In this Bachelor?s essay we discuss whether eWOM (electronic word-of-mouth) is perceived as advertisement or as normal information, which is not influenced by any company, on the platform Facebook. The information which we were interested in is the one spread by normal users, and user?s perception of it. To find our results we have conducted a study in which we have used the method interview, which gives qualitative results.

The purpose of this study was to look for tendencies that social media can contribute to exposing users to a stronger perception of opinion polarization, and further to see if the daily presence of social networking sites can put normative pressure on the users. The study was made using a survey with participants from Umea? University during the time frame of november-december 2014. The theoretical framework behind the study was mainly drawn from The Spiral Of Silence by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann and was further supplemented with more current research, studying the effects from The Spiral Of Silence in the modern and more fragmented media landscape that exists now then when her theory was written. Further theoretical tools for analysis of the results came from Michel Foucault and his discussions in Discipline and punish, specifically his views on how surveillance can be discontinous in practice, but still permanent in it?s effects.The results of this study indicates that social media users tend to isolate themselves from uncomfortable opinions, and do not follow or read opinions they do not already agree with.

The purpose of this Master's thesis is to examine whether a web-based library catalogue is to be considered user-friendly. We have examined this from a user-perspective by interviewing users of a web-based catalogue at a public library. In order to get a picture of the user-friendliness of a catalogue, the thesis is centred upon the following questions: How is a web-based catalogue used? What problems do the users experience? How is the catalogue perceived by its users? Since the producers of these catalogues now are taking into account the research upon human-computer interaction, we are also interested in finding out whether a web-based catalogue is more user-friendly than a more traditional OPAC. We do this by comparing the results of our examination with earlier studies of OPAC use.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att studera beteende hos lead users angående deras förvaring ochkonsumtion av kaffe. Genom att göra en jämförelse med icke lead users har vi undersöktom lead users uppvisar ett avvikande beteende. Vi har även utifrån svaren kunnat geförslag på lösningar om hur kaffeförvaring kan utformas och förbättras.Utifrån 40 intervjuer med kaffekonsumenter har vi försökt urskilja lead users. Vi harutgått från en modell som vi utvecklat tillsammans och som bygger på tidigare teorier. Vihar poängsatt alla frågor och multiplicerat med viktningsgraden.

Concurrently with higher demands on comparability between companies, all Swedish listed parent companies are guilty to apply international accounting standards, IFRS/IAS, no later than January 1, 2005. In this thesis IFRS 7 Financial instruments: Disclosures, that treats information about financial instruments, is investigated. IFRS 7 aims to establish a good international standard for disclosures about financial instruments. The purpose of this thesis is to study differences in the interpretation of IFRS 7 Financial instruments: Disclosures between Swedish life insurance companies, problems ? if any ? that associate with the recommendation, the recommendation?s effect on accounting and the attitudes towards IFRS amongst the Swedish life insurance companies.

The aim of this thesis is to study through discourse analysis how users talk about librarians and the librarian profession and what perceptions they have regarding it. I have tried to do this by asking the questions: How do the users describe librarians and the librarian profession? Are there any patterns in what they say? The method and theory I have used is Laclau and Mouffes? discourse theory and partially structured interviews. The material consists of interviews with eight users that are both women and men, both students and members of the public and they were between 25 and 50 years old. In the material I found two discourses: the discourse about librarians and the discourse about the librarian profession.

"Outstanding" or "They ought to know more about computers" : A study on computer support at university libraries.The main purpose of this study is to investigate the support computer users are given at university libraries. Further, the aim is to find out if the users thought they received the support that they needed. The study is carried out at two different university libraries. The data is obtained through interviews with the librarians, observations of the daily work at the information counters and questionnaires handled out to the users.The study indicates that variables such as knowledge, time and equipment play a central role in making the computer support successive. To a great extent the computer support is synonymous with information search, but it also deals with word processing and technical support connected with computer errors.

Almost all Swedes today have access to the Internet, if not through the home then via the library or work. Despite this, around 20% of the population stand outside the information society in that they lack in knowledge, assistive usability tools or positive attitude towards technology and its influence on society. The main factors influencing the digital divide in today's society are age, disability and education, while the main reason for staying outside seems to be disinterest.The question about digital inclusion is important as we now stand on the breaking-point between a society where the industry has had a prominent position for private as well as national economy and a digital society where access to the Internet is no longer about prestige, but where significant differences between users' knowledge levels can create a power gap. Gaps in access and use not only reflects already existing socio-economic conditions, but can also maintain and enhance these.It is crucial for the future expansion of Internet usage how today's non-users feel about becoming users. To understand what underlies the motivations not to use computers is one of the keys to get non-users to embrace becoming users.

The main purpose of a logotype is to harmonize with a company?s business concept and culture. This study is based on the receiver?s attitudes about three different logotypes - Volvo, Telia and Mcdonald's. It informs the reader about the importance of a logotype as a mean of communication and if the perceptions of the logotype harmonize with the profile of the company.

In this study the overall aim is to find conditions for greater inclusion of pupils with SEN in X county by investigating teachers' attitudes and views on inclusion. What are the variables that may affect teachers' attitudes towards inclusion. The variables that will be studied include gender, workexperience, what age of students teachers work with and teachers' subjectknowledge. It is based on a system theory perspective with a pragmatic approach to explore how groups of activities involving or affecting each other. It is a quantitative study with a surveys selected as the method.

For centuries Islam and Muslims have been subject to islamophobic attitudes in the west. The purpose with this study was to see into the making of open and closed attitudes against Islam and Muslims from a conflict in southern Thailand, and also to so see if Muslims are portrayed as more violent than the Buddhist groups in the conflict. The aim of the study is also to see if Muslims fall into a violent stereotype. This was studied by looking at five Swedish newspapers coverage of the conflict, during a given time. To be able to look into this, two theories will be used, the first one is the Runnymede Trust theory, which is about open and closed attitudes against Islam and Muslims.

The main aim of this master thesis was to see the process of an interactive online reference service from idea to final product. The reference service we have studied is developed and used by the Library of the National Institute for Working Life in Stockholm, Sweden and goes by the name phibi. Our goal was to review the whole realization process from the reasons why a service like this was created, how the service was introduced and implemented inside the organisation and finally what the result and consequences were for both the library staff and for the users of the service. Phibi is designed to be a tool that fosters communication between the library staff and the remote users where the users get the opportunity to be helped with their questions by the library staff although they are not physically present in the library. To understand the process we conducted a case study with 11 interviews of the library staff, the superior and the initiator to phibi.

Sexuality has an important role in human life and there are many opinions about how to handle questions about sexuality. The attitudes have change over time and differ between different cultures, gender and age. This study deals with the question about youth attitudes to sex and personal relationships and what impact the education in this filed have on the youth. We have also studied how the education is organized. To get answers to these questions we have performed a questionnaire study among 116 students in grade seven to nine in an elementary school in Western Sweden.

The aim of this thesis was to look closer into the shelf arrangement and user behavior in a fiction collection with the municipal library in Lund as an example. The purpose was to investigate to what extent the shelf arrangement in this library is adapted to the behavior of users when it comes to searching for and choosing fiction. The study is mainly focused on the division between Hc- and Hce-classified books (Swedish fiction and fiction translated into Swedish), the special shelving of the publications of the last five years, and the genre categorization. The user behavior is primarily examined from the perspective of three search strategies; looking for a specific author or title, browsing within a genre or browsing without having a specific genre in mind. The study also deals with within which genres of fiction the users are searching and if they are looking for a book that is translated or not, new or older.

The main object of this master thesis is to examine whether domain-analysis could be used toorganize the collections in a library serving interdisciplinary studies, and in that case - howthat could be done. The thesis is based on a case study of a library for Asian studies, which alsoserves as a library specialized in that subject in the Nordic countries. The author has used, i.e.interviews and observations examining who the users of the library are and how these seekinformation. A theory part deals with some earlier studies of information users within arts andsocial sciences, and these are compared to the users of the examined library.The thesis states that one has to look at the different disciplines in which research is done (andcould be done) at the institute to which the library belongs, and that subject terms could beadded to the various documents from the view of those domains..