Increased international competitiveness to host sport mega-events indicates their perceived value in stimulating regional and national economic, social and cultural development. In the context of broader governmental public opinion management strategies, sport mega-events hold the potential to mobilize soft power resources of the host country, expressed in values, culture and policies, and engage with and influence the publics of other countries. This thesis investigates the significance of sport mega-events for the host country’s public diplomacy strategies and practice by exploring the concepts of public diplomacy, sport mega-events, soft power and national image within a multi-disciplinary conceptual framework. The analysis of scholarly literature, official and media reports reveals how aspects of reputation, credibility, and legitimacy guide both foreign public opinion and the practice of public diplomacy in conjunction with sport mega-events. Moreover, international reputation of the host nation, including status, prestige and image, appeared to benefit the most as a result of strategic application of sport mega-events to public diplomacy. This can be achieved by proving functional reputation though demonstration of financial and organizational success. Alternatively, social reputation of the host is at risk of sustaining considerable damage as a result of resistance from social activists groups, thus requiring extensive damage control efforts of the host country's image. The conclusions drawn from this study raise significant questions about the potential of sport mega-events being effectively used for public diplomacy and the experience of the host governments, revealing functional competence as having the greatest potential to influence public diplomacy strategy built around hosting sport mega-events.

Over the past decade, there has been a tremendous development in e-publishing tools. The Arab world tendency towards electronic publishing has facilitated the prosperity of Arabic e-publishing over the Internet. Likewise, it has enabled the ordinary user to deploy documents, letters, opinions, and ideas with freedom and ease of use. Although freedom of expression should be guaranteed to everyone, it may be used to disseminate false or distorted information. This may lead to the loss of ordinary user's confidence in e-content. However, the user's confidence in e-content will increase if the credibility of the content is emphasized. There are many factors that challenge this task including not only the rapidly growth of Arabic digital publishing, the absent from control over electronic content, and the lack of e-publishing regulations and laws, but also how to develop an efficient framework to confirm the digital content authenticity. Therefore, the need to monitor the credibility of Internet content while maintaining freedom of expression to its users has become an urgent matter of debate. A flexible framework needs to be developed that will overcome these issues and allow for a comprehensible and comfortable content validation environment that would satisfy the end users' desires. This thesis proposes a framework that serves to confirm fundamental text authenticity in Arabic scripts on the Internet. This framework will demonstrate the design and the development of new quotes verification algorithm and the necessary components of framework design, development and implementation based on Service Oriented architecture.

While credibility perception on the Web is a well-researched topic across multiple disciplines, extant studies have not considered nonvisual modalities of Web access. This research explores how Web users who are blind or visually impaired perceive the credibility of online information and how the screen reader used by them to interact with the Web mediates the process. Credibility perception was studied in the context of the screen reader users’ everyday information practices, examining in depth the effect of Web accessibility on their online information interactions, information practices and credibility perception. Adopting an exploratory approach, a sequential multimethods research design was used. Between April and July 2008 data were collected from adult screen reader users residing in Ontario, Canada through an electronic questionnaire survey (N=60) to identify salient issues, which were then examined deeper through semi-structured interviews with a subsample (N=13) during June 2009. Hands-on online information activities (with participant observation and think-aloud protocol) were also conducted during the interview session. Primary findings emerged through qualitative content analysis of descriptive data, with quantitative results guiding and supplementing the analysis. Online information credibility perception is found to be a dynamic and social process. It is governed by users’ assumptions based on their past experiences, personal knowledge/beliefs and social inputs. Assumptions evolve over time and usage into personal heuristics. The credibility perception process spans three phases—prediction, evaluation and corroboration—permeating the information seeking, using and sharing practices of users. Evaluation of website and web content depends on users’ online interaction proficiency and is bounded by the interface affordances provided by the screen reader and the amount of meta-information provided by the websites for interpreting visual/spatial features. Community support scaffolds users towards more effective technology management and credibility perception. Therefore, promoting inclusion in the online participatory culture will enhance the information practices of screen reader users.

Despite recent interest in the role of trust in Information Systems, the potential of IS to foster trust in business relationships remains largely untapped. In order to better realize this potential, this dissertation examines three areas of IS trust research for which research is particularly limited: (1) the IT artifact as a target of trust, (2) IS-based source credibility as an antecedent of trust, and (3) the effect of anonymity on trust in online environments. The objective of this dissertation is to examine the effects of IS on trust in each of these areas. To do so, a multi-paper dissertation format is adopted in which each area examined constitutes a distinct, though complimentary, study. Together, these studies further research on how IS can enhance trust in business relationships.

This dissertation reviews the history and discourse of the debate regarding the use of unnamed sources in journalism. A quantitative and qualitative content analysis explores how the use of anonymous sources has changed over the years. The ethics justifying their use are examined through the lens of utilitarianism. The author offers guidelines for their future use.

While credibility perception on the Web is a well-researched topic across multiple disciplines, extant studies have not considered nonvisual modalities of Web access. This research explores how Web users who are blind or visually impaired perceive the credibility of online information and how the screen reader used by them to interact with the Web mediates the process. Credibility perception was studied in the context of the screen reader users’ everyday information practices, examining in depth the effect of Web accessibility on their online information interactions, information practices and credibility perception. Adopting an exploratory approach, a sequential multimethods research design was used. Between April and July 2008 data were collected from adult screen reader users residing in Ontario, Canada through an electronic questionnaire survey (N=60) to identify salient issues, which were then examined deeper through semi-structured interviews with a subsample (N=13) during June 2009. Hands-on online information activities (with participant observation and think-aloud protocol) were also conducted during the interview session. Primary findings emerged through qualitative content analysis of descriptive data, with quantitative results guiding and supplementing the analysis. Online information credibility perception is found to be a dynamic and social process. It is governed by users’ assumptions based on their past experiences, personal knowledge/beliefs and social inputs. Assumptions evolve over time and usage into personal heuristics. The credibility perception process spans three phases—prediction, evaluation and corroboration—permeating the information seeking, using and sharing practices of users. Evaluation of website and web content depends on users’ online interaction proficiency and is bounded by the interface affordances provided by the screen reader and the amount of meta-information provided by the websites for interpreting visual/spatial features. Community support scaffolds users towards more effective technology management and credibility perception. Therefore, promoting inclusion in the online participatory culture will enhance the information practices of screen reader users.

Denna studie undersöker hur privata vårdföretags webbplatser bör utformas för att förmedla en hög trovärdighet mot användare och potentiella kunder. Antalet privata vårdföretag blir allt fler och det blir allt viktigare att synas och framförallt att synas på rätt sätt. Därför väljer många privata vårdföretag att marknadsföra sig med hjälp av en företagswebbplats för att framhålla sig själva och sina produkter och tjänster. Utifrån en stegvis modell för att utvärdera trovärdighet har ett antal faktorer identifierats som ligger till grund för hur användare uppfattar trovärdighet i sammanhanget. Genom att studera hur personer från målgruppen upplever trovärdighet på ett antal utvalda webbplatser har en djupare förståelse för de framkomna resultaten uppstått. Resultaten visar på att det bör läggas stor vikt på fokusering av målgrupp, bilder och bildspråk, den grafiska utformningen och informationsstrukturen vid utveckling av webbplatser för privata vårdföretag. Genom att tillämpa de faktorer som studien har resulterat i, på ett privat vårdföretags webbplats, finns det större chans till att användare från målgruppen kommer att uppleva en hög trovärdighet i samband med interaktion. / This study examines how a private healthcare company's website should be designed to convey a high level of credibility to users and potential customers. The number of private healthcare companies is increasing and it is important to be visible and above all to be seen properly. Many private healthcare companies promote themselves through a company website to highlight themselves and their products and services. Based on a progressive model to evaluate the credibility have a number of factors been identified as the basis for how users perceive trust in the context. By studying how people from the target audience perceive credibility on selected sites, have a deeper understanding of the present upon the results emerged. The results show that there should be emphasis on the focus of the audience, images and imagery, graphic design and information architecture for the development of websites for private healthcare companies. By applying the factors identified in this study to the website of a private healthcare company, there is a greater chance that users from the target group will experience a high level of credibility in the context of interaction.

Background: Rhetoric can be traced back to antiquity and is today a well used tool within marketing and persuasion. Although rhetoric is said to be the art of persuasion there is a lack of research concerning rhetoric used in personal selling, even though persuasion is one of the most important aspects of personal selling. Personal selling is said to be an underlying factor for companies marketing success, therefore the authors see the importance of researching the relationship between rhetoric and personal selling. To be able to investigate how rhetoric effects personal selling, this thesis was conducted in cooperation with IKEA Jönköping. Through the cooperation with IKEA Jönköping, the authors will gain a unique real-life insight into the phenomenon. Purpose: This thesis aims to understand how rhetoric is used, and what effects the phenomenon has on the interaction between a customer and a sales person. Method: Since very little was previously researched within the use of rhetoric in personal selling, the foundation for the primary data collection was based on the theoretical framework that was developed. 112 observations and 30 semi-structured interviews were conducted during 9 days, in order to observe the phenomenon in its natural environment. Conclusion: When used correctly, arguments (Logos) were used in order to persuade the customer, character (Ethos) created a higher credibility of the sales person and emotional and personal associations (Pathos) lead customers being more trusting towards the sellers. If expertise and a strong character were absent in the interactions the sales persons were generally not successful in increasing customer’s attitudes and purchase intentions. When using the rhetorical methods correctly trust, credibility, loyalty and a positive customer attitude could be achieved by the sales person.

This study follows the theoretical les of Deutsch and Gerrard¡¦s dual-process theory to determine the informational and normative factors that influence credibility judgments of on-line consumer recommendation by readers. In addition, this study also discusses how impulse traits and disposition of Trust play as a moderator on the influence of Electronic Word-of-Mouth on sender¡¦s WOM on the receiver¡¦s purchase decision. This study¡¦s main purpose as follows: ¤@¡B How world informational and normative determinants affect a user¡¦s credibility evaluation of on- line consumer recommendations? ¤G¡B How would this perceived credibility of eWOM influence its sender¡¦s WOM on the receiver¡¦s purchase decision? ¤T¡B Receiver of consumer recommendations¡¦ impulse traits and disposition of trust whether influence the relationship between perceived credibility of eWOM and sender¡¦s WOM on the receiver¡¦s purchase decision. This study has some finding as following: ¤@¡B Informational determinant-argument strength, confirmation with receiver¡¦s prior belief, expertise - significantly influenced perceived eWOM credibility. ¤G¡B normative determinant- - significantly influenced perceived eWOM credibility ¤T¡B perceived eWOM credibility significantly influenced sender¡¦s WOM on the receiver¡¦s purchase decision. ¥|¡B impulse traits and disposition of Trust could strengthen the relationship between perceived credibility of eWOM and sender¡¦s WOM on the receiver¡¦s purchase decision.

Using Social Cognitive Theory, Social Identity Theory, and Source Credibility, this study examined the role of instructor source credibility as related to exercise adherence. A one-time survey was given to participants of an eight-week exercise program. Hierarchical multiple linear regression was used to test hypotheses. Results indicate that perceived expertise was a significant predictor of intentions to adhere to class. Additionally, this study shows how Social Identity Theory can predict lower levels of identification in an exercise context. The scales used to text source credibility were shown to be accurate measures of perceived instructor expertise, likeability, and enthusiasm. Thus, these scales can be used to examine this subject in later studies.