The development of virtual sponsored communities has created great possibilities for people and companies to interact on shared platforms. To create interaction in the community, it is essential to create the perception of trustworthiness of the community. The purpose of this study is to examine which concepts of trust-building constitute the perception of trustworthiness of virtual sponsored communities. A theoretical framework based on previous studies on trust-building in virtual communities is used to provide the basis for our empirical studies. The paper examines the virtual sponsored community of an online video game, World of Warcraft, with both quantitative surveys and qualitative netnographical observations to determine the important concepts which affect the perception of trustworthiness of the community from the perspectives of the sponsor and the gamers. Our findings show that the concepts of quality content, privacy policy, interaction, knowledge growth, satisfaction, embeddedness, shared value and perceived responsiveness constitute the perception of trustworthiness of the virtual sponsored community. The findings also show implications for causal relationships between the concepts affecting the perception of trustworthiness for future studies.

Denna explorativa studie analyserar gemensamma och differentiella mönster för kommunikation och beteende hos användare i Hjälpforum. Målet med studien är att kartlägga aktiva användartyper med syfte att ge SVT kunskap om Hjälpforumets användare. Om forumadministratörer har mer kunskap om användarna i Hjälpforum kan de anpassa sin kommunikation utifrån användarnas individuella behov och öka deras förmåga att bidra med mer kvalitativ återkoppling. Detta kan i sin tur bidra till en positivare inställning och ökat förtroende hos användare i Hjälpforum. I denna studie kunde fem användartyper kartläggas i Hjälpforum med stöd av egen empiri och tidigare forskning. Nybörjare utgör främsta användartypen i Hjälpforum och SVT bör därför tillgodose deras behov för att eventuellt minska antalet nya användarinlägg. Dessutom kunde denna studie med hjälp av lämpliga databearbetningsverktyg kartlägga, en för tillfället, okänd användartyp i Hjälpforum utifrån ovanliga mönster i beteende och kommunikation vilket kan vara intressant för vidare analys. Studien presenterar förslag på hur resultatet kan användas för att skapa riktlinjer för framtida kommunikation och utveckling av Hjälpforum och SVT:s webbplats. / This exploratory study analyzes the common and differential patterns of communication and behavior of users in Help Forum. The goal of the study is to map the active user types with the aim of providing SVT knowledge of the Help Forum users. If the forum administrators have more knowledge of the users in the forum, they can adapt their communication based on the individual needs and enhance their ability to contribute more qualitative feedback. This may in turn contribute to a more positive attitude and greater confidence among users in Help Forum. In this study, five types of users could be identified in the Forum with the support of its own empirical data and previous research. Beginners are primary user type in the forum and SVT should cater to their needs in order to possibly reduce the number of new user posts. Furthermore, this study using appropriate data processing tool map, one for the moment, unknown user type in the forum by unusual patterns of behavior and communication which may be of interest for further analysis. The study presents suggestions on how the results can be used to create guidelines for future communication and development of Help Forum and SVT's website.

The thesis analyses the discursive construction of migrants’ identities through their native language communications, using Russian-speaking migration in the UK as the case study. Material from internet forums these migrants were engaged in the years 2002-2005 forms the basis of this research. The project is concerned with the question of how Russian-speaking migrants, faced with the process of accustoming themselves to a new place of residence (UK), re-negotiate the Self, their homeland (in both real geographical terms and metaphorically through their cultural affiliations) and the Other. This study draws on theories from a range of research perspectives including hermeneutics, discourse analysis, cultural studies, and ethnography. The theoretical framework developed in this thesis combines Foucault’s analysis of discourse with Lotman’s model of dialogue between cultures. The thesis also develops sampling techniques for virtual data. By examining how the dichotomy Russia vs. Europe/the West is imagined in the researched data, this study argues that the concept of Europeanism obtains positive associations, while the concept of the West retains its ambiguity for Russian-speaking migrants. The thesis identifies Europeanism as a discursive object of knowledge and examines its categorizations. The study identifies kul`tura and tsivilizatsia as grids of specifications of Europeanism, and investigates Self/Other dialectics attached to the object of knowledge. Finally, the thesis analyses the dynamics of cultural appropriation under influences of the host context, and elaborates on semiotic “translation” of new phenomena.

The Internet is increasingly being used as a source of health advice and information by individuals with long term conditions (LTCs). Online forums allow people to interact with others with similar conditions, providing access to a form of social support that is based around the shared experiences of living with and managing an LTC. However, it is not clear how this support is integrated into people’s lives and their use of health services. To date, research in this area has predominately focused on single conditions, and while it has been suggested that Internet forums may be particularly beneficial for those with ‘contested’ LTCs, this has not been adequately explored. This study aims to address this gap by exploring how individuals with contested and uncontested LTCs utilise Internet forums. This study used qualitative methods, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 participants with ME/CFS and 21 participants with type 1 and 2 diabetes. These conditions were considered to provide an appropriate context in which to explore the use of the Internet and Internet forums for contested and uncontested LTCs. Participants were recruited via a number of online and offline routes, including discussion boards, email lists, newsletters, and face-to-face support groups. Interviews transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis. The results focused on three overlapping themes that were identified during the analysis; namely (1) the process of developing and maintaining trust on forums, (2) accessing support and empowerment online, and (3) forum users’ presentations of self online. The use of online discussion groups was a complex and nuanced process, and was influenced by a number of individual and illness specific factors. Developing relationships with trusted forum members enabled individuals to give and receive support online, and provided a tool of empowerment. While access to peer support and the lived experiences of others were valued by interviewees, forums also allowed participants to access both experiential and scientific knowledge online, providing both lay and expert perspectives around LTCs. In addition, interviewees were seen to carefully manage how they presented themselves on forums, selecting the information that they shared about themselves in order to develop and maintain a particular online persona. By drawing on the advice, information, and support shared online, participants were empowered to position themselves as active participants in their own healthcare and to further engage with healthcare professionals. The findings indicate that forums can play a valuable role in aiding and motivating individuals in the daily management of LTCs, and highlight how this support is used to complement formal health services.

Studien undersöker föräldrars syn på problematiskt spelande hos barn och ungdomar och därigenom vilka aspekter föräldrar anser problematiska samt vilka strategier de anser centrala i hanteringen av fenomenet. Ovanstående syfte besvaras med hjälp av teorin om disciplinering samt teorin om problembarnet och det goda föräldraskapet. Dokumentstudien, som utgörs av en innehållsanalys av diskussionsforum på nätet, utmynnade i teman kring förväntningar på föräldrarollen och föräldrars relation till barnet, barnets ansvar över vardagslivet samt barnets utveckling. Studien påvisar en förändring i föräldrars definition av problematiskt spelande mellan två olika tidsnedslag. Skillnaden innebär att barn inom det senare tidsnedslaget har kommit att ses mer som aktörer kring spelande, vilket även gjorde att föräldrars reglering blev mer liberal. Vidare skedde även en förändring i synen på spelande som aktivitet eftersom detta normaliserades i det senare tidsnedslaget samtidigt som spelproblematik sågs mer som en sjukdom. Slutligen kunde föräldrars syn på spelproblematik härledas till föreställningar om gott föräldraskap och normala barn, vilka bestämdes utifrån interaktioner mellan föräldrar på diskussionsforumen. Dessa fynd belyser vikten av att föräldrars syn och hantering av spelproblematik blir fortsatt beforskade för att bättre kunna hantera en komplex problematik hos barn och unga i framtiden.

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The main purpose of this study has been to explore and determine how the journalistic work was used by internet users to start and keep a discussion on the internet going. We started in the aftermath of a local arson in a town of Sweden, where a discussion on the internet forum Flashback and the local newspapers commentary fields was raised. We have used these discussions to study what part the journalistic work play in these events. To do that we used a critical discourse analysis and a rhetoric analysis to investigate how these discussions use news articles to make their point. We divided the comments into four different categories, which are comments about understandings of the event, comments that talked about the matters of fact, criticism pointed at the newspaper and comments that identify the offenders. The result of the analysis shows that both forums use journalistic work as facts in their discussions. Both also use earlier articles that were written before the arson, to make their point in the discussion.

The theme of the diploma thesis is the analysis of the "mother language" on the Czech Internet forums (especially on emimino.cz, baby-cafe.cz, mimibazar.cz). In the theoretical part the author introduces the varieties of the national language. She defines the characteristics, structure and social differentiation of the analysed sociolect. Then she presents the fundamental aspects of human communication and also devotes to the particularities of communication on the Internet. In the practical part she carries out a language analysis of the collected material. She focuses primarily on the lexical means, mainly diminutives, compounds and abbreviations. The aim of the thesis is to present the specific type of expressing and at the same time to contribute to the research of the non-standard Czech language with this study.

För människor uppstår det ofta problem vid behandling och organisering av stora mängder information. Detta ledde i slutet på 90-talet till att automatiserad textkategorisering började utvecklas. Sedan dess har tillväxten av sociala medier och sociala nätverk på internet ökat explosionsartat. Det senaste årtiondet har en betydande mängd forskning gjorts inom automatiserad textkategorisering. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka vad som kan påverka hur general-purpose-verktyg för attitydanalys bedömer kommentarer från ett internet- forum. 240 kommentarer samlades in från sex olika forumtrådar på internetforumet Reddit. Attitydanalys utfördes på dessa kommentarer med hjälp av fyra general-purpose-verktyg, och verktygens bedömningar jämfördes sedan med en människas bedömning av samma kommentarer. Genom studien framkom ett antal faktorer som kan ha påverkat hur verktygen bedömde kommentarerna. En faktor var längden på en kommentar: verktygen TextBlob och MeaningCloud hade högre överensstämmelse med människan för korta kommentarer, medan Free Sentiment Analyzer och MonkeyLearn hade högre överensstämmelse för långa kommentarer. Vad en kommentar kategoriserats som var också en faktor: verktygen hade högre överensstämmelse med människan gällande kommentarer som inte tillhörde kategorier jämfört med kommentarer som tillhörde minst en kategori. / When processing and organizing large amounts of information, people tend to encounter problems. This led to the development of automated text categorization in the late 1990s. Since then, the growth of social media and social networks on the Internet has increased exponentially. Over the last decade a substantial amount of research has been conducted on the subject of automated text categorization. The purpose of this study was to investigate what factors may affect how general-purpose tools for sentiment analysis assess attitudes expressed on Internet forums. 240 comments were collected from six different forum threads on the Internet forum Reddit. Sentiment analysis was performed on these comments using four general-purpose tools, and the tools' assessments were then compared with a human’s assessments of the same comments. A number of factors were identified that may have affected how the tools assessed the comments. One factor was the comment length: TextBlob and MeaningClouds assessments were more congruent with the human’s assessments regarding short comments, while Free Sentiment Analyzer and MonkeyLearns assessments were more congruent regarding long comments. Another factor was the categories associated with a comment: all tools had higher congruence with the human’s assessments regarding comments that were not assigned to a category compared to comments that fit the criteria for at least one category.

Vaccination is an important public health measure that can help reduce disease at the population level. Substantial evidence exists that vaccines are safe and effective at reducing the incidence of diseases like pertussis, measles and cervical cancer. However, on Internet parenting forums, parents discuss whether or not vaccination is the right choice for their children. In this thesis, I highlight the historical context of the anti-vaccine movement in mid 19th century to early 20th century Victorian Britain in the era of compulsory smallpox vaccination. Vaccination in this time was a very different and more overtly dangerous process, and preexisting dissenting movements took up anti-vaccination as a cause. Today, the rhetoric on Internet parenting forums has grown to include arguments of safety, efficacy and necessity of vaccination. I gathered much of the information from the mothering.com and mumsnet.com parenting forums, and other websites like Sanevax.org.