This study explores the relatively new phenomenon of online poker. More specifically, it elaborates on who the online poker player is, why s/he plays online poker, what the fascination of the game is, why s/he continues to play, and what the experience is. The study is delimited to focus on individuals who mainly play Texas hold?em online. The empirical material is based on semi-structured interviews with active online poker players, as well as on secondary data such as articles and literature.

Our study illustrates the nature and characteristics of the virtual world Second Life. We have identified that the online community aims to satisfy hedonistic needs through social and conspicuous consumption, for online use only, concentrating on socially accepted identity construction..

Blogpics ? young girls views on photography online Young people create new forms of social interaction on the internet, and in Sweden, especially young girls, have become very active bloggers. Girls write, publish pictures and build networks with, mostly, other girls.  This new phenonomen has been described in Swedish media partly as a problem, where adults are worried that the information the young girls publish about themselves is too personal, and can be used for the wrong purposes. It has also been suggested that the content of young girls blogs has little value, beeing mostly narcissitic, superficial and obsessed with fashion and shopping. The purpose of this paper has been to investigate how young girls reflect upon their photographic communication on the internet.  The idea has been to ask the girls themselves about their own experiences, to get a more complete picture of them as internet users, to investigate their communication strategies and solutions when it comes to net integrity  and to talk about how they create gender and identity online..

Ragnarök Online en plats på nätet, ett online-spel, där människor från hela världen möts och samverkar. Det är i detta möte personer emellan som den virtuella miljön Ragnarök Online skapas. Målet med denna uppsats är att visa på hur människor interagerar i, och skapar denna plats på nätet. Varför spenderar folk tid i virtuella miljöer? Är det annorlunda att agera i en virtuell miljö? Dessa är några av de frågor vi kommer att möta i texten.

With the technological development of the last decades, an increasing number of genealogists are carrying out their research online. The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine how and why genealogists' information behavior has been influenced by the use of online services for genealogy. Using a conceptual model of genealogists' information behavior as theoretical basis for the study, I examine how the use of online services affect genealogists? search process, what information they are looking for and what information resources they use.

AbstractTitle: See each other on the Internet or on a café? A survey about social consequences of Internet usage. (Umgås på Internet eller på ett café? ? en studie om Internetanvändningens sociala konsekvenser.)Number of pages: 34 (including enclosures).Author: Carolin Johansson.Tutor: Else Nygren.Course: Media and Communication Studies C.Period: Fall 2007.University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University.Purpose/Aim: The purpose is to get increased knowledge about the social consequences that may come up when young people at the age of 16-20 are using the Internet.Material/Method: The material consists of a questionnaire that I made with questions about Internet usage that 84 young people from five classes (from three different upper secondary schools) answered.Main results: To have access to a computer and Internet and the fact that broadband is more inexpensive now than before leads to an increased usage of the Internet. I found out that chatting, music/movies, searching for information and using the Internet for entertainment is what most of the participants spent the most time on while using the Internet.

Uppsatsens undersökning bygger på en studie av den officiella Scientologikyrkans hemsida: www.scientologi.se. Den frågeställning varpå uppsatsen främst baseras på är: På vilket sätt förmedlar Scientologikyrkan sitt budskap via www.scientologi.se? Tidigare forskning kring ämnet är väldigt knapphändig vilket motiverar valet av uppsatsämne. Uppsatsens teoretiska utgångspunkt baseras på Christopher Hellands begrepp religion online och online religion. Studien lägger därför stor vikt på huruvida Scientologikyrkans svenska hemsida är en religion online eller en online religion.

This study is about how school counselors in Kalmar County view the need for a pupil curative work online, what they believe are ethical aspects to be considered in social work online and if they feel they have sufficient training to conduct pupil curative conversations online. The aim has been to make contact with universities in Sweden to see if they have elements of social work education that lectures a social work online.The study is based on semi-structured interviews with school counselors in Kalmar County. The majority of the interviewed school counselors lacked the knowledge and experience of a student curative work online but some had discussed this phenomenon at work. One counselor worked daily with a pupil curative work online. The intention of interviewing universities to investigate whether there are elements of social work education that addresses a social work online defaulted unfortunately because they choose not to participate in the study.The main conclusion of our study is that school counselors consider themselves lacking sufficient knowledge to conduct pupil curative conversations online.

This study is about how school counselors in Kalmar County view the need for a pupil curative work online, what they believe are ethical aspects to be considered in social work online and if they feel they have sufficient training to conduct pupil curative conversations online. The aim has been to make contact with universities in Sweden to see if they have elements of social work education that lectures a social work online.The study is based on semi-structured interviews with school counselors in Kalmar County. The majority of the interviewed school counselors lacked the knowledge and experience of a student curative work online but some had discussed this phenomenon at work. One counselor worked daily with a pupil curative work online. The intention of interviewing universities to investigate whether there are elements of social work education that addresses a social work online defaulted unfortunately because they choose not to participate in the study.The main conclusion of our study is that school counselors consider themselves lacking sufficient knowledge to conduct pupil curative conversations online.

Under de senaste tio åren har förekomsten av kränkningar online ökat,både för dem som utsätts och utsätter andra för kränkningar online.Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka om självkänsla ochkänslolösa/känslokalla personlighetsdrag kan associeras med dem somutsätts, utsätter eller både utsätts och utsätter andra för kränkningaronline. Syftet var även att undersöka om det finns ett samband mellan attbli utsatt och utsätta någon annan för kränkningar online. För attundersöka detta användes en enkät med sammanlagt 42 frågor ochpåståenden om känslolösa/känslokalla personlighetsdrag, självkänslaoch huruvida de blivit kränkta eller kränkt någon annan online. Urvaletbestod av 99 gymnasieungdomar, varav 41 unga män och 57 ungakvinnor, i åldrarna 16-20 år. Resultaten visade signifikanta sambandmellan självkänsla och känslokalla/känslolösa personlighetsdrag samt desom utsätter och själva blir utsatta för kränkningar online.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka och utveckla teorier för att undvika detektering vid online pokerspelande med en pokerbot. En bot är ett program som utför en rad operationer inom ett givet regelverk utan att en användare behöver styra eller övervaka programmet. Teorierna skall vara generella nog för att kunna användas för spel på en rad populära online pokerspelsidor. Pokerspelet som uppsatsen avser är Texas Hold?em poker, ett hasardspel som fått stor uppmärksamhet i media på senare år tack vare stora vinstsummor och ett spritt spelande på internet..

The communicating home concept has been defined byidentifying the dominating communication technologiesto/from and in the homes, the most important customerbehavior and user needs, the dominating products and thedominating actors of the industry.The evaluation of the communicating home industry has beenperformed with a five forces framework analysis and theoriesregarding value migration and value structures of industries. Ithas been concluded that actors of communication technologies,goods and access services will compete fiercely. The barriersof entry will however be high. When it comes to contentservices the situation is completely different. These actors will,to the largest extent, meet lower competition and low barriersof entry.

Communities är ett hett ämne som idag ständigt diskuteras i media. Människor blir mer och mer benägna att interagera online och mängden med online communities ökar i takt med detta. I Sverige finns en community som heter Lunarstorm som har blivit ett fenomen som inte har skådats någon annanstans. Med sina 1,3 miljoner användare är det absolut störst i Sverige idag. Jag har i min uppsats tagit fram ett antal faktorer ur litteraturen som är avgörande för ett online communities framgång.

The advancements of Internet have contributed to the expansion of social networks and new communities online where people are given an opportunity to get help and support. An important reason why people join these groups and organizations is to share their experiences, meet people in a similar situation and get support. Social media is nowadays an important part of our society. In this study, we will focus on investigating the interaction in closed communities online and blogs. The study aims to investigate whether social media and social networks online can be a support for young adults with cancer in the same way as physical meeting places.

Concern about personal privacy continues to grow among online users along with the fact that new technologies help online companies to share user's private information. Still the usage of online entities such as social networks and e-commerce sites continue to increase. This raises the question of why online users act in such a contradictory and irrational way.Our study examines what impact one recently developed application called social login, which is provided by several social networks and used by millions of online companies, has on consumer's evaluation of online brands when they are primed for various types of information concerning privacy issues. Our assumptions are built up on the theory of cognitive, dissonance and suggest that there will be no differences in evaluation of the brands due to the human need to rationalize their existing behavior and attitudes when they receive new or contradicting information. The potential effects are measured by a manipulation presented in a survey distributed in an online environment to a sample of users (n=,154).