During the past decades, the world has seen a fast development in information technology. This has led to significant changes in many different industries including the media industry. The transformation is in progress and is unceasingly changing the game rules for media companies. Many magazines are struggling in the new competitive media landscape since existing business models in the print industry are hard to apply to the digital industry. In order for magazines to remain competitive they need to develop their revenue models and adjust to the new game rules in the industry. This thesis is focused on how magazines could develop their businesses in order to remain competitive in the transition from print to digital media. The research methods used were semi-structured interviews and a survey. The interviews were conducted with seven different media experts in order to find possible directions for Swedish magazines in general. The survey was aimed exclusively to the entertainment magazine Nöjesguiden in order to decide what additional revenue models fit them best. The results from the interviews implicate that magazines should continuously evaluate their print business using a holistic perspective, adopt long-term perspectives, initiate cost cutting in the print business and put the cost savings into investments for the future. In addition, they should have four main areas of focus in the digital business – strategy, content, target group and data. Strategy relates to focusing on the digital business, being innovative and trying new things. The results also show that it is beneficial to separate the old business from the new since the old business is linked to outdated industry structures. Regarding content, the direction should be either very broad or very niched. Thereto, magazines should focus on unique content, which refers to content that is not available elsewhere by other content providers. In addition, magazines should evaluate what makes their content unique. This is closely related to the target group, which is going to become more important in the future media climate. For magazines, getting to know their specific target group and focusing on improving the brand recognition are going to be advantageous factors in being competitive in the digital media climate. In conclusion, magazines should use data to continuously evaluate their business and use that knowledge to improve their offer. The results from the survey shows that the best new revenue model for Nöjesguiden at the moment is events.

With the rapid growth of the internet and digital media techniques over the last decade, multimedia data such as images, video and audio can easily be copied, altered and distributed over the internet without any loss in quality. Therefore, protection of ownership of multimedia data has become a very significant and challenging issue. Three novel image watermarking algorithms have been designed and implemented for copyright protection. The first proposed algorithm is based on embedding multiple watermarks in the blue channel of colour images to achieve more robustness against attacks. The second proposed algorithm aims to achieve better trade-offs between imperceptibility and robustness requirements of a digital watermarking system. It embeds a watermark in adaptive manner via classification of DCT blocks with three levels: smooth, edges and texture, implemented in the DCT domain by analyzing the values of AC coefficients. The third algorithm aims to achieve robustness against geometric attacks, which can desynchronize the location of the watermark and hence cause incorrect watermark detection. It uses geometrically invariant feature points and image normalization to overcome the problem of synchronization errors caused by geometric attacks. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithms are robust and outperform related techniques found in literature.

Digitala bilder och föräldrars betydelse för barnets språkutveckling har uppmärksammats av forskare de senaste åren. Barn lär sig genom socialt samspel då mimik, gestik, ord, fonetik och handlingar sammankopplas i hjärnan. Delade meningar råder kring vad är bra och mindre bra för barnets språkutveckling. På barnavårdscentralen startades ett förbättringsarbete, ett utökat 8 månaders besök, med syfte att kommunicera kring vikten av och öka kunskapen hos föräldrar kring barns språkutveckling. Syftet med studien var att studera och beskriva faktorer för ökad kunskap för föräldrar och personal. Förbättringsarbetet innebar ett utökat 8 månaders besök med bokläsning och samtal kring skärmvanor. Föreläsning och workshop för föräldrar erbjöds. Enkät med slutna frågor genomfördes av personalen på barnavårdscentralen. Intervjuer, enskilda och i fokusgrupper genomfördes för att besvara syftet. Datamaterialet transkriberades och analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Förbättringsarbetet ökade föräldrars kunskap kring tidig läsning och vikten att ordstimulera samt använda sig av TAKK tecken. Studien visade att faktorer som dialog, interaktion och påverkan ökade föräldrarna och personalens kunskap om tidig språkstimulering. Personalens kunskap och det tvärprofessionella samarbetet stärktes. Tydlighet i kommunikation till personal och föräldrar om vikten av tidig läsning, praktisk tillämpning, visualisera samt att följa upp var en viktig slutsats. Barnavårdscentralens viktigaste uppgift är att sprida kunskap om barns språkutveckling, stötta föräldrar då tidiga insatser hjälper. / Speak more with your child! Digital images and the importance of parents for the child's language development haveattracted the attention of researchers in recent years. Children learn through social interactionbecause of facial expressions, gesticulations, words, phonetics and actions are connected in thebrain. There are divided opinions about what is good or less good for the development of the child's language.At the Child Health Center an improvement work was started, an extended eight-months visit,with the aim of communicating about the importance of and increasing knowledge amongparents about children's language development. The purpose of the study was to study anddescribe factors for increased knowledge for parents and staff.The improvement work meant an extended eight-month visit with book reading andconversations about screen habits. Lecture and workshop for parents were offered. A closedended questionnaire was conducted by the staff at the child welfare centre. Interviews,individuals and in focus groups were conducted to answer the purpose. The data material wastranscribed and analysed with qualitative content analysis.The improvement work increased parents' knowledge of early reading and the importance ofword stimulation and the use of TAKK signs. The study showed that factors such as dialogue,interaction and influence increased parents' and staff's knowledge of early language stimulation.The staff's knowledge and interprofessional cooperation were strengthened.Clarity of communication to staff and parents about the importance of early reading, practicalapplication, visualizing and following up was an important conclusion.The most important task for the child health centre is to spread knowledge about children's language development and support parents when early intervention helps.

Användandet av digital media hos små barn har ökat drastiskt de senaste åren, däribland läsning av e-böcker. Tidigare forskningsfynd är tvetydiga gällande effekterna på inlärning från e-böcker. Därför syftar studiens huvudfrågeställning till att undersöka huruvida det finns en skillnad i inlärning från e-böcker jämfört med traditionella böcker. Utöver studiens huvudfrågeställning ställdes även två bifrågeställningar upp. Den ena syftar till att undersöka huruvida ett samband finns mellan inlärningen från e-bok samt traditionell bok och deklarativt minne. Den andra syftar till att undersöka huruvida ett samband finns mellan inlärningen från e-bok samt traditionell bok och verbal förmåga. För att undersöka huvudfrågeställningen användes en experimentell inomgruppsdesign där vårdnadshavarna tillsammans med barnen fick läsa en e-bok och en traditionell bok med efterföljande frågor kopplat till boken. För att undersöka bifrågeställningarna användes det deklarativa minnestestet FIT-24 och två verbala deltest från Bayley-S. Ingen signifikant skillnad hittades i inlärning från förinspelade, icke-interaktiva e-böcker jämfört med traditionella böcker. Det återfanns heller inget samband mellan deklarativt minne och inlärning från böckerna. Det hittades dock ett signifikant samband mellan verbal förmåga och inlärning från böckerna. Resultatet ger en indikation på att barn kan lära sig från förinspelade, icke-interaktiva e-böcker och traditionella böcker när en vårdnadshavare är delaktig i läsningen.

BACKGROUND: As digital media use has increasingly become a part of daily life for adolescents, it is critical to ascertain any potential link between digital media use and poorer mental health. Many studies have explored the relationship between screen time and psychiatric symptoms, but most of these studies have been limited by cross-sectional and participant recall. Moreover, many of these studies examine youth digital media use as a whole, rather than examining qualitative use. This study uses smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment to capture daily relationships between anxiety and depression symptoms and quality and quantity of smartphone use. METHODS: Youth aged 12 to 22 years-old were recruited from Cambridge Health Alliance’s outpatient psychiatry clinics to participate in the study. Participants were asked to use the mindLAMP app daily for six weeks to record depression and anxiety symptoms (via PHQ-8 and GAD-7 screeners), as well as provide daily screen time and three most frequently used apps obtained from their smartphone’s screen time report feature. Patient psychiatric diagnosis and demographic data were obtained from the medical record upon study enrollment. Multilevel mixed effects regression models were used to assess relationships between daily depression and anxiety symptoms and digital media use; linear regression models assessed relationships between psychiatric diagnoses and average screen and social media time over the course of the study. RESULTS: The study recruited a total of 51 youths. Frequent use of a specific type of digital media was not related to an increase in daily depression or anxiety symptoms. While no one category of psychiatric diagnosis was related to higher or lower average screen time, a statistically significant relationship was observed between daily GAD-7 score and daily time spent on social media (p=0.004) and percent of daily screen time that was spent on social media (p=0.01) with increased daily GAD-7 scores. Daily PHQ-8 scores were also positively correlated to daily time spent on social media (p=0.023). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings support those of prior studies that a significant relationship exists between anxiety, depression, and time spent on screens. It is less evident whether a specific type of digital media use may be more or less associated with these symptoms. More focused research with digital phenotyping or ecological momentary assessment may help to determine whether digital media use causes the worsening of psychiatric symptoms or alternatively, is being used to help manage them. Either way, mental health clinicians should educate their adolescent patients about these existing relationships and encourage patient self-awareness regarding personal patterns of digital media use. / 2025-02-20T00:00:00Z

Multiple accelerated cultural and social changes have been attributed to social media, from mobilizing social movements to problematizing or normalizing terms and concepts. Digital platforms are considered a vital element in the ecosystem for realizing change in societies, yet the focus is often on overtly sociopolitical content and the issue-driven or identity-driven networked society content. However, and despise the ubiquitous nature of digital media, the accumulative impact of mundane casual interaction has rarely been scrutinized beyond its ability to support rapport building. This research explores the influence of the mundane content in communities’ cultural repertoire. It positions it in the schema of narrative (re)building and meaning (re)making tools, processes that contribute to making lasting impactful change in society. The research especially highlights how the mundane content serves to aid the cultural evolvement of marginalized communities annihilated from the public sphere. Utilizing Paolo Freire’s critical consciousness, Andrea Brock’s work on Black cyberculture, and Zizi Papacharissi’s affective public thesis, this research explores how cultural and digital practices of the (stateless) Bidoon community in Kuwait intertwine in their everyday usage of Twitter. Through digital ethnography that involved discourse analysis of tweets and in-depth interviews with eight participants from the Bidoon community, this research exhibits how mundane Twitter usage has allowed the Bidoon community to reinterpret and recontextualize their cause through weaving their interpersonal grievances into a collective narrative, and how regaining power over their story and using the platform to spread their voice empowered a sense of agency to not only imagine a new world but also find creative ways to realize it. Mundane Twitter has allowed Bidoons to create counternarratives, penetrate the public sphere, control the advocacy rhetoric, and regain power over cultural symbols and thus their relationship with their collective memory. Through highlighting how what appears to be inefficient mundane tweets actually intertwine cultural with digital practices and motivate critical dialogue and reflective processes, this research identifies the importance of raising critical consciousness as an affordance of mundane Twitter, and it encourages extending the scoop of what is considered critical action to be inclusive of the accumulative digital efforts of communities suffering from cultural erasure. / Media & Communication

Regular savings behavior is critical for low-income Americans to achieve financial mobility. New technology tools are being used to improve personal awareness and attention to financial goals. This thesis reviews mobile learning (mLearning) research and leading commercial personal finance smartphone apps, both of which inform the design of Financial Forest, a savings app. Participants in the 4-week Financial Forest savings study are found to have a statistically significant improved perception of the difficulty of building an emergency fund.

This thesis aims to explore what and how Swedish micro firms use digital media towards relationship initiation in a Business-to-Business (B2B) context. Digital media has been increasingly studied in marketing over time, but it has been predominated by Business-to- Customer (B2C) context, while the Business-to-Business context lacks attention, micro B2B firms even less in particular. Moreover, previous studies show that micro B2B firms lack knowledge of how to leverage digital media and thus they have not fully exploited the benefits in relationship marketing. Therefore, this thesis anticipates gaining a better understanding of the phenomenon of digital media use by micro B2B firms towards customer relationships and focuses on the initiation stage due to its importance in the relationship marketing process as well as the limited knowledge in existing literature.  This thesis employs a qualitative and multi-case study approach to explore the focal phenomenon. Four micro companies which have less than 10 employees from the life science industryparticipate in the empirical study. The data comes from semi-structured interviews and observation of their websites and social media accounts. Each firm has conducted two interviews. The data analysis follows the Gioia methodology, including within case and across cases analysis, as well as the theory elaboration study.  This study shows that Swedish micro B2B firms rely on their own websites, email, and social media mainly LinkedIn to communicate with potential customers, hence fostering relationship initiation. These digital media have been used to trigger the interest of potential customers, establish credibility by knowledge sharing, and create value. The findings contribute to the literature by extending the knowledge of what and how digital media is used by micro B2B firms towards relationship initiation. They are in line with extant literature showing that digital media enables companies to attract customers, engage their participation, and meet as well as provide services online. In addition, they confirm that digital media can enhance their trustworthiness due to increased communication and interaction. Furthermore, the findings identify the processive process of the case firms and their potential customers from unfamiliarity to relationship initiation, which illustrates three levels of interactivity in sequence: message-based level, knowledge-based level, and participant-based level. The progress of interactivity indicates the development of the trust of potential customers.  This thesis sheds light on what digital media micro B2B firms use and how to use towards relationship initiation with unfamiliar potential customers. Also, it provides insights into how micro B2B firms could establish and increase their trustworthiness in the market. Additionally, this thesis extends the managerial implications to the society and other stakeholders.

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