The Media Life of Cryptocurrencies: From Libertarian Dreams to Institutional Control

This project’s central research question is: ‘What are the key cryptocurrency discourses that exist in the crypto space, and by whom are they created?’. This thesis focuses on the historical trajectory of the media life of cryptocurrency. Specifically, it identifies cryptocurrency discourses in international news media and explores how they are socially constructed from a Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) perspective. Utilising computational topic modelling, a text analysis of cryptocurrency articles (N=4200) published from 60 countries in international news media, identified key topics associated with cryptocurrency from 2018 to 2020. The thesis presents a theoretical STS deconstruction of how cryptocurrency has been conceptually understood by media actors, accompanied by empirical evidence of the key finding that there are two major discourses which characterise news media communication about cryptocurrency: the ‘Crypto-Crime’ discourse and the ‘Financial Governance’ discourse. The main argument held in this thesis is that these two macro discourses are appropriated by international media but often emanate and are echoed from institutional positions. Vitally, this study is the first to demonstrate both theoretically and empirically, how news media in different countries ascribe diverging meaning to cryptocurrency technology, offering audiences varied images of what cryptocurrency is through discourse appropriation. Results showed that the co-constitution of discourse was strong across the UK and US whose news media appropriated the crypto-crime and crypto- governance discourses to different degrees. The thesis reveals how institutional positions are channelled through skewed news media narratives, from corporate economic and governmental control rationales. This control is demonstrated as being enacted through the state regulation of cryptocurrency, or complete bans, as in the case of China. Sometimes control is exerted through the innovation of state Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), as in many countries including the US, UK, Venezuela some EU countries. This is important because a new monetary form of digital currency can transform state macro-economic and micro-economic structures, affecting the social, economic, and political lives of global citizens

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Impact of Social Media Marketing on Consumer Purchase Action: A Case Study of SME consumers in Bangladesh

This study examines the influence of Impact of Social Media Marketing on Consumer Purchase Action. A Case Study of SME consumers in Bangladesh. A survey questionnaire was used to conduct the study on Bangladeshi SME customers who utilise online social media sites. The purpose of the research was to examine the significance of social media marketing in Bangladesh and how it influences customer purchase action. In the study's first phase, relevant literature research was conducted to thoroughly comprehend social media marketing techniques. After analysing previous research in the subject matter, the conceptual framework of the study was developed. This framework studied both the causes and consequences of social media marketing on consumer engagement. In the second phase, a cross-sectional quantitative data survey was constructed to evaluate the research framework and hypotheses. In a pilot test, 16 valid survey questionnaires were distributed to determine how social media is embedded in various situations and locations. The assumptions of the extended model were then verified with 329 valid surveys. The data were analysed through structural equation modelling (SEM). The research found a positive correlation between customer engagement and the social media marketing efforts of SMEs. Moreover, the statistically significant mediating influences of trust, perceived value, and social media antecedents on this connection were discovered. Furthermore, there was a substantial correlation between customer engagement and client acquisition, indicating that SMEs in Bangladesh might strengthen their customer interactions by using a social media marketing approach. This study also examines how social media marketing influences consumer behaviour, customer engagement, and consumer purchase action in Bangladesh's small and medium-sized enterprises. This study could help Bangladesh's SMEs interact with consumers on social media platforms and establish the framework for future research on the moderating influence of online consumer behaviour

The impact of enterprise social networking on knowledge sharing between academic staff in higher education

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonHigher education institutions have always considered knowledge sharing critical for research excellence and finding proper methods for sharing knowledge across academic staff has therefore been a major issue for universities and knowledge management research. Recent evidence shows that many universities have embraced enterprise social networking tools to improve communication, relationships, partnerships, and knowledge sharing. To date, there is little understanding of the critical factors for online knowledge sharing behaviour between academic staff, and the impact of these factors on work benefits for academic staff which differ between consumptive users and contributive users in higher education. This study employed the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to examine factors affecting knowledge sharing about the consumptive use and contributive use of enterprise social network (ESN) behaviour. The study adopts a critical realism philosophical approach and employed a grounded theory mixed methods. The conceptual model was validated through structural equation modelling based on an online survey of 254 academic staff using enterprise social networking as a part of their work in the United Kingdom. The findings have significant theoretical and practical implications for researchers and policy makers. The research has developed a cohesive ESN use model by extending and modifying the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology. The findings indicate significant differences around factors affecting consumptive and contributive usage patterns within ESNs. Due to advances in communication technologies, this research argues that a previous model suggested by Venkatesh et al. (2003) is no longer fit for purpose and the new communication tools can lead to improved knowledge in higher education. This research also makes valuable contributions to universities from a managerial viewpoint, suggesting that universities could help their scholars find a more comprehensive range of funding sources matching scholars' ideas

The role of social media in HIV/AIDS communication: The relationship between perceived need and design utilities

Includes bibliographical references.This study aims to explore the role of social media in HIV/AIDS communication, by investigating the relationship between perceived need utilities of social media and the design utilities of the communication channel. Following the media richness theory (MRT) and channel expansion theory (CET), a model is proposed that suggests that need utilities drive social media utility. It is furthermore suggested that social media utility is positively associated with the design appropriateness of social media to create or consume HIV/AIDS content. The proposed model presents the interpersonal consumer expectations of message control, privacy, trust and endorsement as need utilities, while social media as a place to interact and a place to which to escape, are identified as social media utilities. As a high at-risk HIV- group, the research approach is outlined within the demographic segment of university students in the Western Cape, between the ages of 18 to 24 years. The constructs of social change (communication objective), social capital (product of communication) and social influence (targeted communication), are operationalised within a social media context to explore consumer motivations to interact or escape. The benefits and limitations of using social media for effective HIV/AIDS communication are also assessed, as these practically influence the perception of the role of a communication channel within a particular communication context. The research methodology firstly comprised of six qualitative focus group discussions, which assisted in the generation of the hypotheses and facilitated the formulation of the conceptual model. Secondly, data from 991 online surveys were analysed to quantitatively test the formulated hypotheses and gauge support for the proposed model. The results support the hypotheses and proposed model, by indicating that need utilities drive social media utility, which in turn drive design appropriateness. Furthermore, the results also reveal that the social media utility of being a place to interact is positively associated with the design appropriateness of social media for HIV/AIDS content creation and consumption. The perception of social media as a place to which to escape, however negatively affects the design appropriateness of social media for HIV/AIDS content creation and consumption. The study discusses the implications for health communication from an integrated marketing communications approach and puts forward recommendations for strategy development, as well as monitoring and evaluation. Lastly several recommendations are put forward for future research