Interaction involves people communicating and reacting to each other. This process is key to the study of discourse, but it is not easy to study systematically how interaction takes place in a specific communicative event, or how it is typically performed over a series of repeated communicative events. However, with a written record of the interaction, it becomes possible to study the process in some detail. This thesis investigates interaction through asynchronous written discussion forums in a computer-mediated learning environment. In particular, this study investigates pragmatic aspects of the communicative event which the asynchronous online discussions comprise. The first case study examines response patterns to messages by looking at the content of initial messages and responses, in order to determine the extent to which characteristics of the messages themselves or other situational factors affect the interaction. The second study examines in what ways participants use a range of discourse devices, including formulaic politeness, humour and supportive feedback as community building strategies in the interaction. The third study investigates the role of the subject line of messages in the interaction, for example by examining how participants choose different types of subject lines for different types of messages. The fourth study examines to what extent features serving a deictic function are drawn on in the interaction and then compares the findings to both oral conversation and formal academic discourse. The overall findings show a complex communicative situation shaped by the medium itself, type of activity, the academic discipline and topic of discussion and by the social and cultural aspects of tertiary education in an online learning environment. In addition, the findings may also provide evidence of learning. / The four case studies presented in Language and interaction in online asynchronous communication in university level English courses investigate written discussion forum interaction in a computer-mediated learning environment. These studies deal with different, yet related, aspects of discussion forum communication. Aspects included are the labeling and response patterns of messages, community-building strategies among participants and features of informal conversation and formal academic writing in the messages. Building on discourse analysis combined with content analysis and corpus method, the work systematically examines the linguistic patterns of communication in the discussion forums. The findings show that there are multiple factors at work simultaneously that affect the linguistic choices by the discourse participants. The constraints and opportunities of the communication are not only connected to the fact that it is computer-mediated, but also to the fact that it is written and in a particular academic environment. Knowledge of the choices available and of what factors potentially affect them is useful for anybody involved in research on net-based teaching and learning.

Interaction involves people communicating and reacting to each other. This process is key to the study of discourse, but it is not easy to study systematically how interaction takes place in a specific communicative event, or how it is typically performed over a series of repeated communicative events. However, with a written record of the interaction, it becomes possible to study the process in some detail. This thesis investigates interaction through asynchronous written discussion forums in a computer-mediated learning environment. In particular, this study investigates pragmatic aspects of the communicative event which the asynchronous online discussions comprise. The first case study examines response patterns to messages by looking at the content of initial messages and responses, in order to determine the extent to which characteristics of the messages themselves or other situational factors affect the interaction. The second study examines in what ways participants use a range of discourse devices, including formulaic politeness, humour and supportive feedback as community building strategies in the interaction. The third study investigates the role of the subject line of messages in the interaction, for example by examining how participants choose different types of subject lines for different types of messages. The fourth study examines to what extent features serving a deictic function are drawn on in the interaction and then compares the findings to both oral conversation and formal academic discourse. The overall findings show a complex communicative situation shaped by the medium itself, type of activity, the academic discipline and topic of discussion and by the social and cultural aspects of tertiary education in an online learning environment. In addition, the findings may also provide evidence of learning.

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This study examines the relationship between television shows and their corresponding websites featuring interactive message boards looking at the motivations and gratifications that users cited as reasons for being connected to a program. Information found provides knowledge on why viewers are drawn to TV, and what rewards they gain from the actions they perform beyond viewing the show. Specifically, this study examines if viewing a television show and discussing it on an online message board created the gratification of a greater sense of emotional attachment with the show, and if this sense of heightened emotional connection encouraged the board user to take action or become involved in some other manner other than just viewing TV. A survey featuring Likert Scale and free response options in reference to the participants' television viewing and Internet usage habits was distributed to undergraduate students at the University of Central Florida, and also to the general population with an Internet survey. Information gained from this study will aid television producers and creators to better understand the habits of their message board audiences, and what actions could be taken to entice more viewers to view extra content in relation to the TV show, and how to get users to be more interactive with their product. By providing information about message boards' abilities to encourage emotion and action, more satisfying content can be created by the producers, and the users can gain a greater understanding of their media consumption.

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Nous traitons dans cette thèse le problème de la détection des rôles des utilisateurs sur des forums de discussion en ligne. On peut détenir un rôle comme l'ensemble des comportements propres d'une personne ou d'une position. Sur les forums de discussion, les comportements sont surtout observés à travers des conversations. Pour autant, nous centrons notre attention sur la manière dont les utilisateurs dialoguent. Nous proposons trois méthodes pour détecter des groupes d'utilisateurs où les utilisateurs d'un même groupe dialoguent de façon similaire.Notre première méthode se base sur les structures des conversations dans lesquelles les utilisateurs participent. Nous appliquons des notions de voisinage différentes (radiusbased, order-based, and time-based) applicables aux commentaires qui sont représentés par des noeuds sur un arbre. Nous comparons les motifs de conversation qu'ils permettent de détecter ainsi que les groupes d'utilisateurs associés à des motifs similaires. Notre deuxième méthode se base sur des modèles stochastiques de croissance appliqués aux fils de discussion. Nous proposons une méthode pour trouver des groupes d'utilisateurs qui ont tendance à répondre au même type de commentaire. Nous montrons que, bien qu'il y ait des groupes d'utilisateurs avec des motifs de réponse similaires, il n'y a pas d'évidence forte qui confirme que ces comportements présentent des propriétés prédictives quant aux comportements futurs {sauf pour quelques groupes avec des comportements extrêmes. Avec notre troisième méthode nous intégrons les types de données utilisés dans les deux méthodes précédentes (feature-based et behavioral ou functional-based) et nous montrons que le modèle trouve des groupes en ayant besoin de moins d'observations. L'hypothèse du modèle est que les utilisateurs qui ont des caractéristiques similaires ont aussi des comportements similaires. / This thesis addresses the problem of detecting user roles in online discussion forums. A role may be defined as the set of behaviors characteristic of a person or a position. In discussion forums, behaviors are primarily observed through conversations. Hence, we focus our attention on how users discuss. We propose three methods to detect groups of users with similar conversational behaviors.Our first method for the detection of roles is based on conversational structures. Weapply different notions of neighborhood for posts in tree graphs (radius-based, order-based, and time-based) and compare the conversational patterns that they detect as well as the clusters of users with similar conversational patterns.Our second method is based on stochastic models of growth for conversation threads.Building upon these models we propose a method to find groups of users that tend to reply to the same type of posts. We show that, while there are clusters of users with similar replying patterns, there is no strong evidence that these behaviors are predictive of future behaviors |except for some groups of users with extreme behaviors.In out last method, we integrate the type of data used in the two previous methods(feature-based and behavioral or functional-based) and show that we can find clusters using fewer examples. The model exploits the idea that users with similar features have similar behaviors.

Les concepts fondamentaux de la géographie perçus à travers le triptyque Mémoire-Patrimoine-Territoire permettent d'esquisser le cadre général de représentation des espaces expérimentés par l'homme. Dans cette perspective, cette thèse aborde le sens des valeurs patrimoniales en situation diasporique. Il s'agit de s'intéresser aux identités patrimoniales à l'épreuve du territoire selon les actions de nommer, valoriser et instrumenter les lieux. Ce travail de recherche s'appuie sur l'analyse des enjeux, des acteurs et des pratiques du processus de patrimonialisation au Maroc et à Casablanca. La recherche se fonde également sur l'analyse des contextes d'usages, du langage et de la symbolique des lieux au sein des forums du Web dédiés à la diaspora Judéo-marocaine et Amazighe. L'objectif principal de l'approche adoptée consiste à engager une réflexion sur la potentialité que les membres des forums du Web soient actants du processus patrimonial. Les résultats obtenus mettent à jour la nature du support mémoriel privilégié, par les identités Judéo-marocaine et Amazighe diasporées, pour la patrimonialisation virtuelle de leurs valeurs culturelles. Une approche des valeurs patrimoniales en situation diasporique par le biais des représentations virtuelles des identités Juive et Berbère du Maroc sur fond de « Web 2.0 ». / The fundamental concepts of the geography perceived through the triptych Memory-Heritage-Territory allow to sketch the general framework of representation of spaces experimented by the man. This thesis approaches the sense of patrimonial moral values in diasporique situation. The purpose is to consider the patrimonial identities in the test of the territory according to the actions to name, value and instrument places. This research work leans on the analysis of stakes, the actors and the practices of patrimonialisation in Morocco and in Casablanca. The research is also based on the analysis of the environmental frame, the language and some symbolism of places within the forums of Web dedicated to the Jewish moroccan and Amazighe diaspora. The main objective of the adopted approach consists in committing a reflection on the potentiality that the members of the forums of the Web are agents of the patrimonial process. The obtained results update the nature of the privileged memory support, by the Jewish moroccan and Amazighe identities of the exile, for the virtual patrimonialisation of their cultural values. An approach of the patrimonial values in situation of exile by means of the virtual representations of the Jewish and Berber identities of Morocco on the background « Web 2.0 ».

Web forums are a popular way of exchanging information and discussing various topics. These websites usually have a special structure, divided into boards, threads and posts. Although the structure might be consistent across forums, the layout of each forum is different. The way a web forum presents the user posts is also very different from how a news website presents a single piece of information. All of this makes the navigation and extraction of text a hard task for web scrapers. The focus of this thesis is the development of a web scraper specialized in forums. Three different methods for text extraction are implemented and tested before choosing the most appropriate method for the task. The methods are Word Count, Text-Detection Framework and Text-to-Tag Ratio. The handling of link duplicates is also considered and solved by implementing a multi-layer bloom filter. The thesis is conducted applying a qualitative methodology. The results indicate that the Text-to-Tag Ratio has the best overall performance and gives the most desirable result in web forums. Thus, this was the selected methods to keep on the final version of the web scraper. / Webforum är ett populärt sätt att utbyta information och diskutera olika ämnen. Dessa webbplatser har vanligtvis en särskild struktur, uppdelad i startsida, trådar och inlägg. Även om strukturen kan vara konsekvent bland olika forum är layouten av varje forum annorlunda. Det sätt på vilket ett webbforum presenterar användarinläggen är också väldigt annorlunda än hur en nyhet webbplats presenterar en enda informationsinlägg. Allt detta gör navigering och extrahering av text en svår uppgift för webbskrapor. Fokuset av detta examensarbete är utvecklingen av en webbskrapa specialiserad på forum. Tre olika metoder för textutvinning implementeras och testas innan man väljer den lämpligaste metoden för uppgiften. Metoderna är Word Count, Text Detection Framework och Text-to-Tag Ratio. Hanteringen av länk dubbleringar noga övervägd och löses genom att implementera ett flerlagers bloom filter. Examensarbetet genomförs med tillämpning av en kvalitativ metodik. Resultaten indikerar att Text-to-Tag Ratio har den bästa övergripande prestandan och ger det mest önskvärda resultatet i webbforum. Således var detta den valda metoden att behålla i den slutliga versionen av webbskrapan.

A dramatized account of my discovery, research and inclusion into the subculture of cybersuicide. / text

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Robert K. Schaeffer / In deliberative democracy, attempts to reconcile questions of gender and civil society are deadlocked over fundamental assumptions concerning the role of deliberation and the possibility that exclusion and inequality are inherent in democracy. Normative theories of deliberation - encouraging free, equal and impartial participation by citizens are fueled by the power of reason. Reason giving is associated with dominant groups – namely white, middle-class men; passionate, emotive and particularized speech is associated with politically disadvantaged groups such as women, minorities and poor. Limited empirical findings indicate rational models of deliberation do not affirm theorized inequalities. In this case, female participants neither experience unequal access or treatment within deliberation. This dissertation seeks to provide a framework for resolving the debate posed by difference democrats over whether deliberative democracy remedies the problem of inequality by examining fourteen National Issues Forums public deliberations. One set of deliberations feature an equal mix of male and female participants, another set with more male than female and a third with more female than male participants. I examine the types of talk women and men use in deliberations and whether affective claims negatively affect deliberation. Ultimately, I find that inequality based on gender exists in most of the deliberative forums I surveyed. I argue that the type of inequality plaguing deliberative democracy exists a priori – before participants enter the forums – and then manifests itself inside the forum as well. The normative structure of deliberation that is supposed to screen or bracket out inequality and the strong influences of the economic and political elites just does not happen to the degree deliberative democracy needs in order to continue the claim that it is net beneficial over the status quo.