This study examined the context of browsing behaviors. According to uses-and gratifications approach, the motives of World Wilde Web (mentioned as WWW later) generate the expectations of the WWW and the other sources, which lead to differential patterns of browsing behaviors. On-line focus groups were performed three times in December 1999 and January 2000. The criterion used when we choose the respondents of the focus group is that they should have experienced in Internet at least one year. The purpose of the focus groups is to explore the context of browsing. In addition, an on-line survey was undertaken on and . The session of is from March 25, 2000 to April 20, 2000, and the session of is from April 11, 2000 to April 12, 2000. The primary purpose of the survey was to test hypotheses related to browsing motives, browsing strategy motives, and browsing activities. This study found that surfers were segmented into four groups according to the motives of WWW: ritualistic dominant motives, instrumental dominant motives, high motives, and low motives. Besides, the motives of browsing strategies ere probed in this study. Six factors of the motives of browsing strategies were extracted: to increase data completeness, to help awareness of site options, to avoid site redundancy or information duplicate, job factor, no scare at the loss in cyberspace, and to kill time in a high-speed or favorable site. These factors co-operated with browsing skills explaining medium to low variance of the browsing behaviors.

<p>Purpose/Aim: To investigate why people in the age group of 30-40 subscribe to the traditional morning newspaper even though they can get the same information at a much lower cost from for example TV, the internet or the free daily papers. The aim is to also look at possible future alternatives to the traditional morning newspaper.</p><p>Material/Method: Focus group interviews were used to gather the empirical material. These consisted of a total number of twelve people, divided into three groups. The results from the focus group interviews were analysed with help from established uses & gratifications theories and two diffusion theories.</p><p>Main results: This study shows that people read the traditional morning newspaper to get a good mixture of entertainment and local, national and global news. It is relaxing to read the newpaper on paper compared to reading it on the internet, mainly because you get a good overview which makes it a lot easier to find exactly want you want to read. The content of the newspaper is often discussed with family, friends and colleagues and can therefore be said to fill an important social function. Reading the newspaper is thought of to be intellectual and can help people form their identities. All respondents in this study grew up in homes which subscribed to a morning newspaper and thought this fact was a big reason for them finding it so important to have a subscription themselves. Even so, most of them were positively in favour of the so called e-paper, as a future alternative to the traditional newspaper, when discussed in the groups, mainly because of it being a more environmently friendly option, but also because of the ability to pick and choose your personal newspaper content and only pay for what you want to read.</p>

This study examined a specific and controversial issue in health communication: the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Recent studies have shown that both online newsgroups and traditional newspapers have involved in communicating CAM information, but research has not answered whether there are differences between the new and old media. From the perspective of uses and gratifications, this study first investigated that how people are using newsgroups to solve CAM-related problems. Then contents of newsgroup messages and newspaper stories were analyzed to do the comparison in topics, source types, efficacy claims, and CAM categories. The results showed that both similarities and differences existed between the two media.

Purpose/Aim: To investigate why people in the age group of 30-40 subscribe to the traditional morning newspaper even though they can get the same information at a much lower cost from for example TV, the internet or the free daily papers. The aim is to also look at possible future alternatives to the traditional morning newspaper. Material/Method: Focus group interviews were used to gather the empirical material. These consisted of a total number of twelve people, divided into three groups. The results from the focus group interviews were analysed with help from established uses &amp; gratifications theories and two diffusion theories. Main results: This study shows that people read the traditional morning newspaper to get a good mixture of entertainment and local, national and global news. It is relaxing to read the newpaper on paper compared to reading it on the internet, mainly because you get a good overview which makes it a lot easier to find exactly want you want to read. The content of the newspaper is often discussed with family, friends and colleagues and can therefore be said to fill an important social function. Reading the newspaper is thought of to be intellectual and can help people form their identities. All respondents in this study grew up in homes which subscribed to a morning newspaper and thought this fact was a big reason for them finding it so important to have a subscription themselves. Even so, most of them were positively in favour of the so called e-paper, as a future alternative to the traditional newspaper, when discussed in the groups, mainly because of it being a more environmently friendly option, but also because of the ability to pick and choose your personal newspaper content and only pay for what you want to read.

För att en organisation ska fungera måste kommunikationen fungera, för många organisationer och företag har intranätet blivit en av de primära kommunikation- och informations kanaler. Ett intranät stöder främst nedåtriktad information och fungerar som en informationsportal men den tekniska utvecklingen går framåt och nya höjder nås för vad som är tekniskt möjligt att göra. Skellefteå kommun är en organisation som valt att förnya sitt intranät och skapa ett nytt socialt intranät, det sociala intranätet skiljer sig från sin föregångare genom att det inte enbart består av statisk information utan det är kommunikativt. Syftet med den här studien är att undersöka vilken uppfattning anställda inom Skellefteå kommun har om organisationens nya sociala intranät samt hur de använder det. Materialet till studien samlades in genom sex semistrukturerade intervjuer. Teoribildningar som är centrala för studien är blanda annat socialt intranät och eftersom denna studie tar sin ansats ur ett mottagarperspektiv används användningsmodellen då den försöker klargöra hur människan fungerar gentemot medierna. Resultatet visar att det förekommer olika uppfattningar om organisationens nya sociala intranät, majoriteten av intervjupersonerna har en reserverad inställning till det nya intranätet. Resultatet visar även att det nya intranätet primärt används för att söka information och när det kommer till hur det nya sociala intranätet uppfattas som socialt kommunikationsforum kunde ingen av respondenterna ge ett tydligt svar då de uppgav att det inte förts någon diskussion om möjligheten att kommunicera med hjälp av det nya intranätet. / For an organization to function the communication needs to function, for many organizationsand enterprises the intranet have become one of the primary communication and information channels. An intranet supports mainly downward information and acts as an information portal but the technology is constantly evolving and we reach new heights of what is technically possible to do. Skellefteå municipality is an organization that has chosen to renew its intranet and create a new social intranet, the social intranet differs from its predecessor in that it not only consists of static information, it is also communicative. The aim of this study is to investigate the perception that the employees in Skellefteå municipality has on the organization's new social intranet and how they use it. The study´s empirical base is gathered through six semi-structured interviews. Theories that are central to the study are inter alia: social intranets and since this study takes its approach from a receiver perspective the Uses and Gratification perspective is used since it seeks to clarify how humans function in relation to the media. The results show that there are different perceptions of the organization's new social intranet, the majority of the interviewees have a reserved attitude to the new intranet.The results also shows that the new intranet is primarily used for searching information, and when it comes to how the new social intranet is perceived as a social communication forum, none of the respondents could give a clear reply as they stated that there been no discussion of the possibility of communicating through the new intranet.

This study explored why individuals write personal blogs and the influences of blogging on their lives. Four structural equation models that specified the social and psychological process of blogging were tested in this study. The models included four major components: personal characteristics, blogging motives, blogging behaviors and blogging social outcomes. A total of 412 bloggers recruited online completed the survey questionnaire. A factor analysis revealed nine salient motives for writing personal blogs: self-documentation, information sharing, entertainment, emotion regulation, communication with existing friends, formation of new friendships, identity exploration, pass time and self-presentation. Significant associations between these motives and demographics, including gender, age and education, were also identified. The results of the structural equation modeling suggested that public self-consciousness was positively related to the self-presentation motive, which was in turn positively related to self-presentation in blogs. In the same vein, social anxiety was positively related to the motive to form new friendships, which in turn was positively related to the number of new friends made via blogs and the quality of new friendships. Social anxiety was found to be negatively associated with the number of new friends made, the number of existing friends communicated with, and the quality of existing friendships maintained through blogs, but positively related to the quality of new friendships established via blogs. Self-disclosure was positively related to the number of new friends made, the quality of new friendships and the quality of existing friendships. The mediation effects of blogging motivations and self-disclosure on the relationships between social anxiety and blogging social interaction outcomes were also tested. The content analysis of the responses to an open-ended question indicated that the majority of the respondents believed that blogging had positively influenced their lives. The major benefits of blogging reported by the respondents included keeping in touch with family and friends, making new friends, improved social interaction, writing and thinking ability, expanded vision, emotional relief and social support, identity exploration, and documentation of daily life. Interpretations of the findings, and implications for understanding the social use of the Internet, were discussed.

Collage students’ news consumption has been a very popular research topic in media in pastfew years. But students’ involvement in news dissemination remained unnoticed andunexplored, especially in relation to democratic engagement. This study provides an overviewin this respect along with news consumption. The research reports the outcome of a surveyconducted among 124 Swedish college students, aged between 18 and 24, in spring 2012. Thestudy investigates college students’ news consumption and news dissemination of in terms ofmotives. The analysis suggests that motivations behind collage students’ news consumptionare independent of channels/media. Consumption motives appear to be similar betweentraditional and contemporary news media. Furthermore, news consumption and newsdissemination seem to be driven by completely different motives.

Huvudresultat: Resultatet visar att det huvudsakliga skälet för informanterna att ta del av nyheter är för att få direkta upplysningar om omvärlden samt att stilla nyfikenhet och allmänt intresse. Det visar sig också att nätet är den främsta kanalen för att ta del av nyheter. Nyhetsmedier är dock bara ett sätt för unga att hålla sig informerade om sin omvärld, de använder också personliga nätverk för detta, både Facebook och genom att prata med kompisar och familj. Lokala nyheter anses av vissa vara intressanta, hos andra saknas intresset helt. Igenkänning en gemensam nämnare för vad som väcker känslor och intresse hos informanterna gällande nyheter, även nyheter med dramatisk eller underhållande prägel intresserar. Det kommer fram att de unga läser nyheter på nätet annorlunda än i andra medieformer, vilket visar att nya användningsmönster för nyhetskonsumtion bildas på nätet. Analysen visar att de lokala medieproducenterna som vill intressera en yngre publik bör jobba mycket framställningen av bilder och rubriker och ge dessa en dramatisk prägel, fokusera på att skapa igenkänning mot just de yngre och vad de kan identifiera sig med, samt vara snabba med uppdateringar.

Bakgrund och syfte: Medieutbudets mångfacetterade skepnader är ett resultat av ett samhälle under utveckling och som ständigt tvingar nya innovationer och tillverkningar att ta form. Iphone är ett exempel på en ny innovation som har rusat i svensk försäljning både hos ungdomar och äldre. Den yngre generationen ser dagens mediala utbud som ett normalt inslag i livet medan äldre personer fått vänja sig vid dessa breda alternativ senare i livet. Denna skillnad på hur man vuxit upp med medier kan också komma att styra hur generationerna använder sin Iphone ifråga om hur ofta man utnyttjar dess funktioner eller vilken nytta den utgör för personen. Syftet med denna uppsats är att jämföra de två olika generationernas sätt att använda iPhone. Metod/Material: Metoden som använts för denna uppsats är en kvalitativ forskningsintervju med semistrukturerade/strukturerade intervjuer som verktyg. En intervjuguide med redan förbestämda frågor har legat till grund för intervjuerna. Teori: Uses and Gratifications, mobilitet, medieanvändningens historia, globalisering och olika teoretiska påståenden om yngre och äldres medieanvändning genom tiderna. Huvudsakliga resultat: Genom våra förförståelsen inför intervjuerna och efter genomförda intervjuer kan konstateras att användningen de två generationerna emellan skiljer sig ganska markant. Mer information kommer efter genomförd analysdel.

This study examined a specific and controversial issue in health communication: the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Recent studies have shown that both online newsgroups and traditional newspapers have involved in communicating CAM information, but research has not answered whether there are differences between the new and old media. From the perspective of uses and gratifications, this study first investigated that how people are using newsgroups to solve CAM-related problems. Then contents of newsgroup messages and newspaper stories were analyzed to do the comparison in topics, source types, efficacy claims, and CAM categories. The results showed that both similarities and differences existed between the two media.