Once a year for over forty years public relations’ practitioners in Sweden gathers, the political week in Almedalen, in the town of Visby. There they exchange knowledge and experience on all types of subjects using different and common communication models whether they are aware of them or not. The research on communication models is sparse, with one exception: Grunig’s model. Both practitioners and researches believe them to be important, even strategic. But too little knowledge about the models as such negatively impacts the understanding of public relations’ activities. It also contributes to the view that public relations is frittered. The thesis studies and analyses communication models of public relations. Models have been created by theorists and practitioners to describe the phenomenon, to understand communication as such and to facilitate communication between humans. The thesis addresses basic questions such as which models there are, where they stem from, who the originators were and the characteristics of each respective model. The basis of the study is comprehensive Anglo-American literature. All in all, over twenty different models have been analyzed in three different ways, i.e. the structure of a model, its historical deposits (sediment) and the application of the model. The result is manifold, since many characteristics form ten attributes and three families of models (a reduction). The characteristics can be seen as the models’ building blocks, e.g. the direction of the communication, the number of contacts and synchronism. Three model families are built on three differentiating characteristics, and the families are named correspondingly. Directional model (Riktningsmodellen), the Co-orientational model (Saminriktningsmodellen) and the Connectivity model (Konnektivitetsmodellen). The classification is of course not set in stone. It should be regarded as a first step to reduce the number of models in use and concentrate on the important characteristics of the models that help public relations researchers and professionals to solve problems and theorists to explain, foresee or guide to better public relations. Finally, five areas of future research are presented: a multinational study of models, a study of practitioners’ model use, a deeper history study according the concept of sediment, a notational system for models and, last but not least, a development of the Connectivity model. The last subject is the one that once inspired me to write a thesis. / <p>QC 20170426</p>

This report studies the possibility of using some sort of radio sender and transmitter in order to position skis lost in powder snow. It is concluded that a RF-solution on the 433 MHz frequency should be the most efficient. Different forms of directional antennas are examined and studies show that in theory the best suited is the so called “Yagi-Uda antenna”. A solution based on using a Receive Signal Strength Indicator value together with the above mentioned directional antenna is developed. To control these different components microprocessors from Atmel is used. These are programmed in C and compiled with Atmel’s own compiler AVR Studio. Despite all efforts it is proven that the prototype does not perform in an adequate way. An alternative solution based on “byte-loss-rate” is then developed and the results are slightly improved. Nevertheless, the directional properties of the antenna are still too poor why other alternatives are discussed. No fully functioning prototype is achieved but good grounds for further development of the prototype into something that fulfills the specifications are produced.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to identify and describe how consumer perceptions regarding information quality, sender credibility and effect of eWOM-communication differ between Facebook and Prisjakt. Approach – Based on previous research an analytical model was designed. The parts in the model were the aspects of the problem which the present study aimed to examine. An experimental design was applied in which ten students at Örebro University were exposed to a scenario where they took part of eWOM-communication concerning a specific product on Facebook and Prisjakt and then had to answer questions in an interview. The analytical model formed the base of the interview guide used in the interview and the specific product was chosen with help from a focus group. Implication – The study illustrates that consumers may perceive the quality higher on Prisjakt while the sender credibility can be perceived higher on Facebook. Despite this conclusion the effect of eWOM-communication in this study is that the information on Facebook is adopted to a greater degree than the information on Prisjakt. The reason for this is that the sender credibility appeared to be more important in the process of information adoption. / Syfte – Syftet med denna studie är att identifiera och beskriva hur konsumenters uppfattning skiljer sig mellan Facebook och Prisjakt gällande informationens kvalitet, avsändarens trovärdighet och effekten av eWOM-kommunikation. Tillvägagångssätt – Utifrån tidigare forskning utformades en analysmodell vars delar var de aspekter av problemet som studien syftade till att undersöka. En experimentell design tillämpades där tio studenter vid Örebro universitet fick sätta sig in i ett scenario där de tog del av eWOM-kommunikation gällande en specifik produkt på Facebook respektive Prisjakt och sedan fick svara på frågor i en intervju. Analysmodellen låg till grund för en intervjuguide som användes vid intervjun och den specifika produkten diskuterades fram med hjälp av en fokusgrupp. Slutsats – Studien illustrerar att konsumenter kan uppfatta informationens kvalitet högre på Prisjakt medan avsändarens trovärdighet kan uppfattas högre på Facebook. Trots detta är slutsatsen gällande effekten av eWOM-kommunikation i studien att informationen på Facebook tenderar att anammas till en större grad än informationen på Prisjakt. Anledningen till detta är att avsändarens trovärdighet visade sig vara av större betydelse i processen av informationsanammande.

The aim of our study is to explore which norms that exists in the home care service, who is sending those norms, how are they maintained and how do they affect the interactions between staff and manager? We want to deep en our knowledge about home care service as an organization and increase our understanding for the psychosocial work environment and also the importance of leadership. We mean to read the organizational culture that exists which allows us to deal with the values that influence the behavior in the organization. The study is based on a qualitative method. The data consists of two focus group interviews, one with managers from the home care service - organization and one with staff from the same organization. T he interview with the managers consisted of five participants and the corresponding figure for the second interview with the staff was eight participants. The theoretical viewpoints have been communication - theory, organizational theory and Foucault´s th eory of power. Our result indicate that norms are something that unconsciously controls us and that we have learned that there are consequences when you step out of what is normative for the group. The result also indicate that norms within the own group i s difficult to recognize and a bit forbidden to talk about. One of the most important findings where that for our two interview - groups there where normative to talk about the care - takers perspective, but at the same time it was normative to base thoughts and acts from their own perspective. An important discovery is also that both managers and staff experience stress, have feelings of inadequacy and that nobody listens to their point of view. Both parts also have the experience of being powerless and not to be able to make decisions. According to them it seems like it is all about implement what they are ordered, which can be seen as the democracy is just a facade. The power exists and is being used but there are no subjects because no one experiences them selves to have any power.

In this paper, we analyze the four-node relay wiretap channel, where the relay performs amplify-and-forward. There is no direct link between transmitter and receiver available. The transmitter has multiple antennas, which assist in securing the transmission over both phases. In case of full channel state information (CSI), the transmitter can apply information leakage neutralization in order to prevent the eavesdropper from obtaining any information about the signal sent. This gets more challenging, if the transmitter has only an outdated estimate of the channel from the relay to the eavesdropper. For this case, we optimize the worst case secrecy rate by choosing intelligently the beamforming vectors and the power allocation at the transmitter and the relay.

Les réseaux véhiculaires, connus sous le terme VANETs, sont des réseaux impliquant des communications entre deux ou plusieurs véhicules et éventuellement une communication avec des éléments d’infrastructure sur la route. Récemment, le concept de systèmes de transport intelligents (STI) a connu beaucoup d’intérêt. Les STI sont des systèmes utilisant les nouvelles technologies de communication sans fil appliquées au domaine du transport pour améliorer la sécurité routière, la logistique et les services d’information. Des défis majeurs ont besoin cependant d'être abordés pour offrir une communication sur la route sécurisée et fiable dans des environnements anonymes et quelquefois hostiles à la communication. Comme dans tout système de communication, les réseaux véhiculaires doivent opérer en respectant des contraintes en termes de qualité de service. Ces contraintes sont d’autant plus strictes quand il s’agit de fournir des services de sécurité sur la route. Ce projet vise à développer des techniques de communication véhiculaires pour le transfert des informations de manière fiable entre véhicules roulant à grande vitesse tout en contrôlant la surcharge du réseau. Ces techniques visent la prise en compte des contraintes temporelles sur les délais de transfert afin d’envisager leur utilisation dans des applications critiques telle que la sécurité sur la route. Pour ce faire, cette thèse propose d’abord un protocole optimal de dissémination de messages d’urgence pour les VANETs. Il est basé sur une stratégie de diffusion qui exploite les véhicules sur la direction opposée afin d’accélérer la dissémination du message d’urgence tout en réduisant le nombre de transmissions. Ainsi, et dans le but d’assurer une dissémination fiable et à faible surcoût, une technique de retransmission périodique intelligente permettant l’adaptation du protocol proposé à différentes densités du trafic routier est proposée. Dans un second volet, ce projet propose une approche hybride de dissémination de messages d’urgence qui combine alternativement les avantages des deux principales approches de dissémination existantes (Sender-oriented et Receiver-oriented dont notre première proposition fait partie) afin de garantir une transmission fiable des alertes tout en réduisant les délais. Les approches Receiver-Oriented qui sont les plus adaptées pour les applications de sécurité dans les VANETs peuvent minimiser la latence et les limitations des approches Sender-Oriented. Mais, ilsdoivent aussi mieux exploiter les apports des messages hello (beacons) échangés dans la technologie IEEE802.11P. Ainsi, et dans le but de surmonter les limites des approches de retransmissions périodiques et celles de relais- multiples afin d’assurer des échanges fiables de messages de sécurité tout en réduisant la surcharge de la bande passante, nous introduisons un nouveau mécanisme DR/BDR (Designated Relay/Backup Designated Relay). Le BDR, dans ce mécanisme, doit remplacer le DR et assurer sa tâche quand il détecte, à travers les beacons colorés échangés,l’échec de ce dernier dans la dissémination du message d’urgence. / Vehicular Ad hoc NETworks (VANETs) have gained considerable attention in the past few years due to their promising applications such as safety warning, transport efficiency or mobile infotainment. Avoiding accidents and traffic jams are two main immediate benefits of vehicular networks. For instance, most drivers would like to receive real-time alerts about accidents happening at a short distance in front of their vehicles since these accidents could lead to collision chains involving tens of vehicles. Also, the ability to receive an alert about a potential traffic jam would allow drivers to take alternate routes, saving both time and fuel. In both cases, warning messages should be broadcasted to all vehicles traveling over a geographical area, and need to be delivered with high reliability, low delay and low overhead. It is therefore important to develop a reliable and efficient safety information dissemination protocol in vehicular networks. Due to the vehicle mobility and lossy wireless channel, highly reliable, scalable and fast multi-hop broadcast protocol is very challenging to design. A number of solutions have been proposed in the past few years. However, the tradeoff between reliability and efficiency in such solutions needs to be carefully considered. This thesis presents an optimal protocol for the broadcast of safety messages in VANETs. Optimality, in terms of delay and transmission count, is achieved using a broadcast strategy that exploits opposite vehicles. To carry out reliable and efficient broadcast coordination, intelligent periodic rebroadcasts, which effectively adapt our protocol to sparse and dense networks, are proposed. Simulations are conducted and results are presented to show that it has a better performance over existing competing protocols. As a second contribution, we propose an alternative Receiver-Sender approach that combines advantages of the two existing dissemination approaches (Sender-oriented and Receiver-oriented to which our first proposal belongs) to ensure low latency and high reliability. The proposal can use any sender or receiver oriented protocol but the same selected one is used during all the dissemination process. In order to overcome the unreliability and broadcast overhead generated by periodic rebroadcasts and multiple relays schemes, we introduce a DR/BDR (Designated Relay/Backup Designated Relay) mechanism where the BDR has to replace the DR when detecting,from exchanged colored beacons, its failure in informing concerned vehicles.

In this paper, we analyze the four-node relay wiretap channel, where the relay performs amplify-and-forward. There is no direct link between transmitter and receiver available. The transmitter has multiple antennas, which assist in securing the transmission over both phases. In case of full channel state information (CSI), the transmitter can apply information leakage neutralization in order to prevent the eavesdropper from obtaining any information about the signal sent. This gets more challenging, if the transmitter has only an outdated estimate of the channel from the relay to the eavesdropper. For this case, we optimize the worst case secrecy rate by choosing intelligently the beamforming vectors and the power allocation at the transmitter and the relay.

Denna rapport behandlar prestandaproblem i den nyligen standardiserade Mesh kommunikationsstandarden (IEEE 802.11s). I denna rapport, undersöker och förbättra vi ett förhållande som resulterar i reduktion av genomströmningen i en kedja av noder topologi. IEEE802.11s är mycket lovande med många fördelar för både IoT-systemen och trådlösa nätverk i båda hemmet och arbete.Vi arbetar med frågan om orättvisa när CSMA/CA tillämpas, vilket orsakar genomströmningsreduktion på grund av paketförluster och indikerar svältning. Vi analyserar konsekvenserna av Collision Avoidance (CA) mekanism och föreslår en ersättning för CA som är både rättvist och samtidigt kan upprätthålla undvikande av kollisioner. Vi implementera detta i en simulator och resultatet visar på betydligt högre end-to-end-genomströmning än standard CSMA/CA och inga paketförluster på grund av buffertspill. / This thesis rapport deals with the performance issues of the newly standardized Wireless mesh protocol (IEEE 802.11s). In this thesis, we work on improving the conditions that results in throughput degradation in a chain of nodes topology. The mesh standard is very promising with many advantages for both IoT systems and home wireless networks.We work on the issue of unfairness when CSMA/CA is applied, which causes throughput degradation due to packet loss and indicates starvation. We analyze the implication of the Collision Avoidance (CA) mechanism and propose a replacement for the CA that is both fair and able to maintain collision avoidance. We implement this in a simulator and the result shows significantly higher end-to-end throughput compared to the original CSMA/CA and no packet loss due to buffer overflow.

Inaug.-Diss.--Marburg. / Lebenslauf. Imprint covered by label: Marburg, 1899. Literatur: p. 8-9.

This study sought to investigate and to record any recurring patterns in the form and communicative impact of Shona advertisements. Motivation to carry out the study came from a realisation of a growing interest in using the Shona language for advertising and the fact that very few studies have been done on Shona advertisements. For methodology, examples of Shona advertisements were qualitatively analysed using some communications and discourse analysis approaches of the speech act theory and text linguistics. A structured interview with advertising agencies randomly selected and a questionnaire on the impact of advertisements were also used. The findings of the research included that Shona was used in advertisements in order to reach out to the majority of the Zimbabwean population. In addition, Shona was also found to have been developed enough to handle formal issues like advertisements. This finding further shows that Shona advertisements reflect an instance of diglossia leakage from Shona L(ow) to Shona H(igh). Another finding is that Shona advertisements reflect some characteristics of the Shona speech community in form. These include code-switching, slang and word- division problems. An innovation in code-switching noted in some Shona advertisements is the use of three languages, namely, English, Shona and Ndebele in one advertisement. It was also established that everything about the elements of Shona advertisements communicate. For instance, the message may be visual, tactile and olfactory. It also emerged that the Shona commercial advertisements had a presenting and a hidden agenda at the same time. To achieve this the advertisements used persuasive techniques such as advertising claims, cultural hooks and personalities as spokespersons. It was also noted that most readers of advertisements do not interpret them up to the hidden persuaders but end with the direct meaning. On the other hand the Shona advertisements that gave information such as health issues have no hidden agenda. One recommendation made is that advertisements be read and studied to raise the level of awareness about the persuasive techniques used in order to distinguish between misleading advertising and those that give useful information. Some recommendations were made for future research such as carrying out similar studies of informal Shona advertisements, advertisements by n'angas/inyangas (traditional healers), prophets and political campaigns. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)