The aim of the thesis is to introduce genetic genealogy (the genealogical DNA test analyzes samples of genetic material for genealogy purposes, mostly does not serve as a tool for health diagnostics, or it does not detect genetic predisposition or disorder) and to analyze the online communities around it. The thesis answers the question of the extent to which these groups differ from groups of supporters of the traditional approach (whose main focus lies mainly in archival research). On the example of several specific communities, the author tries to show what aspects are dominant in this new kind of online activities and critically evaluate them.

This thesis examines the role of online platforms in relation to anti-progressive counterpublic dynamics. Counterpublicsare understood as alternative discursive arenas that form in response to exclusion from the wider public sphere. The relevance of counterpublics derives both from their ability to influence mainstream political discourse and from how anti-progressive counterpublics have been found to contribute to real-life violence. As the internet becomes an increasingly important venue for political discussion and contestation, the public sphere is extended online. This study explores how platforms can be seen as enabling (or constraining) the dual function of online counterpublics, i.e. as both inward and outward-oriented in relation to opposing publics, by examining the anti-feminist online community known as “Men Going Their Own Way” (MGTOW). The role of platforms is understood in terms of platform affordances, and netnographic methods were used to study these in relation to two online platforms. The results show that the two platforms presented different opportunities for the MGTOW counterpublic to some extent, suggesting that this counterpublic is able to utilise platforms for different purposes. Twitter was found to be particularly suitable for the outward-oriented function, i.e. for interacting with and opposing other publics, while mgtow.com was shown to be fertile ground for the inward-oriented function, and in that sense enabled contact between members in a way that contributed to the development of anti-progressive counterdiscourse.

Many studies on social movements aim to understand a moment on an international level. This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the Swedish environmental movement and the collective identity that can be found in these movements. In an effort to do this, the study aimed to answer research questions. The questions aimed at answering if collective identity is observable on social media, and to what degree, and how the collective identity online compares to what can be seen at a protest on the street. To answer these questions, the author took the help of two qualitative methods. The study looks at collective identity inobservable activities. The netnographic method has been used to gain insight into ten different Facebook pages that belong to seven separate Swedish environmental organisations. The ethnographic method of participant observation has been used to gain insight into six protests that took place in Stockholm, Sweden, during the spring semester of 2022. The results suggest that collective identity is visible online, to a high degree, because all aspects of collective identity are observable. Also, comparing the results between Facebook pages and street protests the visible collective identities did not differ, they just manifested in different ways.

How we imagine and the potency of alternative imaginings to socio-political concerns are vital questions for social science, and worldbuilding is a particular and understudied method of doing so. It is the creative making of fictional, imaginative worlds, offering a potential alternative method to imagine otherwise. This paper ethnographically explicates this craft through detailing how creators, known as worldbuilders, make their worlds, demonstrating how it is generative and impactful for them emotionally, intellectually, and politically. It is based of three months of online ethnographic/netnographic fieldwork across the multiple online ‘sites’ worldbuilders are active, particularly a forum and chatroom, as well as digital interviews with sixteen individual worldbuilders. I argue that worldbuilding is a process of toying with ontologies, which I call ontogenous play. I explain this through detailing what is dubbed making the imaginary – the worldbuilding process – going through the particulars of the process and the experiences of interlocutors, demonstrating how one achieves situated transcendence through it, and the generativity of that. In light of these observations, I also argue that worldbuilding is an art, attending to the ramifications of that designation. I draw upon anthropological understandings of making, processes, liminality, and ontologies to advance the argument, as well as the emergent scholarship on worldbuilding from ‘sub-creation studies’, and the erudite hypotheses of my interlocutors.

Author: Hanna-Stina Ivarsson Title: When life gives you loneliness – A netnographic study of loneliness amongst young adults Supervisor: Peter Hultgren Assessor: Torbjörn Forkby  Summary Loneliness is a threat to our health and researchers believe that the loneliness epidemic is the new public disease of our time. In the meantime, single households and individualization in Sweden is increasing, this is happening at the same time as natural meeting places are increasingly disappearing. This is precisely why it is important to learn to manage and break the involuntary loneliness that so many people experience. Loneliness has become an important topic for professionals in social work, but there is a lack of knowledge and strategies to meet and manage involuntary loneliness. There is a perception in society today that it is the elderly who are the loneliest, but new research shows that a change has taken place, and it is young adults who experience loneliness to the greatest extent.  In this study I was interested in investigating how young adults (16-29) themselves depicts the loneliness they live in and what they do to manage and break this loneliness. In order to obtain the results of the study, I have used a qualitative netnographic method. The empirical material has been collected in three popular Swedish discussion forums. I found that the majority of young adults who suffer from loneliness also suffer from some form of mental illness. Furthermore, many feel ashamed about their situation and feel that their life is at a standstill. The strategies used to manage and break loneliness seem to be a complex combination of emotional and problem-focused coping

Over the years, social media has become the main source of communication for alot of users. It is undoubtedly the easiest and fastest way to reach people from allover the world and build friendships, interact, share content and experiences. Oneof the main platforms with this exact use is Instagram, which is this study’s empiricaldomain. This paper studies Instagram’s Interactions tab, namely the three ways ofcommunicating through the platform: likes, comments, story replies. This new feature isable to store the data of these three items on the platform itself; data that waspreviously not so easily available. With a netnographic approach of a documentanalysis on five participants and their Interactions, combined with qualitative pre-study interviews, the data is gathered and compared, viewing participant’sperceptions vs the reality of how they use the platform. This data also revealed whatpart of Instagram and its system users interact with the most, both passively andactively. The study revealed that most users claim to be passive and, in fact, are.They are also aware of the possible negative connotations of using Instagrampassively, but see it as a much easier and faster way of interaction, than the activeone.

This study examines whether the social media platform BeReal can change user behavior related to self-representation and expectations of oneself linked to social norms. The research is analyzed based on the theory about presentation of self in everyday life founded by sociologist Erving Goffman. A netnographic method combining six qualitative interviews supplemented by diary-notes regarding the same respondents' BeReal usage during seven coherent days constitute the material. The material provided a multilateral representation of these BeReal users’ reflections regarding the manner in which they represent themselves online. The study shows a somewhat consistent narrative aligned with the applied theory based on users presenting themselves in a specific way due to what they think is expected from the audience. Impression management is exercised regardless of what social media platform is used, although BeReal provides a less stigmatized online environment and mitigates the internalized pressure on users. However, the respondents found loopholes in BeReals concept giving the app users authority to create norms of how to perform on the app and thereby reintroduce some of the said pressure.

This study aims to understand the Red Pill movement as displayed on YouTube, by exploring mechanisms used to convey these ideologies, and the extent to which these, if at all, legitimize and encourage violent acts. Netnography along with observation and transcription was used for visual and oral data collection. Thematic analysis was utilized for the analysis which was based on Sykes and Matza’s together with Cohen’s neutralization techniques. Although these techniques were found in the data, they could not effectively link to violence. Instead, three new neutralization techniques, denial of agency, appeal to biology, and appeal to greatness could be linked to violence. While the connection between cause and effect is far more complex, this study provides an insight of the neutralization techniques used within this community. The use of these techniques may weaken individual’s social controls, radicalize them, and effectively lead them to legitimize violence specifically against women.

Incels, en sammanslagning av engelskans involuntary och celibates, är en grupp män som tillsammans utgör en subkultur präglad av misogyni, våldsbejakande attityder och en hierarkisk syn på genus. Våldsdåd begångna av incels har ökat och incel-ideologin har börjat ses som ett potentiellt hot för extremistiskt våld. Studiens syfte var att undersöka hur incels skriftliga våldstillämpning kunde kopplas till deras positioneringar inom genushierarkier. Studien antog en netnografisk ansats för insamlingen av incelförfattade foruminlägg och manifest. Empirin analyserades sedan med en tematisk analys. Resultatet visade att incels tillämpar våld i skrift både för att positionera sig i förhållande till varandra samt för att överordna sig kvinnor. Utifrån resultatet var det möjligt att dra slutsatsen att incels genom sin skriftliga våldstillämpning positionerar sig inom såväl västvärldens patriarkala genushierarki som deras interna maskulinitetshierarki. / Incels, a portmanteau of the words involuntary and celibates, are a group of men forming a subculture characterized by misogyny, hierarchical gender views, and violent attitudes. Violent acts committed by incels have increased, and the incel ideology has started to be perceived as a potential threat for extremist violence. This study aimed to investigate how incels’ written use of violence can be linked to their positioning within gender hierarchies. Employing a netnographic approach, the study collected forum posts and manifestos authored by incels. The empirical data were then analyzed through a thematic analysis. The findings revealed that incels’ written use of violence were used both to position themselves in relation to one another and to make women subordinated. Based on the results, it was concluded that through their written use of violence, incels position themselves within the Western patriarchal gender hierarchy as well as their internal hierarchy of masculinity.

Instagram is a phone application that people use to share photos and movies. Instagram is one of the two most popular social medias in the age group 16-25 after Facebook. This essay is a netnographic study that has looked at the affordances offerd on Instagram in images where users are between 16 and 24 years. The study has gathered an archive of material for six days in the spring of 2016. The aim of this paper has been to make this affordances visible by highlighting the sense of what is offerd in health that reveals itselfs, designed and obtained by young people on Instagram. Images were analyzed using image analysis and after that analysed in a text analysis inspired by discourse analysis. The result has been linked to previous research, parts of health theoretical concepts as well as socio-cultural perspective and communities of practice. The conclusion of the study is that health is offered by the young people only as a positive extreme. The affordeces that are given are largely represented individually. The studie has seen that you should exercise, eat right and be happy according to the discourse. There is an unspoken learning process about what is appropriate or not during the hashtag health. With that created collective beliefs are made and an adaptation. / Instagram är en telefonapplikation som människor använder för att dela med sig av fotografier och filmer. Instagram är ett av det två populäraste sociala medierna i åldersgruppen 16 till 25 efter Facebook. Det är en netnografisk studie som tittat på meningserbjudandet på Instagram från bilder där användarna är mellan 16 och 24 år. Studien har samlat på sig ett arkivmaterial under sex dagar våren 2016. Syftet har varit att synliggöra vilka meningserbjudande av hälsa som uppenbarar sig, konstrueras och erhålls av ungdomar på Instagram. Bilderna har analyserats med bildanalys och sedan textanalys inspirerad från diskursanalys. Resultatet har sedan kopplats till tidigare forskning, delar av hälsoteoretiska begrepp samt sociokulturellt perspektiv och praktikgemenskaper. Slutsatsen är att hälsa skildras av ungdomarna endast som en positiv ytterlighet. Det är meningserbjudande som till stor del representeras enskilt. Man ska träna, äta rätt och vara glad enligt diskursen. Det är en outtalad lärprocess om vad som är passande eller inte under hashtaggen hälsa. Med det skapas kollektiva föreställningar och en anpassning.