Previous research has documented the prevalent effects of message order on message persuasiveness. Based on the Belief Updating Model (Hogarth and Einhorn, 1992), response mode has been found as one moderator of primacy versus recency effects. The present study considers additionally the role of culture as a moderator. Because internalized cultural values and norms affect how messages are processed and interpreted, we propose that cultural differences in cognitive processing styles will impact whether primacy or recency effects are stronger under different message order conditions in for Easterners and Westerners. Results from the current work offer evidence that both culture and cognitive style (holistic versus analytical thinking) serve as moderators to explain message order effects. Results replicate prior studies showing a primacy effect with End of Sequence response mode and a recency effect with Step-by-Step response mode. Further, we found that Easterners were more influenced by the primacy effect when compared to Westerners. However, the effect of primacy was attenuated by response mode. Westerners were equally influenced by both primacy and recency effects.

I dagens samhälle sprids budskap om hälsa och en hälsosam livsstil genom en mängd olika informationskanaler, där kanske den största är media. Då mediavärlden kan ses som en stark trendsättare och då de flesta människor på ett eller annat sätt kommer i kontakt med media och dess budskap, var syftet med denna studie att undersöka hur individen upplever att medias budskap om hälsa påverkar livsstilen gällande kostvanor och fysisk aktivitet. Vilka mediabudskap rörande kost och fysisk aktivitet nås individen av? Hur stämmer dessa överens med officiella rekommendationer och hur upplever individen att livsstilsval påverkas av dessa budskap? Studiedesignen var empirisk, kvalitativ av deskriptiv karaktär. Sammanlagt har nitton semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförts, med tre män och sexton kvinnor. Åldersfördelningen varierade mellan arton och femtiosju år. Det insamlade intervjumaterialet analyserades genom en innehållsanalys som visade att mediabudskap påverkade informanterna olika beroende på ålder, intresse och livssituation samt yrke. Bland de yngre informanterna relaterades kost och fysisk aktivitet i hög grad till utseendet. Medias budskap kunde även upplevas som en press, där en smal kroppsbyggnad bland de yngre kvinnorna var förknippad med bättre självförtroende och psykiskt välbefinnande. Vad gällde kosthållning kunde stressen i vardagen vara en avgörande faktor, men där även media och samhället hade en avgörande roll och var viktiga trendsättare. Bland de äldre informanterna fick riskbudskap om livsmedel, livsmedels ursprung och innehåll större utrymme, och manade till eftertanke i högre utsträckning än andra mediabudskap. Kroppens åldrande och vikten av att hålla igång för att slippa värk var i högre grad motiverande för träning och fysisk aktivitet än medias budskap om ett vackrare utseende. Majoriteten av informanternas mål med hälsa och livsstil var att må bra, träna mer och ta hand om sig själva. Flertalet hävdade också att mediabudskap inte helt gick att lita på. Bland de yngre informanterna fanns en hög grad av medvetenhet kring hur media förvränger och omvandlar budskap om kroppsideal och utseende, varpå påverkan upplevdes ske medvetet, trots att full förståelse fanns för att budskapen varken var sanningsenliga eller verklighetstrogna. / In today's society messages about health and healthy lifestyles are spread through a variety of information channels, where perhaps the biggest is the media. Since the media world can be seen as a strong trend setter, the purpose of this study was to investigate how the individual experiences that media`s messages about health affect the lifestyle regarding diet and physical activity. What types of media messages reach the individual? Do the individuals perceive these to be consistent with official recommendations and how do individuals experience that lifestyle choices are affected by these messages? The study design was empirical, qualitative and of a descriptive character. A total of nineteen semi-structured interviews have been conducted, with three men and sixteen women. The gathered data was analyzed through a content analysis. The main results showed that media messages affect informants differently depending on age, interest, lifestyle and profession. Among the younger informants, diet and physical activity were more related to appearance than among the older informants and media impact was experienced to occur consciously. Among the older informants risk messages were given more consideration and old age was considered a motivation to increase exercise and physical activity.

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Text messaging is a new form of writing, brought about by technological development in the last couple of decades. Mobile phone usage has increased rapidly worldwide and texting is now part of many people's everyday communcation. A large number of users send or receive texts which include some abbreviations and shortenings, commonly referred to as textspeak. This novel linguistic phenomenon is perceived by some with indifference and by others with aggravation. The following study examines attitudes towards this linguistic change from a gender and age perspective. The comparison between two groups show that the most conservative and least positive to change are young women. The analysis and discussion around this focuses on power, prestige and patterns.

With the rapid innovation of online services, people come to social communities not only to connect with their friends but also to share their feelings, ideas and information. Hence, these social communities have become a powerful platform for information sharing and product marketing. The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that affect the intention of information sharing in social communities. This study investigates the influence of user motivation and the attributes of message. An online survey was conducted. The result indicates: (1) In social communities, the quality of the message (i.e., the degree of credibility and level of irritation) was the major concern for them to decide whether to share the message with their friends. We find that intrinsic motivation has no significant effect on the intention to share. This is different from some previous literature. (2) Different attribute were having effects when the nature of the message differs. Content enjoyment was the most influential factor in recommending entertainment messages. Source creditability was the major factor for knowledge-type messages. When they share economic-type messages, the effect of message-related attributes were similar to that of the knowledge-type message, except that the competence of the intrinsic motivation became significant. This indicates that the subject must feel competent in evaluating the economic message in order for them to share with peers.

Abstract Intuition is one of human¡¦s instincts. It plays a major part in our daily decision-making. However, people experience intuition to different extents. Some may have deeper experience than others. Some may depend much on intuition in making decisions, while others tend to depend more on reason. Although there is risk in intuitional decision-making, many chiefs of businesses believe that intuition can be reliable for decision-making and therefore have made good achievements. The study investigated the intuition-experiential ability and intuition-experiential engagement of the chiefs in Kaohsiung¡¦s metals model industries and the degree of trust for intuitional decision-making of practical management on their company. The study found that the chief¡¦s age and years of service are not related to their trust in intuitional decision-making; intuition-experiential ability is also not related to their trust in intuitional decision-making. However, the intuition-experiential engagement is related to their trust in intuitional decision-making. The academic contribution this study makes is arranging intuitional conceptions and developing intuitional decision-making model, so that people can understand intuition better and come to have faith in intuition. Moreover, it raises Taiwanese people¡¦s interest in the research of intuition. This study concludes that, in aspect of practice of enterprises, chiefs can trust more in and make use of their intuition.

As the change of external environment and internal resources, web portals have transformed their business models from online advertisement model into others, such as electronic commerce model, online game model and short message service model. Different external environment, as well as diverse resources of the main web portals of Taiwan and Mainland China , leads the different transformation process across the Taiwan Strait. Generally, the main web portals in Taiwan like Yahoo! Kimo, PC home and Yam, have chosen online advertisement and electronic commerce model as their main business. On the contrary, Sina, Sohu and NetEase, the main web portals in China, which have transformed their business model into online game and short message service model. This research explores some factors which may influence the transformation of web portals in Taiwan and China, and constructs the internal and external conditions which could successfully transform the web portals to their business models by secondary data analysis and case analysis. There are several factors which influence the web portals to adopt certain business to run their business models.

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This study has an aim of exploring how a Turkish architectural magazine, Arredamento Mimarlik, communicates itself to the reader by its cover designs. Since, representation is a tool for architects to transmit ideas and express positions in the discipline of architecture, usage of representation in architectural media has a critical role to promote the communication in architecture. The theoretical framework of the research based on the photographic image investigation of Roland Barthes. In the light of this investigation, the study cites that photographic images with accompaniment of texts transmit messages which construct the communicative role of magazine covers in architectural media. In the realm of predefined identity of a magazine, the interpretation of cover concept confronts with a critical position which identifies magazine&rsquo / s approach to both architecture and its mediatic character. Since Arredamento-Mimarlik is a significant magazine which has a discursive approach on cover concept, the publication history and critical position of the magazine is investigated elaborately in the light of B&uuml / lent Erkmen&rsquo / s, the designer of the covers, and Ugur Tanyeli&rsquo / s, the managing editor, citations. Through this survey on Arredamento Mimarlik covers, the representation of architecture in media through a significant representative tool-magazine cover- is studied in terms of signification character of image and text. In this sense, the critical role of magazine which orients the comprehension of architecture in society is emphasized as a discursive value in addition to magazine&rsquo / s informative character.

Networked Control Systems (NCS) are distributed control systems where the sensor signals to the controllers and the control data to the actuators are enclosed in messages and sent over a communication network. On the one hand, the design of an NCS requires ensuring the stability of the control system and achieving system response that is as close as possible to that of an ideal system which demands network resources. On the other hand, these resources are limited and have to be allocated efficiently to accommodate for future system extensions as well as applications other than control purpose. Furthermore the NCS design parameters for the control system messages and the message transmission over the network are interdependent. In this thesis, we propose &ldquo / Integrated NCS Design (INtERCEDE: Integrated NEtwoRked Control systEm DEsign)&rdquo / a novel algorithmic approach for the design of NCS which ensures the stability of the control system, brings system response to that of an ideal system v as close as desired and conserves network bandwidth at the same time. The core of INtERCEDE is a bargaining game approach which iteratively calculates the message parameters and network service parameters. Our experimental results demonstrate the operation of INtERCEDE and how it computes the optimal design parameters for the example NCS.