The aim of this study is to identify and analyze the discourse within a gothic online community and examine how they use significant symbols to create themselves as goths and being part of a community. In order to achive this aim, eleven different forum threads were examined to amalyze how the goths created their significant symbols within the online community and through interaction with each other. The results implies that the discourse within the community describes the goths as either true or false goths and that it is important to maintain this boundary.

Propose/Aim: The aim of this thesis is to examine the professional role of the Community Manager working for gaming companies. The thesis will examine which background and previous experience a Community Manager should have and the tasks included in the assignment to see how this new role can contribute to the development of gaming companies.Material/Method: The method used in this study is of a qualitative character. The data has been gathered through e-mail interviews with five people working as Community Managers in the gaming business and in addition, through a textual analysis of five job advertisements. The results were analyzed on the basis of carefully selected theories in the field of strategic communication.Main results: The main result of this study is that the Community Manager's most important task is to act as a link between the players and the game developers by communicating with both sides. The Community Manager can receive important feedback from the players which can contribute to the game development. .

Internet is used today as a traditional medium for information exchange and social interaction. One of these is virtual meeting places where people meet and exchange information, socialize and exchange knowledge with each other. The group has chosen to examine the factors affecting the use of web forums, one of the virtual meeting places that exist on the Internet today. And look at how people use the web forum today in the current situation and how to design a web forum.A survey was conducted to find out how people look at web forums today, 80 people participated, and they got to talk about what they think about different web forums regarding how and why the use these them. Guidelines on how a web forum should be designed were also developed.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka vilka upplevelser unga vuxna har beträffande den virtuella gemenskapen på Internet communities och hur det påverkar deras hälsa och lärande. Studien grundar sig på folkhälsopedagogiskt perspektiv och bygger på en kvalitativ studie. Under genomförandet av arbetet har åtta individer deltagit i individuella intervjuer. I bakgrunden belyser jag hur den teknologiska utvecklingen förändrar det sociala samspelet i samhället. Ökande kommunikation via Internet communities har bidragit till att människor kan ha större sociala nätvärk utan fysiska hinder.

This work is a study in how I as a designer can create the conditions for people to work, socializing and refreshments at one place. A place that encourages creativity, where I made a suggestion at a community table designed for Urban Deli?s new business. By visiting various similar sites I have identified what I think is important in an environment like this and then gave an answer to it in a visual form.A cafe-office will draw lots of different people. Which guests come here to work? Residents, freelancers, but also those who may want surrounded by a new creative work place and maybe leave their regular offices for a day at Urban Deli.

Aim: The aim of this study is to understand why people have changed their preferred community over time. What are the main factors when changing to a new one?Method/material: The method has consisted of personal interviews with six different people in the ages between 20-22 and of different gender. The main material that has been used in this essay is the theory of Uses and Gratifications as explained by Denis McQuail, the theory of Convergence culture by Henry Jenkins and the theory about Communites of Practice by Etienne Wenger.Main results: This study shows a heavy affection that the use of communities often centers round the people around the community, rather than the functions that the communities themselves provides. Having people that you know on the community you choose is a vital part for people or at least having the support of other people and changing to another community at the same time.

This project report shows the work around a mockup to a three-dimensional avatar-making application. An avatar-making application is a computer-based software program in which it is possible to create your own personal virtual character. The possibility to use three-dimensional avatars can in the future be essential for adding extra personal information or characteristics to social communication over the internet or over mobile phones. The problem of transforming a physical form and reconstruct it to a virtual basis has been an important problem to solve for many companies and software developers in the, for instance, virtual worlds area. Methods and ideas over making this transformation is the key throughout this project.

Idén med att skapa en community för pensionärer föddes under hösten 2005 av dåvarande generaldirektören vid Statens pensionsverk (SPV). Denne kontaktade Mittuniversitetet i Sundsvall för att skapa en lättan-vänd och syftesuppfyllande community för pensionärer. Min uppgift har varit att utforma denna community med fokus på slutanvändaren. Uppgiften utgick från en kravanalys som tagits fram av forskare vid Mittuniversitet. Utifrån kravanalysen har ett användargränssnitt skapats enligt standarder för webbutveckling för dem som har ett funktionshinder.

In today's society, the internet is an important part of everyday life. Over recent years the number of electronic services has increased markedly. Communities such as Facebook, consume more of people's time than 5-10 years ago. How can public authorities benefit from these communities or are the municipalities not ready for this? The municipalities determine how their resources should be allocated based on the municipality's needs.

This report presents a thesis project at the School of Engineering, Jo?nko?pingUniversity, where the task has been to develop a proposal for a parish communitycentre for the Swedish church?s parish community in Bankeryd.Background1 st of November in 2004 the parish in Bankeryd appointed a special commissionof inquiry called Framtidsgruppen (Future Group), to analyse the parishcommunity?s different activities during the past 5 years and analyse the futureactivities and needs for the upcoming 5-10 years. This analysis would underlie theneeds of building a new centre for the parish community.Implementation, results and conclusionThe main focal points which this report is concentrated on has been to develop abuilding that is well suited for the activities, well adjusted for disabled persons andthe building shall be appealing in an architectural point of view.Based on the information provided from the parish community, studies ofliterature, reference objects and discussions with the contact person at the parishcommunity and the instructor of this project, the programming has beendeveloped. The building?s programming has been the source for the continuedwork with floor plans and the building design..

In this paper we describe the issues of credibility in web applications and internet communities. We bring up examples of how other designers have solved credibility-problems. Further we discuss the features we have created for our community, Stickling, to make any visitor to perceive it as credible..

Sammanfattning Titel Visualiseringsmediernas betydelse vid försäljning av nyproducerade bostäder ? En studie av modeller i Virtual Reality och fullskala. Författare Jennifer During Helena Fällås Syfte Denna uppsats syftar till att utreda om modeller i Virtual Reality och fullskala kompletterar befintliga visualiseringsmedier i försäljningen av nyproducerade bostäder, genom att dessa stödtjänster skapar ökad förståelse för bostadens utformning och därmed ökar nyttan för kunden. Vidare syftar uppsatsen till att utreda hur projektsäljare och privatpersoner ställer sig till användandet av denna typ av modeller samt om kvaliteten på företagets tjänster därmed kan anses öka. Metod Uppsatsen är framarbetad både med en kvalitativ och med en kvantitativ metod. Genom att göra djupintervjuer med projektsäljare på Peab Region Bostad samt med sakkunniga personer inom områdena för Virtual Reality och modeller i fullskala, har intervjupersonernas kunskaper och inställningar kunnat inhämtas.

En så kallad Internet-community, är en mötesplats i cyberrymden där människor träffas och håller kontakten. De flesta communities har därför en del funktioner där kunderna bland annat kan lägga upp texter, bilder och videoklipp. Dessa kallas användarens prestationer som ett samlingsnamn i denna uppsats. Det har på senare tid uppmärksammats att företagen bakom dessa communities ofta förbehåller sig rätten till dessa prestationer genom en klausul i användaravtalet som alla medlemmar i communityn måste skriva under. Detta användaravtal ger i sin tur upphov till ett licensavtal, en upplåtelse av upphovsrätten till det material som medlemmen på en community lägger upp på webbsidan.

Distributed system development is a common occurrence in today?s technological and global world. Because the consequences of its geographically distributed nature it creates barriers between people that affects their communication and collaboration efforts in the distributed context. Despite a lot of technological breakthroughs over the last decades and the occurrence of video-conference applications and other tools for communication and collaboration, cultural and geographical issues have so far not yet been completely resolved. In this study I have made a literature study over distributed system development to form a set of central factors that affects the distributed development process.

The purpose of this essay is to draw attention to a rather new phenomena, virtual bullying amongst young people. Bullying has been known for a long time but today, bullying has found new ways of expression. New technology, which includes the Internet and cell phones, has given the bullies new weapons to use in their bullying.The study I have done has been qualitative and contained interviews. Represents from two communities, Playahead and LunarStorm, and two organisations, BRIS and Friends, all together five persons (two persons from LunarStorm) have been interviewed and had the opportunity to tell me their view on virtual bullying.The results show that young people see the new technologies as a valuable prolongation of their reality that they won?t give up if they don?t need to.