This research focuses on the development of a new methodology for creating effective websites, especially those used for marketing. It was found that existing methodologies were missing some key stages - user participation and “real interaction” (i.e. monitoring of user interaction with a prototype site). This has led to users being frustrated and lacking loyalty to the website. There is great potential for combining aspects of methodologies from different disciplines; however, these need to be integrated in a coherent way. To address these problems, a new integrated methodology was developed in this research. The new methodology was created from basic concepts derived from: lifecycle models; Information Systems development methodologies; methodologies with explicit human factors aspects; websites methodologies; marketing methodologies; and additional techniques such as task analysis and detailed website design and implementation. After studying the lifecycle model, the researcher identified four key principles, which were the foundation of the research: user participation; iteration; usability and “real interaction”. The way in which these four principles were incorporated in each methodology was evaluated in order to choose the strongest stages to utilize in the new combined methodology. After reviewing techniques for methodology integration, a new draft methodology was produced. To assess the new methodology, two research phases were used - interviews and a questionnaire. In the former phase, the researcher interviewed representatives from nine website development companies in Western Australia to discuss their current methodologies and compared these with the new methodology. / Most of the industry participants were pleased with the structure of the new methodology, as most agreed that it incorporates the necessary requirements to develop a successful website. The interviews generated some recommendations for revisions to the methodology, which assisted the researcher to improve the new methodology. In the latter phase, an online questionnaire was completed by a total of website industry participant andInformation Systems Professionals, in order to assess the revised methodology. Results from the interviews and questionnaire supported the research hypothesis – i.e. that the new integrated methodology can provide a more effective way of developing websites, utilizing the four key principles. This thesis points to the need for further research, including the development of a website describing the new methodology. This website will incorporate a software tool to facilitate selection of particular stages, steps and techniques from theintegrated methodology to produce a tailored methodology for any specific project, thereby implementing the concept of “contingency”.

Stress and depression are popular and powerful terms within the mental health field. Although the relation between the two terms has been discussed and investigated in lay and scientific discourse, less is known about how this relation is constructed online. Individuals wanting to learn more about these topics are increasingly turning online using a search engine as an initial quick method of obtaining mental health information. The present research examines the stress and depression discourse found on self-help websites using a social constructionist epistemological framework and the methodological approach of discourse analysis. In the first manuscript, I specifically examined how stress was constructed in the causal ontology of depression in six different websites. The analysis demonstrated that many possible relations between the two terms were included. This finding suggests that, in the online context, ensuring that website users find themselves represented in the text is of maximal importance. In the second manuscript, I examined how the stress and depression terms themselves were constructed. This analysis suggests that the stress discourse often borrowed from depression discourse, constructing the two terms in similar ways. This parallel construction involved defining both terms as mental illnesses, with corresponding symptoms and clinical presentations that required treatment. The degree of overlap between the two terms suggests that engaging the website user was more important than the specific label used to label the distress in the online context. I examine the contrast between the general, fluid, and elastic constructions of the mental health terms found online with the ever-evolving need for increased precision and demarcation of mental health conditions within the fields of psychiatry and psychology.

This article describes a library workshop for freshman hospitality management students enrolled at New York City College of Technology, CUNY, which features a focus on critical thinking. An active learning experience uses an element of surprise. Students evaluate the website of a bankrupt company where information about the company’s situation is hidden or not present. When the instructor guides the class to find unbiased information from newspapers, many students begin to think critically about sources.

A growing number of companies, both multinationals and local firms, have begun to adopt the idea of sustainability development, and develop and market their green products/services with green advertising in developing countries. However, in the context of China where the idea of commercial environmentalism or green consumption is emerging and transported from the West, it is not clear that how the green consumption is advocated and how consumption practices are connected to environmental protection, and how the meaning of green consumption is constructed by firms operating in China. This study explores the Internet as a rich text for environmental marketing by analyzing the ways firms showcase details of their green products/services, production methods, business philosophy and other facets of their environmental practices and values. The online promotional information can be seen as corporate green advertising. Focused on the advertisings from corporate websites, and through the analytical framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (e.g., Faircloug, 1992; 1995(a) (b); Wodak and Chilton, 2005), this study presents how a number of environmental conscious firms in China are portraying and promoting their environmental responsible image and green products/services, and aims to examine what firms are really telling and how they are discursively constructing corporate “greenness”. Based on the analyses of green advertisements from websites of four case companies (two MNCs in China: General Electric in China, Unilever in China, and two Chinese local firms: BYD automobile, and Landsea Real Estate), the study suggests that corporate green advertising discourse plays an active role in defining “reality” of greenness and imbuing meanings of consumption into environmentalism, as well as in achieving the hegemonic construction of corporate greenness. In addition, the corporate greenness is anthropocentric and embraces consumerist and post-materialist values. Instead of endorsing the environmentalism which appeals for a change of the current over-consumption lifestyle in capitalist development, the corporate green advertising strategically integrates lineages from green discourse of ecological modernization and political discourse of neoliberalism. In addition to similarities, dissimilarities existing between discourses from MNCs’ and Chinese local firms are identified in two aspects: greenness integration and greenness level. The differences in advertising discourses derive from both organizational resources and firms’ embedded economic, historical, and social-cultural contexts. Such differences prove the mutual constitutive or dialectical relationship between language and society and develop the argument that although firms play active role in constructing discourse, and green advertising discourse can be seen as corporations’ discursive approach to achieve environmental governance, their discourse is nevertheless constrained by both organizational internal and external influences.

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Steven Smethers / Although scholars have increasingly recognized the important role of the Internet within the field of mass communications, little research has been done analyzing the behavior of individuals online. The success or failure of a site is often dependent on the number of visitors it receives (often called “traffic”) and this includes newspapers that are attempting to direct larger audiences to their websites. Theoretical arguments have been made for certain factors (region, social media presence, backlinks, etc.) having a positive correlation with traffic, but few, if any, statistical analyses have been done on traffic patterns. This study looks at a sample of approximately 300 high-traffic websites and forms several regression models in order to analyze which factors are most highly correlated with Internet traffic and what the nature of that correlation is.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Don L. Kurtz / This study explores existing beliefs and often unspoken social structural arrangements related to male privileges by examining three different, but rather important, American social organizations—the NFL, U.S. military and higher education institutions. With queries from the Google image database, I analyzed images for themes from search terms of organizations thereby tapping into the consciences of society. Since a high volume of images are produced by Google Image search, a maximum of 25 results of each search term are included as potential sources of images for this study. The primary category of non-specific gender search terms of Google images are: NFL Players, U.S. soldiers, and college students. In addition, this study also utilized a subset category of gender and sexuality specific Google search terms that are related to the primary category search terms. The subset category of gender and sexuality specific Google search terms of images are: women of the NFL, NFL gay players, U.S. female soldiers, U.S. gay soldiers, college volleyball players, and fraternity life. Both the U.S. military and the NFL presented images of men preforming competitive or aggressive activities that can be defined as masculine labors. These images are reflections of the ideal masculine male playing a special role in U.S. society—the “warrior” male. Yet most images depicted U.S, soldiers in clean combat uniform with military weapons at a ready to engage in battle. This suggests that either U.S. military have some control over images that can be displayed on popular websites. Even though page ranking software gives the appearance that popular websites are the product of algorithm but there is some evidence that ranking can be manipulated by organizations. Colleges take manipulating popular websites to another level to reach their potential clients. Unlike the U.S. military and the NFL’s search terms results that presented images of men preforming masculine activities, college students’ search term results images are images of students displaying activities that show individuals in the act of being polite and pleasant to others, as well as being supportive. I suggest that the idea behind presenting images with a feminine slant is to attract the group that is most likely to attend college after high school, which is female. College websites will most likely to have staged images of study groups and professors teaching to a small group of students. The websites featured staged images of students, in which students are almost flawless in appearance, a phenomena that could only be achieved through doctoring, cosmetics, and computer retouching. This type of images is more likely to be attractive to potential students that are searching the internet for potential colleges to attend in the future. Moreover, Photoshop images of students assist colleges and universities in controlling the images they want to introduce to potential students and media. Colleges are prudent on how much to display in images of heterosexual relationships. Most staged images that displayed heteronormativity are male and female students studying within each other personal space. It would seem that images of homosexual relationships are still taboo on college websites because there are no staged images that indicated homosexual relationship between college students. I believe that these reflections are presented as organizational websites’ marketing strategies. The marketing strategies of website designers are to implement a group think mentality of those seeking information of a specific term. This action is caused by search engine page ranking software in order to organize highly interconnected websites toward one idea thus influencing a large number of potential and current customers’ decisions. In today’s technologically connected society, societal perception of what constitutes masculinity, femininity and sexuality starts with a well-designed website. The findings will perhaps have important implications for understanding to how the negative outcomes of male privileges remain entrenched in social institutions and benefit certain segments of society at the cost of others.

Estágio realizado naTelbit e orientado pelo Eng.º José Pedro Tavares / Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2009

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores (Major Telecomunicações). Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2010

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2011

En el presente documento se detalla un proyecto que ha sido desarrollado durante varios meses, en donde se investigó rigurosamente el mercado y se determinó la viabilidad de este. El proyecto, llamado Tabú Planner, es una página web que servirá de intermediario entre una concentración diversificada de microempresarios proveedores de diferentes servicios para realizar eventos y miles de personas que tienen la necesidad de realizar un evento en específico. Esta página consiste en conectar a los microempresarios que no tienen un lugar determinado donde promocionar sus servicios y al usuario quien tampoco conoce proveedores para realizar su evento; se realizó la validación y se obtuvo como resultado que invierten mucho tiempo en la búsqueda, e incluso no los encuentran en las condiciones que ellos esperaban. Nosotros, como compañía, somos ese nexo importante para que las necesidades de ambos puedan suplirse. Para la inversión inicial se requerirá un importe de S/33,050 soles, el cual será aportada mayoritariamente por los accionistas, pero un importe menor será por tercero. Las fuentes de ingresos serán mediante el pago de membresías que irán desde los tres meses hasta los doce meses. Además, se contará con una oficina que servirá para tener un contacto directo con nuestros socios claves. Con respecto a la evaluación financiera, el negocio genera un Valor Presente Neto de 46,841.19. La TIR del proyecto asciende a 13%, con un retorno de inversión a partir del 1.76 años. / This document details our Project that has been developed throughout the past five months, in which we investigated the market and determined its viability. The project is called “Tabú Planner”, which is a website that serves as an intermediary between a diversified market of small entrepreneurs that provide different services related to the organization of events, and thousands of people who have the need to organize a specific event. This website relays to connect those entrepreneurs that doesn’t develop a promotion strategy in which the sell their products and those customers that doesn’t know which are the best providers. We realized the validation, and it resulted that customers waste too much time finding the suitable one, and even in the case they find them, it often doesn’t fulfill their expectations. Our company is the suitable relation to fulfill those necessities. For the initial investment, the amount of S/ 33,050 is needed, which will be mostly contributed by the shareholders, but a small margin will be invested by a third party. The income stream will be made through the payment of memberships that will offered from three months to twelve months. In addition, there is an office that serves to have direct contact with our key partners. Related to our financial evaluation, this project generates a Net Present Value of 46,841.19. The project’s TIR amount to 13% with a return over investment starting at 1.76 years. / Trabajo de investigación