<p> This paper examines national Internet control from a policy regime perspective. The mechanisms through which governments attempt to control the Internet may be developed and implemented by different institutions and agencies, or fall outside of a formal regulatory structure entirely. As such, the totality of the institutions and practices of national Internet control is better conceptualized not as a regulatory regime, but as a control regime. After a survey of the critical policy and control dimensions, a six-part typology of control regimes is proposed. The purpose of this study and typology is exploratory. With comparative research about Internet control regimes at a relatively early stage, this paper aims to enable the formation of concepts and hypotheses about the interrelationship, or co-presence, of key distinguishing variables in different Internet control regimes.</p>

<p> This study suggests the audience that needs to be reached in the Catholic Church and that audience&rsquo;s characteristic behavior towards using the tools of the new media in relation to their attendance in and commitment to church activities.</p><p> Three hundred and two young Catholics ages 12 to 24 residing at the St. Cloud diocese, Minnesota, U.S.A. responded to the survey. An electronic non-random survey was carried out. The study asked what tools of the new media the Catholic youths use the most and how they use them.</p><p> The results revealed a strong involvement by the Catholic youths in the use of the Internet. Eighty-three percent of Catholic youths are likely to use the Internet on a daily basis. The results show that Catholic youths are more likely to be familiar with social network sites than with weblogs, and are likely to be found more on social network sites such as Facebook and YouTube. The most likely activity carried out by this group online is watching video webcast or clips. The results suggest loss of interest on religious issues by Catholic youths. The findings show that more Catholic youths are undecided if they will participate in activities organized online by the church.</p><p> This study concluded that although the results do not point to enthusiastic Catholic youths who are ready to participate in all kinds of activities organized by the church online, the findings of this study show that the church has ample opportunities to utilize this new means of social communications to appeal to its younger audience. Of particular interest will be the use of social network sites, especially those that provide visuals and motion.</p><p> Future studies may focus on the Church in developing countries to determine how the young are doing in their use of the Internet in an environment of slower technological advancement.</p>

<p> Photography is increasingly used as conversation in social media. Photography has been used as evidence of activity, for influence and identity, and for persuasive rhetoric. Current demand for understanding social photography is due to its modern inclusion as a standard communication process for creating and affirming community. Mobile technology and increased data rates through available bandwidth have resulted in the answer and response interaction cycle now happening with photographs. Facebook users share over 300 million photographs a day (Facebook, 2013) which indicates a mass of communication occurring between individuals, small groups, communities, and the public that does not have the same level of communication understanding as written and spoken language. A second level of inquiry concerns the lower levels of understanding concerning small groups and communities. The majority of communication studies concern individuals, the public mass, and Western hierarchical organizations. This research leverages tools from iconic photojournalism in order to analyze ease of use and applicability for future social photography studies. Hariman and Lucaites (2007) five primary tools of aesthetic familiarity, civic performance, semiotic transcripts, emotional scenarios, and contradictions and crises are evaluated through the data sample photography shared by the Burning Man community. The data set concerns photographs and their associated responses shared through Twitter as a social media tool intended for open, public access. The intent of this study concerns the ability to leverage the process for past, present, and future sharing of photography in order to analyze and apply ways to build community. This analysis reveals the minimal use of sharing a photograph as an emotive invitation to join with the community's performance enables a high success of visualizing community. This study investigates analysis and application tools for visualizing community through social photography. </p>

<p> Interaction design is the definition of digital behavior, from desktop software and mobile applications to components of appliances, automobiles, and even biomedical devices. Where architects plan buildings, graphic designers make visual compositions, and industrial designers give form to three-dimensional objects, interaction designers define the digital components of products and services. These include websites, mobile applications, desktop software, automobiles, consumer electronics, and more. Interaction design is a relatively new but fast-growing discipline, emerging with the explosive growth of the World Wide Web. In a software-saturated world, every day, multiple times a day, billions of people encounter the work products of interaction design. </p><p> Given the reach of their profession, how interaction designers work is of paramount concern. In considering interaction design, this dissertation turns away from a longstanding question of design studies: <i>How does interaction design demonstrate a special form of human thought?</i> And towards a set of questions drawn from practice-oriented studies of science and technology: <i>What kinds of objects and subjects do interaction design practices make, and how do those practices produce them? </i> </p><p> Based on participant observation at three San Francisco interaction design consultancies and interviews with designers in California's Bay Area, this dissertation argues that performance practices organize interaction design work. By &ldquo;performance practices,&rdquo; I mean episodes of storytelling and narrative that take place before an audience of witnesses. These performances instantiate &mdash; make visible and tangibly felt &mdash; the human and machine behaviors that the static deliverables seem unable on their own to materialize. In doing so, performances of the project help produce and sustain alignment within teams and among designers, clients, and developers. </p><p> In this way, a focus on episodes of performance turns our concerns from cognition, in which artifacts assist design thinking, to one of enactment, in which documents, spaces, tools, and bodies actively participating in producing the identities, responsibilities, and capacities of project constituents. It turns our attention to questions of political representation, materiality and politics. From this perspective, it is not necessarily how designers <i> think</i> but how they stage and orchestrate performances of the project that makes accountable, authoritative decision-making on behalf of clients and prospective users possible.</p>

<p> Social networking services are used by a large segment of society; Facebook claims that 1 billion users are active on their website. The potential role for social networking in civic engagement is substantial, and this dissertation expands upon previous research in its examination of the relationship between social networking use and civic engagement. Prior research into the effect of social networking services on social capital creation is limited in terms of generalizability and predictive power. The dissertation explores the determinants of social networking service use, the impact that social networking services have on the creation of social capital, and how social networking website use modifies a respondent's level of generalized trust and political efficacy. </p><p> The sample utilized in this dissertation includes 2,303 respondents from the Social Side of the Internet Survey, conducted in November and December of 2010. The dissertation utilizes this data to examine social networking intensity as a hypothesized determinant of indirect and direct forms of social capital. Models explore the decision to utilize the internet, social networking services (SNS), and to join traditional groups, evaluating the hypothesis that SNS usage creates social capital through a different pathway than online or physical interactions. Results provide early support for this hypothesis, as the factors influencing the decision to utilize social networking are separate from those modifying online or group activity. </p><p> The explanatory power of social networking intensity is compared to demographic and group-centered conceptions of social capital generation. The data supports the conception that SNS intensity is a significant determinant of external political efficacy and social capital, but is unable to identify a relationship between social networking intensity and generalized trust. </p><p> By examining the role that social networking services play alongside factors such as age, education, internet use, gender, race, socioeconomic class, technology, and group association, the dissertation tests hypotheses important to political science sub-fields including American politics, civic engagement, and political theory. Future research examining social networking and civic engagement needs to consider how governmental representatives view the social capital generated by social networking services.</p>

<p> Digital Citizenship is a concept typically used in discussions of how technology impacts our relationships with others and our physical world communities. It is also used to describe ways that we can leverage our technology use and skill to make our communities and nations better and stronger. Educators are now teaching "good digital citizenship" as part of a larger civics curriculum. </p><p> But, there is a second, emerging concept that I refer to as platform specific digital citizenship. I define this platform specific citizenship as the deep and abiding commitment and sense of responsibility that people develop in relation to a particular technology, such as software or technology brand. It may also refer to the ideas that people express in regard to how technology should ideally be used and what rights and responsibilities it requires of its adherents. </p><p> Massively Multiplayer Online Worlds (MMOWs) are one place researchers are finding this deep, platform specific digital citizenship emerging. These are persistent digital universes where people from all over the world develop online personas, leadership structures, discussion forums, and business and non-profit entities. The ability and extent to which this online organization is possible is largely due to the underlying structure, rules and allowances of the world of which people choose to be a part. </p><p> One online world, Second Life, has a large, active and vocal disabled population. They have committed to this environment because of the unique opportunities and freedoms that it provides. As a user content created environment, residents, as Second Life participants are referred to, are given an unprecedented amount of freedom to create the kind of experience they want. This may involve developing relationships and projects with other disabled residents. It can also involve exploring other aspects of themselves and their interests that are often neglected in their real lives due to social exclusion, and/or lack of financial and physical access. </p><p> Most of the research and popular media examinations of disability in Second Life centers on participation in disability specific communities or the benefits of identity exploration through avatar design. But, the reasons disabled people stay here is much broader and varied than what this limited discussion suggests. Commitment to Second Life is strong precisely because disability community commitment and disability expression are not the only options but exist among a wide range of choices. Moreover, the expression of disability and use of such mediated environments is constantly debated in both word and deed. </p><p> This dissertation explores the concept of digital citizenship and why people that identify as disabled in real life are attracted to committed participation in virtual worlds, in particular, Second Life. What opportunities and rights are disabled people afforded here through the technology structure? What are the avenues of entry into the Second Life community, and what does the variety of these entry points and special interest sub-communities tell us about what is important to them? How is commitment debated and deepened through the use of public spaces and forums? And, what can researchers, public health and information professionals learn from these features that can improve their own outreach?</p>

<p> This project report served as a framework for an aging and disability lifestyle blog named Evolving Abilities. It listed resources and highlighted the vitality and value in aging with a disability by promoting a realistic and dynamic perspective written by a disability gerontologist. The niche audience targeted people aging with disabilities (or chronic health conditions). Evolving Abilities supported connectedness and full inclusion by addressing ageism and ableism.</p>

<p> This study analyzed the current phenomenon of bystanders recording female-on-female violent videos. This year marked the first time a YouTube video made national headlines for showing a woman beaten unconscious outside of a nightclub. The current study analyzed the volume of bystanders recording female-on-female violence, the amount of bystanders who revealed themselves as the video director, and the increase in violence and nudity within the YouTube videos. A content analysis provided a systematic and historical understanding of this female-on-female violence as a cultural phenomenon. In the seven-year period from 2007-2014, 64 percent of bystanders revealed themselves as the video director; a 55 percent increase in females punching each other; and a 40 percent increase in nudity. The data provides a platform for researchers to learn how female-on-female violence went from "cat fights" to beating a woman unconscious while recording it on a smart phone.</p>

<p> Multiplayer online video games are an increasingly popular form of entertainment, and many individuals spend a considerable amount of time playing them. One hallmark of these multiplayer games has been the need for collaboration and teamwork for both individual enjoyment and game success. At the same time the needs of a global marketplace have led to the evolution of the geographically separated, but technology linked, distributed team as a critical business function. The elements and functions of these business-oriented distributed teams closely align with the types of groups that often come together to play online video games. A common trait shared by both of these kinds of teams is the role that leadership plays in their success. Given that these games are becoming a pervasive element in our culture, and that they mirror business teams, this study examined the possibility of a link between an individual's performance in multiplayer online video games and that person's leadership style as measured by the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). The research questions explored in this paper concern the extent to which traditional leadership styles are linked to successful achievement in collaborative online games and whether there are consistent leadership style profiles associated with tiers of game performance rankings. The findings suggest that while there are links between participation in multiplayer online videogames, additional research must be done to tease out the exact nature of those links and to relate them to offline experiences. In addition while the instrumentation and conceptual frameworks that both define and measure online leadership as expressed in these games have yet to be developed, the study suggests there may be value in extending and enhancing existing leadership constructs, concepts and tool sets such as the Sloan Model and the MLQ to derive such measures. The study also provides future researchers with an enhanced understanding of online data collection as well as a sufficient foundation to further examine areas of correlation between leadership and performance in online games toward uncovering a set of empirical measures that create a more accurate picture of the substance of and development pathways for online leadership.</p>

<p> This research develops and tests models to predict continuance intention on social networking sites. The models adds new factors which are relevant to social networking sites continuance intention. The social networking site continuance model adds five factors: personal innovativeness, habit, attitude toward alternatives, interpersonal influence, and consumer switching costs to enhance the predictive power of information systems continuance. Interpersonal influence, alternative perceptions and procedural and relational costs are theorized to have a direct effect on continuance intention. Personal innovativeness and habit are theorized to have a direct and moderating effects on continuance intention. The results have a large positive effect of the explanatory power in explaining more of the variance of continuance intention on a social networking site. The information systems (IS) continuance model explains approximately 66.8% of the variance and the social networking site continuance model with the five added factors explains 76.7% of the variance and is considered to have a large effect in the explained variance. All of the factors have statistical significance; the factors with the largest path coefficients are, in order, satisfaction &amp; perceived usefulness (<i>&beta;</i> = 0.3686), consumer switching costs (&beta; = 0.2496), alternative perceptions (<i>&beta;</i> = -0.2069), habit (<i>&beta;</i> = 0.1642), personal innovativeness (<i>&beta;</i> = -0.0589) and interpersonal influence (<i>&beta;</i> = -0.0451). Habit and personal innovativeness, as moderators, were not statistically significant and did not substantially aid in the interpretation of the factors. The research helps explains the relevant factors for why users of social networking sites will continue to use or abandon a site.</p>