In this essay we have chosen to research how health supplement companies market themselves and in different ways reach out to a vast majority of people with the help of one of the biggest social media channels, Instagram. It’s common nowadays that companies use social media as a fast, cheap and easy way to market their products to users. Either by promoting it on their own channel or by sponsorship, where they have popular people with a high amount of followers to encourage their viewers to buy their products. Instagram is rapidly growing and today have about 400 million active users every month and 40 % of all Swedish people that uses the Internet are a member of this application. Our research question is: “in which way do health supplement companies work with private individuals to communicate with their target group on Instagram and what is in the medium Instagram that makes it possible to use it for marketing and communication purposes?” By interviewing four individuals who are sponsored by different companies, two experts on the domain and by doing a netnographic observation that examines eight different Instagram accounts we were able to analyse and find the answer to our question. For health supplement companies to successfully communicate with their target group on Instagram it is important that they use the right person as an influencer. This is important to create high credibility towards the consumer. It’s also important that the influencer describes the product in an interesting way and that the person has a lot of knowledge about the product. We also conclude that the most important function that Instagram can offer is the ability to distribute images and influence other users.

This article presents the findings of a corpus linguistic analysis of the hashtags #mansplaining, #manspreading, and #manterruption, three lexical blends which have recently found widespread use across a variety of online media platforms. Focusing on the social media and microblogging site Twitter, we analyze a corpus of over 20,000 tweets containing these hashtags to examine how discourses of gender politics and gender relations are represented on the site. More specifically, our analysis suggests that users include these hashtags in tweets to index their individual evaluations of, and assumptions about, "proper" gendered behavior. Consequently, their metadiscursive references to the respective phenomena reflect their beliefs of what constitutes appropriate (verbal) behavior and the extent to which gender is appropriated as a variable dictating this behavior. As such, this article adds to our knowledge of the ways in which gendered social practices become sites of contestation and how contemporary gender politics play out in social media sites.

The naked body is an entity that has always been present in both the “real” world and the media. The anatomy of our bodies isn’t something we can avoid; today it reflects the reality that has developed partly from media. According to Instagram’s guidelines users are not allowed to publish naked or semi-naked pictures but that does not stop certain users that are critical to how the body norms and censorship are portrait today. In our study, we take part of research regarding gender in multimedia settings and how they have affected our daily lives. As well as studies, which research the usage of hashtags and how to circumvent censorship. The focus for this study is to research what role Instagram and hashtags have in generating a public discussion as well to draw attention to various issues and causes that are based on norm critique. We have conducted two different observations, held interviews with activists and created an online-survey for users to answer what they think about the Instagram community guidelines. The results show that there is an underlying discrimination acceptance within Instagram and their community guidelines. We can also see that women and users who uses hashtags can spread their causes more effectively, although they are simultaneously at risk for being censored depending on the hashtag they use. According to our respondents from our research there is an agreement regarding the need of updating Instagram’s community guidelines, which could help with eliminate the current discrimination against women and their breasts. At the end of this study we are giving a proposal to how Instagram can work with their censoring in a more critical way. This may contribute to an agenda to make social media platforms safer and less discriminating.

Urban public spaces are constantly restructured with new meaning, reflecting their socio-cultural, political, historical, and technological influences. Over the last two decades, the rapid technological advancements and increasingly widespread use of mobile devices give people a chance to share their experiences of their immediate surroundings through various applications. As these platforms enable people to create and exchange various forms of User-Generated Content (UGC) has gained wide attention as an invaluable source of information on human-environment relationships including people's timely perception, emotion, preference, and sense of place in public space. This study employs quantitative content analysis to identify collective perceptions of urban public spaces and their characteristics as projected through a photo-sharing social media application, Instagram. A total of 1,200 users' photos and associated hashtags geo-referenced to three New York City urban public spaces, Bryant Park, Madison Square Park, and Union Square. This study begins with a qualitative phase, employing manual categorization techniques to identify the concepts in visual and textual data. The second phase applied a statistical analysis method, a set of descriptive analytics, and chi-square tests to answer the research questions for this study. Findings indicate physical attributes of urban squares are the most dominant type of geo-referenced users' photographs through the visual social media platform. People's immediate perceptions vary with time and place, while the patterns of hashtag usage found in this study show no difference across the three urban squares. people's perception of urban squares goes beyond the boundaries of the square itself, encompassing the streetscape, buildings, and local businesses adjacent to the square. While people rarely utilize hashtags as a method of emotional expression, findings show a clear connection between hashtags associated with users' photo content and the image of the city. / Doctor of Philosophy / The proliferation of mobile devices and social media platforms has given people new opportunities to document and exchange their experiences in urban public spaces. Publicly available content, which communicates timely opinions, perceptions, emotions, and preferences has a strong influence on the formation of the overall perception of urban public spaces in the digital environment. This study aims to explore how a sense of place—including emotional value, urban identity, distinctiveness, and seasonality—is built-in urban public spaces through one image-sharing application, Instagram. In addition, hashtags attached to the photographs are collected to help understand people's motivations for posting content in urban public places. The study compiles 1,200 photographs on Instagram taken at three New York City public spaces, Bryant Park, Madison Square Park, and Union Square. The study finds that people tend to post content that focuses on the physical appearance of the squares. However, people's perception of urban squares goes beyond the boundaries of the squares themselves, encompassing the streetscape, buildings, and local businesses around each square. One important function of Instagram in these spaces is for people to write information to document their experiences in the urban squares. There are also strong connections between the visitors' perceptions of urban public space as seen through their photographs and the image of the city.

Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat och LinkedIn är alla exempel på olika sociala medier som många av oss i Sverige idag använder oss dagligen av. Sociala medier är en plattform där vi som användare har möjlighet att skapa en interaktion med vänner och bekanta, men även att utforska och kommunicera med personer som vi inte känner. På sociala medier finns förutom privatpersoner även andra aktörer representerade. Nämligen olika varumärken i form av organisationer, företag eller var för inte i form av en kändis. Att vi som konsument väljer att ha en interaktion med en eller flera av dessa varumärken har idag blivit en del av vår moderna vardag. I denna studie som främst använt sig av en kvantitativ metod har vi via en enkätstudie undersökt vad som får konsumenter att på sociala medier att vilja bli vän med ett varumärke. Syftet med denna studie är att göra en kartläggning av konsumenters sätt att interagera med varumärken på sociala medier. Studien positionerar sig inom Företagsekonomi med inriktning på marknadsföring och utgångspunkten är ur ett konsumentperspektiv. Studien genomfördes under våren 2016 och totalt 176 stycken respondenter deltog i enkätstudien. Frågor som studien ämnar att besvara är bland annat dessa: Hur skapas denna interaktion? Vad är det för sorts interaktion som skapas? Vilka förutsättningar finns det för skapandet av denna interaktion? Utifrån enkätstudiens resultat så har det framkommit att individer inte konsumerar varumärken på sociala medier för att skapa en parallell identitet. Alltså är sociala medier inte en egen värld i sig, utan fungerar som en förlängning av det verkliga livet. Individer använder inte sociala medier för att nå ut med en alternativ identitet, utan använder sociala medier för att nå ut längre, eller förstärka, sin nuvarande identitet. Interaktionen mellan konsument och ett varumärke på sociala medier sker på en frivillig basis där makten ligger hos konsumenten. Att ha en interaktion med varumärken är vanligt, men det sker selektivt. Detta då vissa varumärken som en konsument i det verkliga livet har en relation till, vill konsumenten inte ha en online-relation med. Således kan sociala medier fungera som ett effektivt marknadsföringsverktyg om det behandlas på ett varsamt sätt som tilltalas av konsumenterna.

Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2018-08-02T16:24:43Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Gabriela Schuch Kastner_.pdf: 6652521 bytes, checksum: 2d952de358aeb8883410c81635d5ebdf (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-02T16:24:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gabriela Schuch Kastner_.pdf: 6652521 bytes, checksum: 2d952de358aeb8883410c81635d5ebdf (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-04-05 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / PROEX - Programa de Excelência Acadêmica / Com as evoluções tecnológicas e comportamentais pelas quais passamos com cada vez mais rapidez, faz-se fundamental entender as afetações do campo midiático nesse cenário. Por isso, a presente pesquisa tem como objetivo perceber como as lógicas midiáticas são acionadas por novos mecanismos, afetando o processo de produção de sentido. Tomando por base o caso Valentina Schulz e as hashtags MasterchefBR e PrimeiroAssedio, busca-se entender o papel da hashtag que, uma vez afetada pelos processos de midiatização (reinscrições, visibilidades) se desloca de indexador para um dispositivo interacional de referência. Além disso, objetiva-se a análise sobre como os movimentos de circulação – característica de uma sociedade midiatizada – se configuram na produção de sentido do conteúdo e a importância desses significados na geração de novas vozes relacionadas a esses novos sentidos. Por fim, busca-se entender o papel dos meios de comunicação na legitimação de temas. Para tal, realizam-se dois movimentos: um estudo de caso sobre as particularidades do ocorrido com a menina Valentina e sua repercussão em rede e a posterior análise de conteúdo sobre a circulação do caso a fim de identificar a midiatização em momentos macro e micro do processo e assim, percebe-la como fundamental em todo o processo de produção de sentidos. / With the technological and behavioral evolutions through which we pass is going faster, it is fundamental to understand the consequences of the media field in this scenario. Therefore, the present research aims to understand how media logics are triggered by new mechanisms, affecting the process of production of meaning. Based on the Valentina Schulz case and the MasterchefBR and PrimeiroAssedio (FirstHarassment) hashtags, we seek to understand the role of the hashtag that, once affected by the mediatization processes (reinscriptions, visibilities), moves from indexer to an interactive reference device. In addition, the objective is to analyze how circulation movements - characteristic of a mediatized society - are shaped in the production of meaning of content and the importance of these meanings in the generation of new voices related to these new senses. Finally, we try to understand the role of the media in legitimizing themes. To do this, two movements are carried out: a case study on the peculiarities of what occurred with the girl Valentina and its repercussion in the network and the subsequent content analysis on the circulation of the case in order to identify the mediatization in macro and micro moments of the process and thus perceives it as fundamental in the whole process of producing meaning.

Syftet med denna undersökning är att den ska öka förståelsen kring hur referenser till människans fem sinnen kan se ut i marknadsföring av löplopp. Tidigare studier menar att det är svårt, om inte omöjligt, att stimulera vissa av dessa sinnen via sociala medier vilket också väcker ett intresse för hur företag arbetar för att komma i kontakt med dessa sinnen? Undersökningen fokuserar på fem löplopps marknadsföring. För undersökningen har en kvalitativ metod använts där loppens hemsidor, officiella filmer samt Facebook- och Instagram-inlägg studerats. För att förstå insamlade data har dels en teori om sinnesmarknadsföring av Hultén, Broweus och van Dijk använts men också en teori gällande samverkan mellan text och bild av Nordström. Dessa används vidare som verktyg vid analysarbetet tillsammans tidigare forskning. Resultaten av föreliggande studie visar att löploppens marknadsföring via Internet endast stimulerar synen samt hörseln. För lukten, smaken och känseln kan människan endast ha minnen till upplevelser genom just dessa sinnen. / The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of how references to humans five senses can be seen in the marketing of running races. Earlier studies highlight that it is difficult, if not even impossible, to stimulate some of these senses through social media, which also raises an interest in how companies work to get in touch with these senses? This study focuses on the marketing of five running races. For this study, a qualitative method has been used where the websites of the running races, official videos, Facebook and Instagram posts have been studied. In order to understand the collected data, a theory of sense marketing by Hultén, Broweus and van Dijk has been used, but also a theory about interaction between text and image by Nordström. These two theories are used as tools in the analysis work. The results shows that the marketing of the running races only stimulates the sight sense and the sense of hearing. For the smell sense, taste sense and touch sense the human being can only have memories of experiences through these specific senses.

Myspace var under många år den primära webbplatsen för att exempelvis skriva meddelanden till vänner, upptäcka ny musik samt dela med sig av den. Den mest populära föregångaren till dagens sociala medier som under många år uppmuntrade artister att använda webbplatsen för att nå ut till en bredare publik. Webbplatsens funktioner ansågs under tiden för webbplatsens storhet som någonting nytt och relativt ovanligt men sociala medier har under de senaste åren tagit över MySpace som det primära kommunikationsverktyget där webbplatsens funktioner idag anses vara en självklar del av alla sociala medier överlag. Detta har i sin tur har lett till att artister har börjat utforska diverse möjligheter för att kunna integrera in marknadsföring i deras kanaler på sociala medier. Eftersom sociala medier lockar med kostnadseffektiva lösningar har nu alltfler mindre etablerade artister också börjat använda sociala medier i hopp om att kunna sprida sin musik på diverse vis. Artister använder de olika sociala medierna för att nå ut till så mycket konsumenter som möjligt där denna användning tillämpar olika metoder beroende på vilken plattform de publicerar innehåll på. Det som tidigare främst gick att hitta i en webbläsare på sin dator i form av Myspace går nu att hitta som appar i sina telefoner och läsplattor vilket har gjort att en stor mängd artister med varierande grad av etablering nu måste samsas om alltfler konsumenter och tillika fans. Tack vare den stora mängden användare på sociala medier så uppstod det ett behov av att kategorisera inlägg för att enklare kunna hitta det innehåll man söker, där hashtags skapades för att bistå med detta. Funktionen består av att man skriver ett eller flera ord ihopsatt med ett #-tecken i början. Mindre etablerade artister använder denna funktion för att nå ut till en större publik men på grund av att ett stort antal inlägg, av varierande innehåll, använder samma hashtag blir detta svårare och de mindre etablerade artisterna får därför svårare att sprida sin musik.

The social media usage in this decade has seen a vast expansion, expansion that has been observed in the amount of time users spend on social media. This has provided ground for advertising within the media. Exploiting those opportunities, a number of advertisement tricks have been contrived and exercised with the intention of drawing the users’ attention and turning them into potential customers, although the effectiveness of these advertising has shown mixed results. Moreover there is an insufficient amount of scientific research within social media advertising, as well as the forms and effects of this form of advertising. The aim of this study is to identify and explain the main forms of social media advertising, acquire an understanding of the reasons behind the labeling, by the users, of these advertising techniques as irritating, as also, rank the tricks based on the irritation levels effectuated by them to the users. As a result the paper will provide a concentrated guide of social media advertising techniques, with positive and negative aspects of each type of trick and distinguish those tricks that effectuate the most consequential effects. To achieve this goal, a questionnaire was conducted and aimed to a demographic representing the majority of social media users and as a derivate the users that most frequently encounter social media advertising tricks. The results indicated an inclination towards advertisement that make use of celebrity personalities. The reasons and motivations that lead to this eventuality can be due to contempt, appreciation or practical post characteristics.

People have organized around gender equality in modern America for the last century. However, with the advent of new technology, people largely organize in around social movements in online spaces. This thesis explores the ways in which new media expands a popular understanding of the Feminist movement.