Social media, with its immense and continuous flow of information, has in recent years growntremendously in terms of users and content. This increase has led companies and organizations keen to be seen within these channels of communication, but do they always have a clear idea of how andwhy, and are they aware of the risks that are associated with it? Current research on social media is somewhat divided in two. The debate concerns, among other things, what value the information on social media has, and whether the media is really a good communication channel or not. This raises several questions, for example can a company really afford to remain outside of social media with allthe information it generates? This research aims at answering these questions in order to further understand how organizations discuss social media presence and strategies.

Genom att studera relationen mellan upplevt psykologiskt arbetsklimat och anställdas användande av sociala media i arbetet söktes stöd för studiens huvudsyfte: om anställda använder sig av sociala media i arbetet om arbetsklimatet inte upplevs som positivt, samt om sociala media används, hur anställda då uppfattar sociala media som hjälp och stöd i arbetet. Genom en webbaserad enkät samlades data in från deltagarna (N = 27), vilka härrörde från tre IT-avdelningar i en kommunal organisation i Mellansverige. Analyser av ackumulerad data skedde till övervägande del genom Spearmans korrelationstest och Mann-Whitney U-test. Resultatet indikerade stöd för två av studiens tre hypoteser vad gäller samband mellan upplevelse av psykologiskt arbetsklimat och användande av sociala media, samt skillnader mellan anställdas upplevelse av relationer till kollegor offline och användande av sociala media. Däremot hittades inga signifikanta skillnader för hur anställda, beroende på hur de ser på kunskap, tar stöd från relationer online och offline..

This Masters thesis concerns difficulties experienced by Gender Studies researchers in an information seeking context. The aim is to identify, and study the cause of, these potential difficulties by asking the following questions: How do researchers in Gender Studies seek information? What difficulties may arise when information seeking is carried out in Gender Studies? What may be the cause of these difficulties? What does Gender Studies consist of? In order to find feasible answers to these questions, particular attention is paid to the context in which the researchers exist and work. The database KVINNSAM serves as an example of how libraries have tried to overcome barriers in information seeking in Gender Studies. The method used is a qualitative one based on interviews and literature studies.

Abstract Essay in political science, C-level, by Patrik Larsson, autumn semester 2007.Tutor: Susan Marton The battle over the agenda-Can media be regarded as an individual political actor? The purpose of this essay is to study to what extent media can be regarded to function as an individual political actor. In other words, do the media have more power over the political agenda than the politicians and do the media influence how the politicians make their decisions. This research is a case study and to be able to complete the intention of this study I have used Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaws theory, the agenda-setting theory. From this theory I have used four aspects to analyse my material which has consisted of editorials from a Swedish newspaper, interpellations and debates that belong to the interpellations. The aspect I have worked with are, how the problem is defined, who is responsible for the problem, what values and which solutions are expressed.  I have used a qualitative text analysis as my methodological approach which means that the results of my study are my interpretation of the material. My conclusions are that the media in this case shouldn?t be regarded as an individual political actor because there is no tendency that shows that the media has influenced the government in their decisions concerning the real-estate tax.

Problem definition and purpose: A debated question in journalism today is if the mass media have the power to affect norms and values in the society. There are therefore many who believe that the media must works for democratic and equitable news coverage. Studies have shown that there are still many differences in how women and men are being portrayed in the Swedish media, even if Sweden is one of the most equal countries in the world. This inequality may affect the democracy and equality in the society negative.Previous studies have mainly been using gender as the only explanatory factor to explain the difference of coverage between men and women in the news content. The purpose of this study will therefore not only be to compare the coverage of the Green Partys two spokespersons, Åsa Romson and Gustav Fridolin, from a gender perspective but also to take in count other factors that could contribute to differences in the news coverage.Method and material: To find an answer to the purpose of this thesis a quantitative content analysis have been done on a total of 238 news articles in which Åsa Romson and/or Gustav Fridolin occur.Main results: The results of the content analysis show that Gustav Fridolin occurs more frequently in the news than Romson does, and that the articles he appears in is lager than the articles in which Romson appears.

Aim With this study we want to highlight and analyze the media spin of the PR campaign Miss Skinny by clarifying; a diffusion pattern which covers posts published by bloggers and journalists; a framing pattern from the first audited post to the last; how journalists are influenced by user generated content, and what consequences this may have for the news coverage.Method We have conducted a studied of news posts and blog posts about the Swedish PR campaign Miss Skinny through content analysis, diffusion analysis and mapped direct links between blog posts and news posts.Main result We found that a surprisingly large amount of news postings contained direct links to previous blog posts and that the former media serial no longer can be applied on today's modern media where journalists and other players come together on the converged media arena. .

AbstractThe aim off this study is to research social workers´ knowledge, use, risks and possibilities of social media in their work with clients. Because today the society is using social media networks in daily life and social media has become a tool in social work as well. How does social media and social work cooperate? And how does social media effect social workers? For example the website Facebook has grown huge and many people use it everyday. Where is the line between work and private life? To reach this knowledge in this study, qualitative interviews have been done with six social workers that work with children, youths and families.

This essay deals with children?s and adolescents? use of interactive media as a tool for doing relations with each other. The purpose is to increase the understanding of the impact interactive media has on pupils? relations and identity development both in school and on their spare time. The school system?s mission is not only to teach formal knowledge and facts but also to train children?s social skills and abilities.

Social media has made it possible to have a conversation in real time through audio, images and text, with anyone worldwide. The easy availability of social media has created a new society. Companies and organizations have the opportunity to interact with their audiences and their target in a way not previously possible. Welcome to the Web 2.0 world!Social media is a collective name for the communication channels that allow users to communicate directly with each other in real time through text, image or sound. Examples of social media are blogs, SMS, Skype, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, Linkedin and Myspace.The purpose of this essay is to explore social media's role and opportunities in terms of being able to influence companies and organizations marketing communication. We have used a qualitative approach and our thesis is based on a qualitative text analysis study where we have analyzed 13 articles (the articles are from scholarly journals, magazines and trade/professional) from 2007 to 2009.

This study explores how online television works and how it is integrated with social media such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Through three qualitative interviews with representants from different fields of work regarding online television, we have concluded how online television is being used in Sweden today and concludes with examples of what the future of online television could look like. Representatives from the following companies have been interviewed: SBS Media Group Sweden, Strix Television and Mediamätning i Skandinavien. The use of social media for marketing of online television is a fact for the companies in this study. However, the result of the study shows that theres room for development in the integration between online television and social media.

The world today is not an equal place. We see children starve, people being discriminated and women?s rights being neglected. The media coverage of women?s sports is no exception.

Genom att studera relationen mellan upplevt psykologiskt arbetsklimat och anställdas användande av sociala media i arbetet söktes stöd för studiens huvudsyfte: om anställda använder sig av sociala media i arbetet om arbetsklimatet inte upplevs som positivt, samt om sociala media används, hur anställda då uppfattar sociala media som hjälp och stöd i arbetet. Genom en webbaserad enkät samlades data in från deltagarna (N = 27), vilka härrörde från tre IT-avdelningar i en kommunal organisation i Mellansverige. Analyser av ackumulerad data skedde till övervägande del genom Spearmans korrelationstest och Mann-Whitney U-test. Resultatet indikerade stöd för två av studiens tre hypoteser vad gäller samband mellan upplevelse av psykologiskt arbetsklimat och användande av sociala media, samt skillnader mellan anställdas upplevelse av relationer till kollegor offline och användande av sociala media. Däremot hittades inga signifikanta skillnader för hur anställda, beroende på hur de ser på kunskap, tar stöd från relationer online och offline..

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine how public libraries use socialmedia for marketing purposes, and what librarians think about this. My focus of this thesislies on what librarians think about marketing of libraries through social media and if theythink that marketing through social media can create a better relationship between the libraryand its users. The questions I wanted to answer were:? Libraries using social media, for what purpose do they use them? ? Do the libraries choose to use social media to market their organization? Why? ? What attitudes exist among librarians about marketing through social media?The theoretical framework for this thesis is Evert Gummessons model off Relationshipmarketing and the process of Internet marketing, which both are based on relationalperspective. The methodology used for this study was structured interviews.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the differences between the traditional way of conducting a reference interview and the electronic way. The main questions of this thesis are: How does the electronic reference interview appear in comparison to the traditional one? How do the librarians experience the differences? Is quality affected in the electronic reference interview? Examples from Fråga biblioteket Ask the Library have been used in this study. The method used in the investigation is based on qualitative interviews in combination with studies of relevant and recent literature. The librarians interviewed all have experience from both traditional and electronic reference work.

?Facebook has become as natural as having a phone? The use of social media in three libraries in the Umeå region ? an evaluationSocial media has come to be an integral part of people?s everyday life, as well as the business world in terms of communication and marketing. More and more libraries also embark in the use of social media, and the purpose of this study is to evaluate the use of social media in three libraries in the Umeå region. The libraries all use Facebook as their current, primary social media. Thus this study focuses partly on the analysis of the content on each library?s Facebook page, and partly on the experiences of the responsible librarians. The evaluation is based on a mix of existing tools in evaluating social media that are relevant in a library context.