This dissertation presents an investigation of a rarely studied business entity in the cross disciplinary literature on organizational culture, a completely virtually organized firm. Subscribing to a conviction that any culture can only be understood through an approach that uncovers the lived experiences of its members, I employ the traditional anthropological method of participant observation as my foundational data gathering technique. In an effort to help engage anthropology with the cross disciplinary organizational culture literature generally, I also use two well-known methods of corporate culture assessment from the management sciences. I provide a number of recommendations to the sponsors of the research for addressing problems that relate directly to worker morale and performance and which, consequently, impact the company's overall potential for success. Some of these problems are unique to this particular company while other issues that I identify, such as weak organizational identification among employees, loose networks of social capital between co-workers, employee training and nurturing deficits, email overload impacts on employee productivity and regard for organizational leaders, and the encroachment of work on personal time, are problems likely to be encountered by members of other virtual work organizations. As such, my findings should be of interest to applied researchers who study these fast-growing types of work arrangements.

Abstract Title: See each other on the Internet or on a café? A survey about social consequences of Internet usage. (Umgås på Internet eller på ett café? – en studie om Internetanvändningens sociala konsekvenser.) Number of pages: 34 (including enclosures). Author: Carolin Johansson. Tutor: Else Nygren. Course: Media and Communication Studies C. Period: Fall 2007. University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University. Purpose/Aim: The purpose is to get increased knowledge about the social consequences that may come up when young people at the age of 16-20 are using the Internet. Material/Method: The material consists of a questionnaire that I made with questions about Internet usage that 84 young people from five classes (from three different upper secondary schools) answered. Main results: To have access to a computer and Internet and the fact that broadband is more inexpensive now than before leads to an increased usage of the Internet. I found out that chatting, music/movies, searching for information and using the Internet for entertainment is what most of the participants spent the most time on while using the Internet. I also found out that an increased usage of the Internet could lead to decreased time together with friends/family. Keywords: Internet usage, social consequences, Instant Messaging, Community, online communication.

Establishing online communities of practice is an important part of the knowledge translation process in the modern healthcare system, but these online communities are new entity that is inherently different from traditional communities of practice that are dependent on existing social structures. The objective of this thesis is to combine communication analysis and content analysis to delve deeper into the communications within an online community to try and determine how online communities exist, and how that information can be leveraged to improve online knowledge translation. Using a novel approach this project will map the contents of online conversations to a structured medical lexicon (MeSH), and then use the inherent relationships of that lexicon to calculate term, user and thread similarities within an online community. These similarities, combined with connection analysis results, will provide a much deeper understanding of how online communities function. The methods developed here will then be tested on two separate mailing lists, the Pediatric Pain Mailing List (PPML) and SURGINET, a mailing list of general surgeons.

The experience of a pelvic exam or Pap smear is something that, while necessary to maintain reproductive health, can be fraught with difficulty for women. Ouj, Igberase, Exe, and Ejikeme (2011) note that “[m]ost women feel a level of discomfort or pain and for some it is embarrassing, dehumanizing, degrading and associated with fear, anxiety and apprehension” (p. 637). However, little recent research has focused on the specific communication surrounding reproductive care for young women. The Internet is a common place for young people to seek health information, understand their own health risks, and seek social support from others. The current study utilizes information gleaned from the archives of an internet message board and sexual education website to examine the way that young women communicate about reproductive health care, risk, and social support with experts and peers in the online community. Results indicate that young women request, seek, and receive several different types of social support in the online community. Further, themes illuminate the complex nature of women’s concerns about potential risk and reproductive care.

Title: Blog Influence on Consumer Information Search Authors: Emma Hammer, Charlotta Hellström & Emma Martin Tutor: Jonas Dahlqvist Date: 2015-05-11 Key Words: Blog marketing, information search, blog characteristics, blog influence, consumer behavior, online information, online communication Abstract Information search is crucial to consumers because it can potentially lead to better decision-making, therefor it is argued to be the most important aspect during the consumer decision process (Beatty & Smith, 1987; Schmidt & Spreng, 1996). The Internet has greatly impacted the way consumers search for information (Peterson & Merino, 2003). The easy access of online information has made consumers to turn to blogs as an information source, to find inspiration and to be entertained. Moreover, the opportunity to interact with bloggers increases trust and thus consumers feel a stronger connection to the information being shared (Piscopo, 2015).   This thesis intends to analyze and describe what influences consumers to use blogs as an information source and why consumers continuously use blogs over traditional media. To be able to fully understand the use of blogs, the most influential characteristics of blogs affecting consumer behavior are investigated. This thesis discusses similarities and differences with existing literature concerning blogs and consumer behavior and intends to narrow the knowledge gap on the topic.   To fulfill the purpose of this thesis, existing literature was carefully studied to gain knowledge of the topic and qualitative primary data was collected through personal interviews to gain insights from consumers’ perspectives among experienced blog readers. The interview questions were developed based on the theory and previous literature addressed in this study.   The findings of our study indicated that all of the respondents were influenced to read blogs both internally and externally. Our study showed that consumers prefer using blogs as an information source over traditional media because it is easily accessible, free and more convenient. Finally, the continuous use of blogs was realized as a result of these blog characteristics explained by the respondents: familiarity, frequency, convenience, inspirational, humor and professionalism.

Children and adolescents are now using online communication to form and/or maintain relationships with strangers and/or friends. Relationships in real life are important for children and adolescents in identity formation and general development. However, social relationships can be difficult for those who experience feelings of loneliness and social anxiety. The current study aimed to replicate and extend research conducted by Valkenburg and Peter (2007b), by investigating differences in online communication patterns between children and adolescents with and without selfreported loneliness and social anxiety. Six hundred and twenty-six students aged 10-16 years completed a questionnaire survey about the amount of time they engaged in online communication, the topics they discussed, who they communicated with, and their purposes of online communication. Following Valkenburg and Peter (2007b), loneliness was measured with a shortened version of the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3) developed by Russell (1996), whereas social anxiety was assessed with a sub-scale of the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (La Greca & Lopez, 1998). The sample was divided into four groups of children and adolescents: 220 were “non-socially anxious and non-lonely”, 139 were “socially anxious but not lonely”, 107 were “lonely but not socially anxious”, and 159 were “lonely and socially anxious”. A one-way ANOVA and chi-square tests were conducted to evaluate the aforementioned differences between these groups. The results indicated that children and adolescents who reported being lonely used online communication differently from those who did not report being lonely. Essentially, the former communicated online more frequently about personal things and intimate topics, but also to compensate for their weak social skills and to meet new people. Further analyses on gender differences within lonely children and adolescents revealed that boys and girls communicated online more frequently with different partners. It was concluded that for these vulnerable individuals online communication may fulfil needs of self-disclosure, identity exploration, and social interactions. However, future longitudinal studies combining a quantitative with a qualitative approach would better address the relationship between Internet use and psychosocial well-being. The findings also suggested the need for further exploration of how such troubled children and adolescents can use the Internet beneficially.

The issue of sexism is arguably an important topic in modern society in several aspects of life. With the introduction of the Internet and communication over the Internet, additional potential sources of sexism have emerged. While there appears to have been a significant number of studies regarding sexism in cyberspace, Twitch.tv is a relatively new platform and seems yet to be properly explored. Therefore, while being limited in size, the present study aims to provide an introduction to Twitch.tv by performing a limited investigation of the extent of sexist behaviour and ideas expressed by users on the site, particularly against female streamers. To accomplish this, 30,000 lines of chat messages from six different chatrooms, three belonging to women and the remaining three to men, were examined for sexist behaviour, based on a variety of parameters such as differences in language complexity and instances of sexist remarks. The results suggested that several varieties of sexism existed on Twitch, and was directed at both men and women, where women seemed to be more heavily affected than men. The conclusion of the study is that Twitch does not seem to be a breath of fresh air in cyberspace as it appears to embody numerous sexist ideas. However, the author notes that Twitch could serve as a potentially useful source of data for future gender studies online.

The aim of the thesis is to investigate vocabulary learning strategies that are used and perceived to be helpful by English learners while communicating online. The participants of the study are 20 young Lithuanian English learners (23-28 years old) who use online communication on a weekly basis. The method of the research is a combination of a questionnaire and a follow-up email interview. The questionnaire items are based on Schmitt’s taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies (1997), while the interview questions deal both with certain choices in the questionnaire and general attitudes towards online communication. The results of the study show that an overwhelming majority of the respondents are experienced users of a number of online communication types and mostly interact via emails and short messages about leisure and work issues. The most used vocabulary strategies are different from the ones perceived to be most helpful. Although the respondents tend to choose individual determination strategies to discover a new word’s meaning, they believe social strategies to be highly beneficial. A conclusion might be made that as long as language learners are provided with instructions, socializing on the Internet might be a tool of English vocabulary learning.

This thesis focuses on marketing communication on internet, also on specifics of internet as a communication medium and shows a wide range of possibilities how to use various online tools in marketing communication. Second part of this publication describes and analyses web presentation of Pfanner company which is evaluated according to given criteria. Recommendations are given on the basis of this analysis and comparation with competition.

The diploma thesis aims to analyze the online communication of the Czech Centres and propose a new strategy of its online communications. The theoretical part is focused on the usage of different internet marketing techniques, popular online communication channels and new trends in this field. Principles of cultural diplomacy are explained briefly to reveal the background and the mission of the Czech Centres. The core of the work is in the detailed description of the institution's online communication mix and analysis of its main competitors -- Slovakian, Polish and Hungarian Institutes. Research conducted by the author explores the attitude and opinion of employees on related topics. The thesis is concluded with the SWOT analysis and proposal for a new strategy of online communication. It sets goals, target groups and based on that suggest changes in the usage of online communication channels. The thesis strives to answer where the current position of the Czech Centres in the online world is and suggests improving it by strategic use of online channels, web redesign and increased activity on social networks.