The most valued social media attributes of Portuguese consumers

The exponential growth of the entertainment and media industry has revolutionized the social media landscape. Increasingly more people use social media platforms in their daily lives for different reasons. The goal of this research is, in particular, to determine what are the attributes of Facebook Instagram and Tik Tok they value the most, as well as having an overview on how Portuguese consumers perceive such platformsandwhat influences its engagement. To reach such goals,reasons why people use social media were identified,aperceptual map with two dimensions was plotted, and a conjoint analysis was performed. On the associations found to be linked with social media, all three social media platforms do not need to readjust their positioning strategy to occupy a specific position in the market, but there is still room for attributes improvement, to engage with potential Portuguese valuable consumers, considering the different needs, preferences, and behaviors. The most important feature and counterpart for the usage of social media is linked with privacy concerns

Privacy as a Public Good

Privacy is commonly studied as a private good: my personal data is mine to protect and control, and yours is yours. This conception of privacy misses an important component of the policy problem. An individual who is careless with data exposes not only extensive information about herself, but about others as well. The negative externalities imposed on nonconsenting outsiders by such carelessness can be productively studied in terms of welfare economics. If all relevant individuals maximize private benefit, and expect all other relevant individuals to do the same, neoclassical economic theory predicts that society will achieve a suboptimal level of privacy. This prediction holds even if all individuals cherish privacy with the same intensity. As the theoretical literature would have it, the struggle for privacy is destined to become a tragedy. But according to the experimental public-goods literature, there is hope. Like in real life, people in experiments cooperate in groups at rates well above those predicted by neoclassical theory. Groups can be aided in their struggle to produce public goods by institutions, such as communication, framing, or sanction. With these institutions, communities can manage public goods without heavy-handed government intervention. Legal scholarship has not fully engaged this problem in these terms. In this Article, we explain why privacy has aspects of a public good, and we draw lessons from both the theoretical and the empirical literature on public goods to inform the policy discourse on privacy

Unfriend, Unfollow, Unsubscribe: Unsociability on social network sites

Social network sites (SNSs) are virtual spaces for social activity where users can “undo” their social interactions, returning to a previous system state. In this thesis I study this “reversed” sociability – unsociability – as a novel way to approach and support online social interactions. Using focus groups as research method, I explore the practices and perceptions of users engaging in unsocial events over four popular SNSs: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. As focus groups enable people to discuss their opinions in a relaxed yet moderated environment, I gathered opinions of participants expressed in their own terms. Subsequently, I used two data analysis techniques, content analysis and grounded theory, to explore participants’ utterances and group dynamics. The results show that the structure of each site reviewed is determinant to understanding how they support unsociability. Most notably, it was found that people follow a social-over-technical pattern on Facebook, as they base their interactions on their social understanding of this site instead of its technical capabilities. By following this pattern, people engage in unsocial events to save face and regulate their privacy boundaries. I found that people try to keep their unsocial behaviors as positive as possible to reduce accountability for these behaviors. Consequently, they prefer using features that place a self-boundary around them, which I call the soft unsocial features. The hard unsocial features place a dyadic boundary, producing increased social costs. Nevertheless, different people interpret these features in different ways, as I found three distinctive attitude styles towards them: the experimental, cautious, and restrictive. As these platforms become ubiquitous, I argue that unsociability should become an important consideration for designers of SNSs. I propose that SNSs should offer integrated options to revert social interactions in a silent, easy, and flexible way, to support users to “reverse” the increased sociability enabled on these sites. Asiasanat:social network sites, features, unsociability, desig

Online Doctoral Students and the Importance of Social Network Connections

University personnel offering online doctoral degrees struggle to address high attrition of students in the dissertation phase; these students can feel isolated, disconnected, and unmotivated. The purpose of this study was to explore ways online doctoral students in the dissertation phase used social networking sites (SNS) to overcome isolation and to increase persistence. The conceptual framework was situated in communities of practice (CoP) and the theory on self-determination. Research questions explored participants\u27 experiences with using SNS to remain connected and persistent. Data were collected from in-depth interviews with 7 online doctoral students, who met the criteria of being in the dissertation phase for a minimum of 2 quarters and using at least 1 social networking site; the participants were from 4 online institutions in the United States. An interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to examine themes and interpret the lived experiences of participants. Findings revealed that online doctoral students in the dissertation phase valued working with peers and with doctoral graduates from other institutions as a strategy to remain persistent in completing their dissertations. They focused on learning and on sharing with others for social and emotional support in a safe environment. Other elements included being held accountable and being challenged to keep moving. The results could influence instructional design for online doctoral candidates emphasizing the use of SNS for support from a CoP. Implications for positive social change include higher education personnel supporting unmonitored SNS interactions and increasing trust within school-created SNS spaces for students in the dissertation phase

Developing a Parasocial Relationship with Hotel Brands on Facebook: Will Millennials Differ from GenXers?

Facebook, particularly its brand page, is becoming one of the most powerful tool for relationship building and customer engagement for hospitality companies. As the social media marketing practices evolve in the hospitality industry, the industry starts to realize the importance of customer participation behaviors based on relationship quality rather than quantity of interactions and the rising significance of the Millennials generation. To respond to this trend, this study pursues an empirical investigation of the antecedents for consumer-hotel brand relationship on Facebook, and the potential differences between Millennials and non-Millennials, particularly the GenXers. It also examines the potential varying relational consequences on consumers\u27 online participation behaviors and brand loyalty between these two groups. More specifically, this study positions Facebook as an innovative communication medium, and applies the “parasocial relationship” framework in mediated communication literature as an overarching theoretical guide. Five social-media related factors are included to explain the psychological mechanisms of consumer’s parasocial relationship with brands: utilitarian benefits, hedonic benefits, perceived self-disclosure, perceived interactivity, and perceived information overload. This study also investigates the effects of parasocial relationship on Facebook users’ online participation behaviors with brands and their offline brand loyalty. The hypothesized model is tested with multi-group SEM modelling. Practical and theoretical implications are also discussed in the study

Microtargeting via Facebook and its impacts on federal state elections in Hamburg

The case of Cambridge Analytica in 2018 showed how the digital age and the resulting new possibilities for commercial marketing affect political campaigning. Despite concerns, today we observe that Facebook ad services are growing and political microtargeting has arrived in Europe. Since research in this context is still rare, this thesis aimed to analyze how advertising on a specific social media channel could impact a regional German election. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), political advertisements on Facebook during a two-month period before the federal state election in Hamburg in 2020 were studied. Content and discourse analysis were in line with Roemmele's and Gibson’s (2020) argument that the "subversive" form of microtargeting is very apparent and undermining the potential positive consequences of targeting political advertisements (p. 595). While inducing negative emotions such as fear and feelings of physical and social insecurity, targeted advertisements showed sexist and ageist attitudes, as well as they encouraged local identity and xenophobia. Essentially, the thesis argues that microtargeting encourages digital inequality, contributes to a voting culture which is emotionally and ideologically motivated, and may accelerate the polarization in society. Above all, the large share of discourse aiming to convince voters rather than to inform them, leads to the assumption, that microtargeting is a tool that serves to win potential voters at lowest possible information levels.O caso da Cambridge Analytica em 2018 mostrou como a era digital e as novas possibilidades resultantes do marketing comercial afectam as campanhas políticas. Apesar das preocupações, observamos hoje que os serviços de publicidade no Facebook estão a crescer e que o microtargeting político chegou à Europa. Uma vez que a investigação neste contexto ainda é escassa, esta tese visa analisar como a publicidade num canal específico dos meios de comunicação social poderia ter impacto numa eleição regional alemã. Utilizando a Análise do Discurso Crítico (CDA), foram estudados anúncios políticos no Facebook durante um período de dois meses antes das eleições estaduais federais em Hamburgo, em 2020. A análise do conteúdo e do discurso estava de acordo com o argumento de Roemmele e Gibson (2020) de que a forma "subversiva" de microtargeting é muito aparente e mina as potenciais consequências positivas de visar anúncios políticos (p. 595). Embora induzindo emoções negativas como o medo e sentimentos de insegurança física e social, as propagandas direccionadas mostraram atitudes sexistas e anti-idade, assim como encorajaram a identidade local e a xenofobia. Essencialmente, a tese argumenta que o microtargeting encoraja a desigualdade digital, contribui para uma cultura de voto que é emocional e ideologicamente motivada e pode acelerar a polarização da sociedade. Acima de tudo, a grande parte do discurso que visa convencer os eleitores em vez de os informar, leva à suposição de que o microtargeting é uma ferramenta que serve para ganhar potenciais eleitores aos níveis de informação mais baixos possíveis

A Study of How Young Adults Leverage Multiple Profile Management Functionality in Managing their Online Reputation on Social Networking Sites

With privacy settings on social networking sites (SNS) perceived as complex and difficult to use and maintain, young adults can be left vulnerable to others accessing and using their personal information. Consequences of not regulating the boundaries their information on SNS include the ability for current and future employers to make career-impacting decisions based upon their online reputation that may include disqualifying them as job candidates. On SNS, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, young adults must decide on how to manage their online reputation by regulating boundaries to their own personal and professional information and identities. One known practice for the regulation of boundaries is the use of multiple profile management (MPM), where users of SNS create and use multiple accounts on a SNS and separate the social and professional identities that they disclose publicly and privately. The purpose of the study was to understand the lived experiences of young adults in how they regulate boundaries on SNS, through the use of MPM, as they manage their online reputation to different audiences. The practice was studied by applying interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) through interviewing young adults of 18-23 years of age, who use MPM on a SNS. Semi-structured interviews permitted participants to provide in-depth descriptions of their lived experiences. Eight themes were identified and described based on the analysis of the interviews that include: SNS use with online audiences, motivations for using MPM, the processes for the presentation of self, online search results, privacy settings, untagging SNS posts, self-editing and censorship, and new features. The themes describe the complexity and challenges that young adults face with regulating boundaries with their professional and social identities online through the use of MPM. Findings from this study have implications for a variety of audiences. Through the findings of this study, SNS developers can introduce new features, improve usability related to privacy management, and further encourage use of their networks. Users of SNS can use this study to understand risks of using SNS and for learning of practices for how to manage their online reputation on SNS

Does Facebook’s interface employ narcissism to maximise usage? a critical comparison of the 2008 and 2015 facebook interfaces

A research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the field of Digital Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2016Facebook has become a part of over a billion people’s daily lives, but the mechanisms used by Facebook to keep people using its service may be playing off negative personality traits, one such being narcissism. Studies up to now have not looked at the design of the interface in relation to narcissism and whether or not Facebook is actively exploiting narcissism for its own ends. This study will analyse whether Facebook is deliberately designing an interface that exploits people’s narcissism by reviewing the current research on Facebook and narcissism and then doing a case study that will compare the 2008 interface with the 2015 interface. It will analyse how narcissism is involved in the persuasion strategies employed in each interface by using these four persuasion goals: 1. Create personal profile page 2. Invite friends 3. Respond to other’s contributions 4. Return to the site often The study will compare the features that use design for behavioural change and show whether or not Facebook is continuously designing features that exploit people’s narcissism.GR201

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

The use of social media by organisations when engaging with their online community: the collective storytelling phenomenon

The pervasive nature and use of social media has transformed society and this transformation has attracted significant attention from both industry and academia. The organisational implementation and use of social media are plagued with many challenges, leaving managers frustrated at not achieving the desired results. This emergent and complex nature of the social media phenomenon requires researchers to consider novel approaches when conducting social media research. As the number of Information Systems (IS) researchers conducting research on the social media phenomenon increases, so too does the need to develop relevant and rigorous social media theories. This challenge must be addressed by IS researchers who are contemplating, or are busy conducting research on the social media phenomenon. My PhD thesis responds to the call made by academics and practice for the development of relevant and rigorous social media theories, with the aim of providing a better explanation than what is currently found in the social media literature on social media use within an organisational context. Owing to the emergent nature of the social media phenomenon, the grounded theory method (GTM) is used to develop a substantive theory that increases understanding of this particular phenomenon. Two organisations are selected as the case studies. Both are industry leaders in South Africa, with one being a prominent retailer with a very visible social media presence and the other, being a leading university in South Africa, which is actively growing its social media presence. The results show that organisations enter into a collective storytelling process with their online community. Risk to reputation and the need for online community engagement are identified as reasons for this. Organisations using social media need to be aware of the following conditions that impact on social media use: (1) the social media landscape, (2) the characteristics of social media for use, (3) the relationship between content and social media, (4) content quality, (5) the online community-organisation power dynamic, and (6) the provision of a seamless online experience for the community. Challenges during the collective storytelling process lead to organisations experiencing social media use failures. To overcome these failures, organisations implement education interventions. An evolving supportive social media strategy that provides formal guidelines for social media use ultimately leads to a reduction in the organisational risk to reputation and an improvement in online community engagement, initially identified as the reasons why organisations decide to use social media. The main theoretical contribution is the development of a holistic theoretical framework using the GTM to better explain social media use within organisations when engaging with their online community