In this work, we investigate the role of offspring hashtags on the semantic polarization of online discourse between the protest and counter-protest communities over time through the lens of the 2021 farmers' protest in India. Offspring hashtags are those that first appear alongside their more widely known "parent" hashtag (e.g., #WhyIDidntReport and #YesAllWomen are offspring hashtags that first co-appeared alongside their more famous and mainstream parent hashtag, #MeToo). The prominence of parent hashtags and their visible role in facilitating modern day protests have dominated scholarly efforts in understanding the socio-technical influence of social movement hashtags. By contrast, scholarship on the impact of the lesser-known offspring hashtags is rare and if any, typically examined through the lens of its primary parent tag. Our work aims to address this gap. In this research, we examine how the protest and counter-protest communities use offspring hashtags in their tweets to discuss and frame farmers - the key social group at the center of the farmers' protest (RQ1). Our findings reveal that both protests and counter-protests use offspring hashtags in a manner that further polarizes rather than bridges perspectives on core issues - focusing on themes that malign the other side (RQ2). We then measure and track how the semantic polarization in the use of the term "farmer" by the protest vs. counter-protest communities who use offspring hashtags evolves over time in relation to key protest events (RQ3). Finally, to empirically test and demonstrate whether and how the volume of offspring hashtags throughout the protest period influences semantic polarization trends between the protest and counter-protest discussion of farmers, we create a series of time-series models for causal inference. We use Granger-causality to test whether and how fluctuations in the volume of offspring hashtags significantly predict how the protest and counter-protest communities semantically diverge in how they discuss farmers over time (RQ4). By analyzing offspring hashtags, this work provides a detailed understanding of the nuanced themes and narratives that may be lost under parent hashtags, but significantly influence online discourse between the protest and counter-protest communities. / Master of Science / In this study, we explore how offspring hashtags, impact online conversations between people supporting and opposing the 2021 farmers' protest in India. Offspring hashtags are less popular hashtags that first appear with a more famous "parent" hashtag (for example, #WhyIDidntReport and #YesAllWomen alongside #MeToo). While researchers have extensively studied parent hashtags, the influence of offspring hashtags remains less explored. Our research looks at how protests and counter-protests use offspring hashtags to talk about farmers, who are at the center of the Indian farmers' protest. We found that both groups use offspring hashtags in a way that increases polarization rather than fostering understanding between opposing sides. This often leads to discussions that focus on attacking the other group. We also analyzed how the polarization in conversations about farmers evolved over time, in relation to key protest events and the use of offspring hashtags. To see if the number of offspring hashtags used during the protest affected polarization trends, we used statistical models and a method called Granger-causality. Our findings show that fluctuations in offspring hashtag volume significantly predict how protesters and counter-protesters diverge in their discussions about farmers over time. By examining offspring hashtags, we gain a deeper understanding of the subtle themes and stories that may be overlooked when focusing only on parent hashtags but play a crucial role in shaping online conversations between opposing groups.

Denna studie använder sig av cyberfeministisk och multimodal kritisk diskursanalys som teorier för att närma sig den populära hashtaggen #femalegaze på sociala medieplattformen TikTok. Studien undersöker hur kvinnor använder sig av denna hashtag för att skapa diskursiva interventioner till dominanta diskurser rörande genusnormer. Genom att analysera materialet för denna studie så går det att se hur kvinnorna som skapar innehåll till denna hashtag försöker omförhandla dominanta diskurser rörande kvinnors framställning online, deras sexualitet, sexuella uttryck och rätt till begär, idealkvinnan som passiv och reaktiv likaväl som att framförhandla hur kvinnor kan presentera sig själva utifrån en kvinnliga blick. Genom detta kan man även se hur dessa kvinnor använder denna hashtag för att omförhandla sig själva och andra kvinnor från objekt till aktiva subjekt. Hashtaggen och specifikt den kvinnliga blicken kan även ses användas som en tankefigur av kvinnorna, liknande cyberfeminismens cyborg, som agerar som en motpol till patriarkala diskurser. De använder denna tankefigur på flertalet aspekter av sitt liv för att omförhandla dominanta patriarkala diskurser. Genom att skapa detta innehåll och använda den kvinnliga blicken som en tankefigur så använder kvinnorna den relativt slutna cybermiljö skapad på TikTok med denna hashtag för att forma en arena där de kan samlas och genomföra diskursiv intervention till normativa, hegemona diskurser rörande genusnormer.

On 15 October 2017 actress Alyssa Milano posted the following on her Twitter account: “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet”. After Milano’s tweet, the hashtag #MeToo is said to have gone viral overnight. Suddenly, the stories of survivors and victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault and/or sexual abuse seemed to be everywhere— although, it may be argued, that they have always been the lived reality for many of us. Activists and those who research feminist hashtags like #MeToo tend to view the hashtag as a personalized tool for storytelling that enables survivors and victims to re-claim agency over the production of their own stories. This thesis deals with how survivors/victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault and/or sexual abuse tell their stories and reproduce their experiences in the context of #MeToo movement. Through an analysis within the framework of institutional ethnography, the process of constructing a #MeToo account will be recovered. The analysis focuses on investigating what informs and shapes the way in which survivors/victims tell their story and how their #MeToo accounts interact with the reader. It will be argued that institutional processes of handling cases of sexual violence significantly influence the way survivors and victims share their experiences in the context of the movement. It will be suggested that being critical and mindful of the institutional processes that affect the way survivors and victims share their experiences, means to disrupt the oppression and the violence that criminal justice systems and retributive models of justice perpetrate. As it is then that we can open up to more transformative, sustainable approaches to justice and survivor/victim support. The project contributes to the current body of feminist hashtag activism scholarship with an institutional ethnography perspective.

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Ce travail de recherche est conjointement effectué dans le cadre d’une cotutelle entre deux universités : en France l’Université Jean Monnet de Saint-Etienne, laboratoire Hubert Curien sous la supervision de Mme Frédérique Laforest, M. Christophe Gravier et M. Julien Subercaze, et au Maroc l’Université Mohamed V de Rabat, équipe LeRMA sous la supervision de Mme Rachida Ajhoun et Mme Mounia Abik. Les connaissances et les apprentissages sont des préoccupations majeures dans la société d’aujourd’hui. Les technologies de l’apprentissage humain visent à promouvoir, stimuler, soutenir et valider le processus d’apprentissage. Notre approche explore les opportunités soulevées en faisant coopérer le Web Social et le Web sémantique pour le e-learning. Plus précisément, nous travaillons sur l’enrichissement des profils des apprenants en fonction de leurs activités sur le Web Social. Le Web social peut être une source d’information très importante à explorer, car il implique les utilisateurs dans le monde de l’information et leur donne la possibilité de participer à la construction et à la diffusion de connaissances. Nous nous focalisons sur le suivi des différents types de contributions, dans les activités de collaboration spontanée des apprenants sur les réseaux sociaux. Le profil de l’apprenant est non seulement basé sur la connaissance extraite de ses activités sur le système de e-learning, mais aussi de ses nombreuses activités sur les réseaux sociaux. En particulier, nous proposons une méthodologie pour exploiter les hashtags contenus dans les écrits des utilisateurs pour la génération automatique des intérêts des apprenants dans le but d’enrichir leurs profils. Cependant les hashtags nécessitent un certain traitement avant d’être source de connaissances sur les intérêts des utilisateurs. Nous avons défini une méthode pour identifier la sémantique de hashtags et les relations sémantiques entre les significations des différents hashtags. Par ailleurs, nous avons défini le concept de Folksionary, comme un dictionnaire de hashtags qui pour chaque hashtag regroupe ses définitions en unités de sens. Les hashtags enrichis en sémantique sont donc utilisés pour nourrir le profil de l’apprenant de manière à personnaliser les recommandations sur le matériel d’apprentissage. L’objectif est de construire une représentation sémantique des activités et des intérêts des apprenants sur les réseaux sociaux afin d’enrichir leurs profils. Nous présentons également notre approche générale de recommandation multidimensionnelle dans un environnement d’e-learning. Nous avons conçu une approche fondée sur trois types de filtrage : le filtrage personnalisé à base du profil de l’apprenant, le filtrage social à partir des activités de l’apprenant sur les réseaux sociaux, et le filtrage local à partir des statistiques d’interaction de l’apprenant avec le système. Notre implémentation s’est focalisée sur la recommandation personnalisée / This work has been jointly supervised by U. Jean Monnet Saint Etienne, in the Hubert Curien Lab (Frederique Laforest, Christophe Gravier, Julien Subercaze) and U. Mohamed V Rabat, LeRMA ENSIAS (Rachida Ahjoun, Mounia Abik). Knowledge, education and learning are major concerns in today’s society. The technologies for human learning aim to promote, stimulate, support and validate the learning process. Our approach explores the opportunities raised by mixing the Social Web and the Semantic Web technologies for e-learning. More precisely, we work on discovering learners profiles from their activities on the social web. The Social Web can be a source of information, as it involves users in the information world and gives them the ability to participate in the construction and dissemination of knowledge. We focused our attention on tracking the different types of contributions, activities and conversations in learners spontaneous collaborative activities on social networks. The learner profile is not only based on the knowledge extracted from his/her activities on the e-learning system, but also from his/her many activities on social networks. We propose a methodology for exploiting hashtags contained in users’ writings for the automatic generation of learner’s semantic profiles. Hashtags require some processing before being source of knowledge on the user interests. We have defined a method to identify semantics of hashtags and semantic relationships between the meanings of different hashtags. By the way, we have defined the concept of Folksionary, as a hashtags dictionary that for each hashtag clusters its definitions into meanings. Semantized hashtags are thus used to feed the learner’s profile so as to personalize recommendations on learning material. The goal is to build a semantic representation of the activities and interests of learners on social networks in order to enrich their profiles. We also discuss our recommendation approach based on three types of filtering (personalized, social, and statistical interactions with the system). We focus on personalized recommendation of pedagogical resources to the learner according to his/her expectations and profile

Denna studie undersöker hur representanter från musikindustrin använder sig av hashtags, sociala medier och vilka effekter hashtags har samt, vilken effekt de skulle kunna ha på deras arbete. Användningen sätts i förhållande till tio redan definierade funktioner av hashtags.Uppsatsens syfte är att bidra till djupare förståelse hur hashtags används och hur dessa kan användas inom musikindustrin. Genom att förtydliga om detta är ett verktyg som kan användas för att lättare sprida information på social media. Detta genomfördes genom en kvalitativ studie och utförandet av semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem representanter från musikindustrin och två respondenter som arbetar inom andra områden, varav en är har forskat på twitter och hashtags och en jobbar med att stärka användningen av digitala verktyg på ett större företag. Detta har sedan blivit granskat genom en induktiv ansats. Frågeställningen har besvarats genom att resultaten från empirin analyserats utifrån teorin.Studien kom fram till att representanterna från musikindustrin i huvudsakligen använde sociala medier och hashtags för att marknadsföra sig själva och sina band. Men Artist 1 använde hashtags mer än Skivbolag 1. Effekterna hashtags hade var både positiva och negativa. Fördelen var att hashtags kunde rikta deras budskap mer exakt och nackdelen var att personer kan ha en negativ bild av hashtags och på sätt bli kritiska till användningen av dem. / This study examines how representatives from the music industry use hashtags, social media and what effects hashtags have, and what effect they could have on their work. The usage is set in relation to ten already defined functions of hashtags.The purpose of the thesis is to contribute to a deeper understanding of how hashtags are used and how these can be used in the music industry. By clarifying whether this is a tool that can be used to more easily disseminate information on social media. This was done through a qualitative study and was conducted by semi-structured interviews with five representatives from the music industry and two respondents as workers in other areas, one of which has been researching twitter and hashtags, and one who is working on strengthening the use of digital tools at a large company. This has since been examined through an inductive approach. The question has been answered by analysing the results of the empirical data based on the theory.The study concluded that the representatives of the music industry mainly used social media and hashtags to market themselves and their bands. But the artist used hashtags more than the record company. The effects of hashtags had been both positive and negative. The advantage was that hashtags were able to target their messages more accurately and the disadvantage was that people could have a negative image of hashtags and thus become critical of their use.

GAYME is a transmedia story-telling world that I have created to conceptually explore the dynamics of queering game design through the development of varying game prototypes. The final iteration of GAYME is @deadquarewalking'. It is a documentary game and a performance art installation that documents a carless, gay/queer/quare man's journey on Halloween to get to and from one of Orlando's most well-known gay clubs - the Parliament House Resort. "The art of cruising" city streets to seek out queer/quare companionship particularly amongst gay, male culture(s) is well-documented in densely, populated cities like New York, San Francisco and London, but not so much in car-centric, urban environments like Orlando that are less oriented towards pedestrians. Cruising has been and continues to be risky even in pedestrian-friendly cities but in Orlando cruising takes on a whole other dimension of danger. In 2011-2012, The Advocate magazine named Orlando one of the gayest cities in America (Breen, 2012). Transportation for America (2011) also named the Orlando metropolitan region the most dangerous city in the country for pedestrians. Living in Orlando without a car can be deadly as well as a significant barrier to connecting with other people, especially queer/quare people, because of Orlando's car-centric design. In Orlando, cars are sexy. At the same time, the increasing prevalence in gay, male culture(s) of geo-social, mobile phone applications using Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and location aware services, such as Grindr (Grindr, LLC., 2009) and even FourSquare (Crowley and Selvadurai, 2009) and Instagram (Systrom and Krieger, 2010), is shifting the way gay/queer/quare Orlandoans co-create social and sexual networks both online and offline. Urban and sub-urban landscapes have transformed into hybrid "techno-scapes" overlaying "the electronic, the emotional and the social with the geographic and the physical" (Hjorth, 2011). With or without a car, gay men can still geo-socially cruise Orlando's car-centric, street life with mobile devices. As such emerging media has become more pervasive, it has created new opportunities to quarely visualize Orlando's "technoscape" through phone photography and hashtag metadata while also blurring lines between the artist and the curator, the player and the game designer. This project particularly has evolved to employ game design as an exhibition tool for the visualization of geo-social photography through hashtag play. Using hashtags as a game mechanic generates metadata that potentially identifies patterns of play and "ways of seeing" across player experiences as they attempt to make meaning of the images they encounter in the game. @deadquarewalking also demonstrates the potential of game design and geo-social, photo-sharing applications to illuminate new ways of documenting and witnessing the urban landscapes that we both collectively and uniquely inhabit. 'In Irish culture, "quare" can mean "very" or "extremely" or it can be a spelling of the rural or Southern pronunciation of the word "queer." Living in the American Southeast, I personally relate more to the term "quare" versus "queer." Cultural theorist E. Patrick Johnson (2001) also argues for "quareness" as a way to question the subjective bias of whiteness in queer studies that risks discounting the lived experiences and material realities of people of color. Though I do not identify as a person of color and would be categorized as white or European American, "quareness" has an important critical application for considering how Orlando's urban design is intersectionally racialized, gendered and classed.