Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 199-206).

Thesis (M.S.S. (Political Science))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Background: Changing interests and expectations of societies have resulted in the development of new communication and business channels. The boom of social media, allowed for a rapid exchange of beliefs, opinions and ideas. The ways of advertising products have also been changed. Once beloved, both by companies and customers, celebrity endorsement is becoming less and less popular in favor of, commonly now used, peer-created reviews. Modern enterprises increasingly use an image of an ‘ordinary’ person in their marketing strategies and the internet has seen a flourishing trend of peercreated posts and reviews. The concept of trust has been known in the literature for ages, however with new times, new angles of perception of this phenomenon appear. There is still little to none research done in the area of trustworthiness towards peer-created content, and exploring this phenomenon is the purpose of this work. Purpose: The purpose of our work is in a way twofold. First, we aim to obtain more insights on how sponsored and non-sponsored peer-created content posted on Instagram can influence consumer’s knowledge of persuasion in advertising. Second, we examine if and how the source credibility and the trustworthiness of shared content can be affected by customers awareness of the persuasion intent of sponsored texts. Method: Web-based, self-completion surveys were disseminated amongst our friends and family in order to collect the data. The analysis was done through SPSS, using the correlation and multiple regression analysis calculations. Furthermore, to deeper understand the relationships between the variables and to find possible interaction effects between them, the moderator analysis was conducted. Conclusion: The sponsored peer-created content of the post is widely recognized as a deliberate marketing activity of a company. What is more, the non-sponsored content is also being perceived as a product advertisement, however, with less conviction that in the case of the sponsored posts. A positive relationship between lack of recognition of non-sponsored posts as the product advertisements and the trustworthiness towards the content has been found, meaning that the less the content of the post is perceived as a deliberate marketing activity of a company, the more trustworthy it is to the respondent. Consequently, the more people perceive a specific post as an advertisement commissioned by the company, the less trustworthy they feel towards its content.

Background Social media influencer advertising is a fast-growing form of advertising. It has led to companies striking deals with influencers to benefit from the influencers’ big audiences of followers and social media users. Influencers promote the companies’ brands and/or products in exchange for a payment. Influencer advertising comes in two forms, sponsored and non-sponsored, factors that can have a significant effect on purchase intention when combined with different message types as pictures, text, and a combination of picture and text and trust. Objective This report's primary goal is to study the effect of trust, message type, sponsored, and non-sponsored advertising on consumers' purchase intentions on social media and contribute to previous studies.  Method This study is a quantitative study with primary data. The method used for collecting the data is an online survey. The survey has been divided into two parts and sent out to the Swedish population who uses social media. One with questions on sponsored advertisements’ and another with questions of non-sponsored advertisements. In total, the surveys had 107 complete responses. The data was then analyzed using IBM’s SPSS program.  Result Tests for the first hypothesis found no significant difference in the mean values of sponsored and non-sponsored advertisements' effect on purchase intentions. The second hypothesis established that the use of a picture message-type in advertisements had a more significant impact on purchase intention then a combination of both text and picture. The last and final hypothesis result found that influencer advertisements, sponsored or non-sponsored did not affect consumers' trust in any significant way and therefore did not affect purchase intention.  Conclusion Companies should take into consideration the benefit of utilizing influencer-picture advertisements’ when it comes to the promotion of easily understood products, such as water bottles. Further work also needs to be done on more underlying factors that can affect consumers' purchase intentions.   Keywords Influencer, Sponsored advertising, Non-sponsored advertising, Online survey, Message type

The purpose of this study is to investigate the motives of young women choosing to interact with Swedish female influencers on Instagram, and these young womens, the followers, attitudes to sponsored material. The theories chosen as relevant for this study are “parasocial theory” as well as “perceived interconnectedness”. Both theories subject the relationship between a media personality and their fans. A content analysis was chosen to look at the difference in likes and comments on influencers sponsored as well as non-sponsored posts on Instagram. Furthermore, to increase the understanding, a survey was sent out to a collection of the followers who had commented on the relevant posts. This provided knowledge regarding followers' attitudes towards sponsored as well as non-sponsored posts. This empirical material was then analyzed using the method of content analysis. The main results of the study showed that the non-sponsored posts uploaded by the influencers were more appreciated by their followers, since 1 these non-sponsored posts generated more likes and comments from the followers. Furthermore, the respondents to the survey replied that they were often supportive of the influencers, and followed them as well as commented on their posts when they were inspired by them, wanted to support them, wanted to make their own opinions heard, or when the posts felt genuine and personal. The results are important as well as relevant for future studies, as well as for both influencers and companies willing to use influencers for marketing.

No description available.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. / Countries sponsoring and supporting terrorism impede the efforts of the United States and the international community to fight terrorism. Until states that support terrorism cease such sponsorship, they remain a critical foundation for terrorist groups and their operations. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the U.S. military's role in coercing states to cease their sponsorship of terrorism. Using game theory, this thesis analyzes the utility of military force against state-sponsored terrorism. It explains why past military responses did not pose a credible threat and were thus, an ineffective instrument of national power. It then examines how military force is employed in the current war on terrorism. The findings of this thesis suggest that the limited military strikes employed against states for their role in terrorist attacks prior to September 11, 2001, preconditioned the leaders of supportive states to believe U.S. leadership lacked commitment in its strategy to end statesponsored terrorism. The findings also suggest the dramatic change in the United States' method of employing its military forces against state sponsors of terrorism after September 11, 2001, created the credible, coercive military threat required to accomplish the U.S. national objective of ending state-sponsored terrorism. / Major, United States Air Force

The purpose of this study was to determine the criteria used by foundation directors in assessing the effectiveness of contribution programs in company sponsored foundations. Quinn and Rohrbaugh's Competing Values Approach of organizational effectiveness was used as the theoretical framework for the study. The Competing Values Approach is an integrative effectiveness model which clusters eight criteria of effectiveness into four theoretical models of organizational effectiveness.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Harold Troper.