The aim of this study is to problematize social support at online communities for unwanted childlessness by analyzing the discourses of the unwantedly childless and unwanted childlessness at a Swedish online community. This with the purpose of relating online social support to the societal norm for having children. The study is conducted by doing a Critical Discourse Analysis from a Relational- Cultural and Intersectional perspective on a Swedish online community sub-forum called “LESS på ofrivillig barnlöshet? Skriv av dig!” The results show that the social support becomes a paradox. The unwantedly childless themselves view the social support as fostering connection and belonging. In the meantime the social support is reinforcing the societal norm for having children by creating a collective identity of hope and an individual identity of emotional and physical failure. The norm for having children is further reinforced by the relations outside the online community leading to feelings of social exclusion.

In a world where everything from dating to shopping to conducting business can be performed online, competitive sport has remained an activity in which its online component is mostly relegated to news, chat or fan forums, or fantasy-league interactions. The physicality of competitive sports does not lend itself to an online format—until now. CrossFit (CF) is one of the fastest growing new fitness programs in the world, and is based largely on online communities and networks. In 2011, CrossFit Incorporated (CF Inc.), the creator of this worldwide fitness network, conducted the world’s largest online CF sporting competition, where individuals recorded their performances online for public consumption, interaction and judging. Over 25,000 individuals and teams from around the world participated in 2011 which relies heavily on participation and feedback, trust, social media and networking for its success. By uncovering the essential components of the unique operating community of CF through analysis of quantitative data, in-depth qualitative interviews, and textual analysis, this paper suggests a model for producing a successful global sporting event online and discusses whether it may be applied to other athletic organizations to increase their worldwide exposure and increase members access to global opportunities. Findings determined a mix of criteria including attracting and retaining like-minded individuals through a strong focus on cohesion, inclusion, and competition; strong local autonomy and control; and a willingness on the part of members to promote the sport for the perceived wellbeing of others as necessary to a strong, effective online component in facilitating global competition online.

The purpose of this study was to analyze data related to rural teachers' use of online communities. Rural teachers are often isolated in their practice and sometimes have difficulty connecting with other teachers with their same assignments or needs due to their professional setting. As Internet availability increases and online communities proliferate, teachers have more opportunity than ever to seek personal and professional support in virtual relationships when face-to-face ones are not easily available. In small schools such as the ones included in this study, teachers can become burned out as they perform the difficult task of teaching with few colleagues in their department or grade level to turn to for support. One interview subject said that she and the only other person with the same teaching assignment don't always have time to communicate and often have to use their lunch period to do so. Another said that she feels very isolated because there are only three of them with the same grade level assignment. The most telling comment came from one high school teacher, "I am the foreign language department." In spite of these expressed feelings of isolation, this study's results do not support widespread use of online communities by these particular rural teachers to help fill their personal and professional needs. The only online communication technology widely used was email. At a minimum, every subject in this study had access to a high-speed Internet connection, functional technology, administrative support, and training. With this type of support already in place, further study is needed to discover what would increase awareness and use of online communities by this group of teachers. Additionally, similar studies in different rural school settings might show different results. Comparisons of study findings between rural schools in different geographic locations would be revealing. Such comparative studies could help inform administrators and online community developers who wish to better meet the needs of rural teachers.

abstract: Knowledge Management Systems have been actively promoted for decades within organizations but have frequently failed to be used. Recently, deployments of enterprise social networking platforms used for knowledge management have become commonplace. These platforms help harness the knowledge of workers by serving as repositories of knowledge as well as directories of knowledge holders. As with prior systems, a key challenge faced by organizations is how to initiate and maintain a minimum level of knowledge contributions. Existing IS literature on the causes of knowledge contributions shows conflicting findings. This work suggests that human factors, social networking platform technology and community factors, and environments internal to organizations are each necessary for understanding the causes of knowledge contributions. This work presents three studies that: 1) develop a framework for the analysis of knowledge contributions via social networking platforms, 2) demonstrate the impacts of different incentives and managerial controls, and 3) extend our understanding of group-level influences within organizations. With a better understanding of what drives knowledge contributions in a social networking platform used in organizations, we are better prepared as researchers to engage in research that reduces inconsistencies in the knowledge management literature, as well as more able to assist practitioners in designing optimal conditions for knowledge sharing within organizations. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Information Management 2012

This sociological study uses online survey data from one hundred and six respondents to explore how social networking websites alter the social self. Critical and symbolic interactionist sociological theory is used as a means to understand the data. This dissertation specifically concerns how social networking websites shape identity, result in a more self-reflexive presentation of self, and serve as a means of both socialization and social control.

This diploma thesis is focused on description and objective analysis of social networks on internet. History of internet social networks, basic principles they work on and psychological aspects are shown in this thesis. One of the parts of my work is dedicated to monetization methods and techniques of social networks in context of internet. An objective view on problems of virtual societies provides an abstract of the methods of their resolving. There is no in any case an ambition for this thesis to be the greatest social networking analysis, but it proviedes well structured summary of a lot of theoretical and practical knowledge, which could certainly serve as valuable base for further deeper research. The most beneficial added valut of this thesis is a comprehensive insight on social networks from different points of view: theoretical, psychological and practical. Theoretical knowledge from psychology and sociology sciences are enriched with examples from real life. This thesis brings an outline of modern trends, which makes possible to predict future development.

During 2020, online brokers experienced an increase in people who began to invest their money on the stock market. This, because covid-19 made people realize that they needed an economic buffer in difficult times. Moreover, the stock market declined in the beginning of 2020 due to the pandemic which made people see the chance to make profits. Simultaneously, it was evident that the social media usage surged due to covid-19 as people could not meet each other psychically, which resulted in them using social media to interact. In the beginning of 2021, two events occurred in which investors made decisions based on turmoil on social media, which had tremendous effects on investors and the financial market as a whole. These events depicted how financial markets and social media are interrelated, which was interesting for us as we have specialized in finance and marketing respectively. Evidently, research merging these two areas is scarce which motivated us to explore how social media and its mechanisms affect investors when making investment decisions. From the above mentioned events, it could be seen that certain stocks were hyped within online communities, such as Twitter and Reddit. Subsequently, we deemed that it would be interesting to investigate how investors are influenced by online communities. Moreover, it appeared as if investors adhered to the large mass rather than the information that others expressed. Hence, we deemed that we would investigate online communities, electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and user-generated content (UGC). The main purpose of this thesis was to gain a deeper understanding of how social media influences, i.e. online communities, eWOM and UGC, affect non-professional investors’ investment decisions. By examining theories of investment decisions, we explored how investors act and also which factors that influence them in their decision-making process. The second area framed both the features and the power of online communities, eWOM and UGC which influence social media users. We performed a qualitative study to examine the mindset of nonprofessional investors and to investigate how they related to and acted upon the quick and accessible information produced online regarding firms and their activities. By our research, we aimed to provide insights on how marketing and finance affect one another, especially in the wake of the rapidly developing digital environment where information sharing on social media is taking new heights. This research was performed by using a qualitative study, in which semi-structured interviews were conducted to get a broader comprehension of the behaviour that investors adopt. The participants of our study consisted of non-professional investors, as we deemed the professional investors to be less adherent to external noise. Using the data from the interviews, we conducted a thematic analysis which resulted in specific themes related to areas of investment decisions, online communities and eWOM/UGC. The findings suggest that investors are affected by online communities, eWOM and UGC although mainly for inspiration, knowledge and information. Hence, our findings signify that investors use them to widen their knowledge and find new companies and sectors to invest in. Concurrently, investors highlight the importance of making their own analysis and research before making a final decision, which signifies that eWOM and UGC do not have a direct impact on investors.

The thesis is focused on researching the recent phenomena of the emerging virtual Esperanto communities. The aim is to understand how feeling of belonging and connectedness are generated online. The theoretical framework that the study follows is Sense of Community theory by McMillan and Chavis (1986). It presents 4 components that combined together create a strong bond within a community – membership, influence, shared emotional value, and reinforcement of needs, later revised to spirit, trust, art and trade respectively. This particular theory helped significantly structure the way the analysis was carried out. The main results from the qualitative and quantitative data are that the sense of connectedness the respondents demonstrated to the Esperanto communities was strong. The interview participants have been members for more than 10 years, and have indicated they believed they shared similar values and needs with their co-members, but most strong ones with the groups they shared other interests except Esperanto. The Internet, as all interview participants confirmed, has played a huge role for the development of the Esperanto language and culture and currently connects thousands of Esperantists worldwide and provides them with a space to be producers of their media, Esperanto. Furthermore, some statements demonstrated that not speaking the language results in excluding people from the group, excluding also new members who used auxiliary languages (e.g. English or German) along with Esperanto, to help their communication at Esperanto gatherings. Finally, there were also found signs of segregation among an older generation of Esperantists, who made division between Esperanto speakers and non-speakers and between the different Esperanto institutions.

Online communities have become a part of everyday life for many people. The members of the communities use them to keep in touch with family and friends, do business, look for jobs, play games, and more, both savory and unsavory. The ease of sharing personal information comes with the subsequent risk of having that information exposed publically or even stolen. The purpose of this study was to explore how much awareness of the risks affects a person’s decision to post personal information to an online community. Chapter I introduces the concepts and issues that will be investigated by this paper. Chapter II is a review of the literature on risk. Chapter III explains the model that was developed and used determine the relationships between risk perception, attitude, fear, and information revelation. Chapter IV explains the methods used to gather the data and what data was gathered. Chapter V contains the analysis of the data collected. Chapter VI contains the conclusion drawn from the data, implications for the research, and directions for future research.

This thesis focuses on exploring cases of internal antagonism in fan communities, with a specific focus on the Steven Universe (2013 -) and Undertale (2015) communities present on Tumblr and Twitter. Internal antagonism is a phenomenon that occurs when a community targets a member within itself instead of outside itself, often as a way to mediate and regulate the community and reinforce its values. This thesis considers three case studies of internal antagonism with both physical and digital implications in order to better understand the role it plays in shaping and sustaining online fan communities as well as mediating the roles of fans and creators. This research will give a better understanding of why this harassment happens and what folkloric function it fulfills. This research will reveal why individuals cleave to these communities and what their core values are. The first case study analyzed is the case of Zamii070, a fanartist who faced severe harassment from the Steven Universe fan community due to a “problematic” piece of fanart. The second case study revolves around Jesse Zuke, a former storyboard artist on Steven Universe, was on the end of internal antagonism because of perceptions that they were mocking queer fans. The last case study is that of a fanartist who received cookies with needles in them from a fan who disliked their fanart. This thesis discusses and analyzes the details of the incidents themselves, their results, and the reactions from the fan community using original posts related to the incidents, accounts of the incidents, and interviews with those involved in the community at the time. As context for ethnographic research, this thesis will also explore the Steven Universe and Undertale communities through public posts and interviews