This essay is an ideographic study over the capacity of high school students to use the Internet with source criticism, and their attitudes towards this media. It?s a qualitative study whose main purpose is to seek out how the students reflect upon the problems facing them when searching facts and information over the internet.The focus group is six 18 year old high school students, who are studying in a normal sized town in the middle of Sweden, and are about to finish their studies in the program for social sciences. The study was made through interviews, one on one with the students,The results of the analysis have shown that even if students not necessarily use a pre meditated method when searching for information over the internet, they do have a basic understanding of the matter, especially concerning the nature of the source, who published it and why. Not all students made any thorough comparison with other, already established media, such as TV or books, but the analysis made it clear that they more or less deliberately saw the established media as more trustworthy in general.

The number of blogs, from weblogs, are increasing every day. Blogs are also becoming more visible in the public debate as well as the awareness of their existance is rising among politicians and citizens. The aim of this thesis is to answer the question what democratic potential blogs can have. This question will be answered by initially studying the research that exists today about weblogs and democracy. The second part of the analysis consists of a selection of texts from weblogs that touches this subject.

Syfte: Huvudsyftet med uppsatsen är att beskriva praktiken inom affiliate marketing ochbloggar inom livsstilssegmentet över en tvåmånaders period. Studien beskriver och framför defaktorer som krävs för att skapa och driva en blogg som attraherar läsare och annonsörer.Design och metod: Uppsatsen presenterar en statistisk analys av de huvudkategorier sombloggare i livsstilssegmentet nyttjar i sitt nätbaserade dagboksskrivande samt en diskursanalysav innehållet i dessa kategorier. Första steget i studien är att lokalisera bloggar som uppfyllerde kriterier som kännetecknar en livsstilsblogg. Det andra steget är att kategorisera inläggen ibloggarna. Det tredje steget är att genom diskurs analysera innehållet i inläggen som tillhör deolika kategorierna.Resultat: En utförlig studie av bloggar inom livsstilssegmentet som dessutom arbetar medaffiliate marketing visar på tendensen att dessa kommunicerar med sina läsare på ett sätt därde eftersträvar ett djupare och mer familiärt förhållande till sina läsare.

The aim of this master thesis is to examine readers? advice in weblogs - frequently modified web pages with a series of archived entries. We have chosen to study a specific kind of entry that contains information about a book of fiction- not for children and young adults - and the Bloggers? comments regarding that same book. The entries are published in ten weblogs that all deal with literature and reading.

We have studied the effects that blogs have on the society through interviews with influential Bloggers, a news director and the founder of Sweden?s largest blogprovider.Existing theoretical work by other researchers have been used as a starting point to our thesis. Via a deductive method we then proceeded to test these existing models and viewpoints on the reality.Through our research we have concluded that blogs, if they co-operate, have an agenda-setting function, and that they can affect newspapers to write about certain topics.We have also discussed blogs role as media watch dogs. Gunilla Sax, news director, questions the blog world?s ability to fully cover all media, and to deliver a systematic and just review of the media.

There are widespread discussions about the use of retouched models in media, ranging from Bloggers to legal decision-makers. Research shows that there are negative psychological effects on especially females being exposed to idealized, retouched model images. The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of using retouched models in advertising from a marketing perspective, based on attitudes, perceived quality and purchase intentions.Based on theories about attractiveness, halo-effects and social comparison, an experimental study was done, investigating the different responses on above mentioned parameters to advertisements showing either retouched model images or non-retouched model images. Initially it was also tested if the retouched models were seen as more attractive than the non-retouched models. The results showed almost no differences between the reactions to the advertisements with retouched models compared to the advertisements with non-retouched models, when all respondent groups were analyzed together.

To many of us blogging is a natural part of our everyday life. Bloggers dedicate hours to writing in blogs, reading blogs, commenting on posts or answering comments on published posts. But what we choose to blog about can differ; this is an important note due to my discovery that what we choose to write about determines what benefits blogging holds to the blogger.This paper discusses the conventions of blogging as well as tries to answer the question of why blogging is so popular: why do we start blogging and why do so many choose to continue? These questions get answered by me analyzing the phenomenon that is blogging.I have studied both blogging as genre and as a kind of performance, as well as I have tried to hold an open dialogue with my informants. Thus I have concluded that blogging is to be considered a tool with many uses.

This bachelor's thesis is an investigation into the public libraries'actions following the debate of Stina Wirséns character LillaHjärtat, featured in picture books and films for young children.The character was accused of being racist, due to its similarity tostereotypes such as pickaninnies. Because of this, the books'existence in public libraries was questioned.The purpose of this study is to investigate how librarians havedealt with these books, and what they have based their decisionson. To explore the background of these decisions we have usedPatrick Wilson's theory of cognitive authority (1983). We haveexamined which cognitive authorities have been used in thedecision-making process of how to handle the books containingLilla Hjärtat, and why these cognitive authorities have beenchosen. The method used in the study is qualitative interviewswith seven librarians working in public libraries throughoutSweden.The results of the interviews show that the librarians? mostprominent cognitive authorities have been authors and illustratorsof children's books.

Purpose/Aim: To find power structures within the blog network.Material/Method: Using keywords to find all available blog posts about the National Defence Radio Establishment from the blog search engine Twingly, and thereafter using the same blog search engine to find inlinks from other blogs, to those posts. The data is set into the context of the small-world networks models of Duncan J. Watts and rich-club models of Sergi Valverde och Ricard V. Sole.Main results: 5183 unique blogs have written about the subject in 22779 blog posts to which 28128 inlinks from other blogposts are made. Just over one fifth of the blogs are linkted to each other in one big network, where the remaining blogs stand without any ingoing or outgoing links.

The advantages with product placement in blogs compared to traditional media is shown in earlier empirical findings where consumers found blog posts more credible and informative than a corresponding article in a web paper. It can therefore be argued that the informal structure and personal tonality of the blog reinforces the effects of product placement on brand attitude and intention to buy as the consumer has no persuasion knowledge and does not detect the rewriting of the product as commercial.This paper?s overall aim is to provide concrete implications for how to manage product placement on fashion blogs. The purpose of the essay is therefore to investigate the communicative effects of product placement in fashion blogs as well as to examine if a revelation of commercial interest behind a blog posts about a certain brand effects the consumers? attitude towards the blog and/or brand attitude and intention to buy.

This thesis was written by order of Rud Pedersen Public Affairs Company, a PR- consultancy firm located in Gothenburg. The assignment was to investigate social media in Pr- activities. The thesis is formed by three main categories:? What is social media?? Who are using social media?? How can you use social media in public relations?The information which is being presented in this thesis is based on academic reports, interviews and research on social media blogs and lectures. It is a qualitative approach since the purpose is to get a deeper understanding for the subject in question.

AbstractTitle: The first thing I do when I wake up is to log on to Facebook. A study regarding how users of Social Networks experiences the User Generated production. (Det första jag gör när jag vaknar är att logga in på Facebook. En studie om hur användare av de sociala nätverken upplever den användargenererande produktionen.)Number of pages: 37 (39 including enclosures) Author: Per MagnussonTutor: Christian ChristensenCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Fall semester 2010University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityAim: The ambition with this essay is to examine how the online users of social networks experience the development of the Internet towards Web 2.0, and the enormous User Generated Content emerging from it. How do we receive User Generated Content from other people, and particularly what do we think about our own production.Material/Method: In order to obtain a deeper understanding of the attitudes and perceptions amongst people regarding this subject I used qualitative interviews with 9 people.

AbstractTitle: The first thing I do when I wake up is to log on to Facebook. A study regarding how users of Social Networks experiences the User Generated production. (Det första jag gör när jag vaknar är att logga in på Facebook. En studie om hur användare av de sociala nätverken upplever den användargenererande produktionen.)Number of pages: 37 (39 including enclosures) Author: Per MagnussonTutor: Christian ChristensenCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Fall semester 2010University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityAim: The ambition with this essay is to examine how the online users of social networks experience the development of the Internet towards Web 2.0, and the enormous User Generated Content emerging from it. How do we receive User Generated Content from other people, and particularly what do we think about our own production.Material/Method: In order to obtain a deeper understanding of the attitudes and perceptions amongst people regarding this subject I used qualitative interviews with 9 people.

Title: Hälsa i sociala medier - En kvalitativ studie om hur hälsoinformatörer upplever och påverkas  av hälsobudskap i sociala medier.Title: Health in social media - A qualitative study of how health communicators perceive and are affected by health messages in social media.Author: Anna HedströmInstitute: Karlstad University. Faculty of health, nature and engineering sciences.Tutor: Owe StråhlmanDate: 150615Number of pages: 34Keywords: eHealth literacy, health communication, health informers, health literacy, health messages, media literacy, social media Background: With an increased interest in diet and exercise, also health and fitness messages have increased in both traditional and social media. The general guidelines on physical activity and diet are forgotten as training tips increase in the media. Research shows that it is common for individuals to retrieve information from the media when it comes to their own health. In doing so media literacy, health literacy and eHealth literacy becomes increasingly important for health communicators and for those who receive health information. Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine health communicators? experiences of health messages in social media, and how they are affected by them. Method: Qualitative interviews were chosen as a method to collect data.

Title: Hälsa i sociala medier - En kvalitativ studie om hur hälsoinformatörer upplever och påverkas  av hälsobudskap i sociala medier.Title: Health in social media - A qualitative study of how health communicators perceive and are affected by health messages in social media.Author: Anna HedströmInstitute: Karlstad University. Faculty of health, nature and engineering sciences.Tutor: Owe StråhlmanDate: 150615Number of pages: 34Keywords: eHealth literacy, health communication, health informers, health literacy, health messages, media literacy, social media Background: With an increased interest in diet and exercise, also health and fitness messages have increased in both traditional and social media. The general guidelines on physical activity and diet are forgotten as training tips increase in the media. Research shows that it is common for individuals to retrieve information from the media when it comes to their own health. In doing so media literacy, health literacy and eHealth literacy becomes increasingly important for health communicators and for those who receive health information. Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine health communicators? experiences of health messages in social media, and how they are affected by them. Method: Qualitative interviews were chosen as a method to collect data.