The practical research involved analyzing an organization’s data utilizing data mining tools with the objective of customers and products segmentations. The report ends by pointing out areas for future research. / This exploratory study examined the effect of cross-culture on the content of messages on message boards, more specifically through the sitcom programs shown in United States and Taiwan. The theoretical framework is based on the theory of culture: Individualism vs. Collectivism. However as shown in the study factors such as country of origin as well as viewers’ profile will play a role and have its effect in the findings. Content analysis was applied to analyze the data. The results of this study have important implications for cross-cultural consumer studies and marketing practices. The practical research involved analyzing an organization’s data utilizing data mining tools with the objective of customers and products segmentations. The report ends by pointing out areas for future research.

L'objectif de ce travail doctoral est de tester et d'expliquer l'influence des bénéfices que les membres perçoivent dans les communautés virtuelles de support initiées par les entreprises sur leurs intentions comportementales à l'égard de ses produits. Une étude ethnographique a d'abord été menée et a complété les enseignements tirés de la revue de littérature. Ensuite, une collecte de données quantitative a été menée sur des communautés virtuelles des éditeurs des logiciels. A l'issue des résultats de la recherche, nous avons principalement démontré que les bénéfices perçus par les membres favorisent leurs intentions de réachat et de recommandation des produits de l'entreprise sous conditions que cette dernière participe activement dans les activités de sa communauté. Par ailleurs, cette influence positive s'opère aussi à travers le sentiment communautaire du membre. / The objective of this doctoral work is to test and to explain the influence of the benefits that are paid to members in virtual communities of support initiated by companies on their behavioral intentions with respect to its products. An ethnographic study was first conducted and completed the lessons learned from the literature review. Then, quantitative data collection was conducted on virtual communities of software publishers. At the end of the search results, we mainly demonstrated that the benefits received by members promote their intentions of reachat and recommendation of the products of the company under conditions that the latter actively participates in the activities of its community. Moreover, this positive influence also operates through the community feeling of the Member.

The population of late-married or non-married women is growing in the current society. Considering single women¡¦s unique consumer psychology and consumer behaviors, the researcher aimed to investigate the feasibility of a single women¡¦s virtual community by employing the web 2.0 and the visual community with a focus on its economic characteristics. The data were collected through the observations of related industries, interviews with experts and targeted groups, questionnaire investigation, and operation proposals. The results of the study were classified into two categories: the business model and the position strategy. The business model (a) can enhance increasing returns effects of the dynamic circle and the lock-in circle and accumulate members, (b) plays a role of informational intermediatry who integrates contents with strategic alliances, and (c) offers E-commence with which to satisfy users¡¦ dynamic needs. Three main phases¡Xexperience economy, reputation economy, and profit-earning¡Xare developed through such an advantage. The position strategy is to provide single women with an informational platform which addresses convenience, affinity, diversity, accuracy, safe-transaction, and customized-services. The platform includes four main topics: health, entertainment, self-growth, and investment. Therefore, it is able to meet single women¡¦s needs regarding health, travel, learning, and finance. The study also offers four suggestions for people who want to manage the virtual community. First, the virtual community should be developed based on market segmentation and take customers¡¦ intentions into account. Second, it should offer customized services and promote the worth of using experiences. Third, it should be a friendly, risk-free platform in which varied, up-dated information is given. Fourth, it should offer customers easy-using ways and allow them to share information as well as interact with others.

Abstract In March 2010, BusinessNext magazine examined Taiwan¡¦s top 100 most popular website, and virtual community websites occupied approximately 25% of the spots. The social networking site ¡§Facebook¡¨ is particularly notable because although it was the first time it entered the rankings, Facebook placed second. Virtual community websites are this year¡¦s most popular type of website. Among 15 to 20 year-olds, network utilization ratios reached as high as 98.3% (BusinessNext, 2010). This majority of this age group studies in high school, and regardless of their course of study, interpersonal relationships, or physical and mental development, this age cohort has an inseparable connection to the Internet. Therefore, we call them the ¡§e-generation¡¨. This research utilizes the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as its theoretical foundation; TAM predicts that a high-school student¡¦s loneliness will affect that student¡¦s use of virtual community websites. This study utilizes stratified sampling in questionnaire among 500 Kaohsiung high school students from the ages of 15 to 19, and the UCLA Loneliness Scale Version Three (Russell, 1996) is used in the survey to measure loneliness. Using this methodology, the hope is to confirm the hypothesis that the students¡¦ loneliness is positively linked to their participation in virtual communities. Using SPSS 15.0 for Windows and Amos 7.0 to analyze the survey data and conduct a path analysis for a casual relationship, loneliness has a strong influence on students¡¦ use of virtual community websites, which supports TAM as a theoretical construct. And aims at the different social group type website to implement the AMOS female community the coalition analysis. The data do not show a particular variance in usage among different types of virtual community websites. The implications of this research are helpful to the families, the military, and the managers of virtual community websites, who all benefit from a better understanding of high-school students participation in virtual communities.

Thousands of Alumni are in all walks of life in domestic and foreign after graduated. They are not only the important economic supports but also the connections between school and business. However, relationship needs long-term maintenance, and virtual community becomes the brand¡¦s communitive and interactive distributions. In Taiwan, many universities are awared of the trend of community media and established their own virtual alumni associations on Facebook fan page, in order to enhance alumni serving and relationship connecting. This study is a partnership with National Sun yat-sen University¡¦s alumni service center as a case study, analyzing from relationship marketing view point to realize the influence of virtual alumni association management on alumni loyalty. By academic and empirical exploring to observe the excutive status of NSYSU alumni service on Facebook fan page and provide suggestions as a model to those organizations which willing to manage virtual communities to increase loyalty. This study is cooperated with NSYSU¡¦s alumni service center, and collected questionaires by the ¡§filled questionnaire, join lottery¡¨ activity on NSYSU¡¦s alumni service Facebook fan page. Furthermore, researcher also sent email invitations with the link of online questionarie from alumni database, to investigate alumni¡¦s understandings and recommendations of NSYSU¡¦s alumni service Facebook fan page. The study outcomes are as following, relationship marketing has positive influence on relationship quality; relationship quality has positive influence on loyalty; relationship marketing has positive influence on loyalty. Which means virtual community does help maintaining relationship between alumni and school, raising the loyalty. It is an efficiency way to manage the customers¡¦ relationship and loyalty. However, the influence of social bond of relationship marketing strategy on loyalty is not significant. This study conjecture that users can not be awared of the specialties of interactive communications on Facebook fan page since Facebook originally based on the social network. When users feel limited relationship marketing intention and qualities, they can not increase their loyalties.

With the rise of Web 2.0 concept, the development of virtual communities focuses more on the factors of relationship and interaction. Micro-blogging, the kind of community platforms that limit the length of a post and emphasize real-time and interactive features, has become popular these years. Seeing the potential of micro-blogging marketing, many businesses start to use micro-blogging as a promotional channel. With the different characteristics and multiple features of micro-blogging services, however, most businesses are still exploring how to make relationship marketing successful. This study uses commitment-trust theory by Morgan & Hunt (1994) to investigate the building of trust and commitment between users and communities and their influence on community loyalty from the perspective of relationship commitment. An online-survey was conducted among Plurk users, and 300 valid respondents were used for data analysis by structural equation modeling (SEM). The results indicate that commitment and trust have a significantly positive effect on loyalty. Trust is significantly influenced by shared values, communication and opportunistic behavior, and commitment is significantly influenced by relation-ship benefits and trust. Information quality and shared values, however, do not have significant impact on commitment. Furthermore, user characteristics and usage frequency have significant moderating effect on the level of causal influence. The results show the importance of trust and commitment building in micro-blogging and provide useful suggestions for micro-blogging marketing.

Ever since the virtual community boom that aroused by Facebook, almost every industry began to take interest in starting their own Facebook Page. Armstrong & Hagel III(1996) indicated that virtual community breaks the balance of commercial trade by giving the customers more power, while at the same time helps the industry to deepen and broaden their customer relationship, making those who are good at using the new power of customer benefits from it. That is to say that in the free market of internet, minority market can be served more easily and effectively, while the majority market has gradually become the market combination of several niches (Chris A., 2006).Virtual community also changed the business rule, allowing the small enterprise to challenge the big ones (Armstrong & Hagel III,1996). This study tries to find out the common and unique business patterns by doing research study and categorizing the current usage of Facebook Page, so the managers can have a reference to adjust their method accordingly, and so further study can be build upon it. In this rising boom of virtual community, what are the strategies behind it? Can those strategies really attract the fans to the Facebook page and allow the fans to participate in it? Observation method was adopted in this research to analyze the Facebook page in Taiwan. Data were collected according to different trades, in order to analyze how the four motivations: information, assistance, recreation and social interaction work in the virtual community. The unique strategy and its affect will be discussed, and relative studies will be reviewed to see if there is a better way to attract the attention of the fans. This study shows that there are unique strategies adopted in different trades for the difference of the fans, and there are improvement needed in those business patterns. As the conclusion, four advices are raised in this study: increase the searching accessibility, provide complete data, adopt the link of Facebook Page wisely, and appropriate article length. So the managers can have a reference to adjust their method accordingly, and so further study can be build upon it.