“If I was going to die I should at least be having fun”: Travel blogs, meaning and tourist experience

Travel blogs are an under-utilised resource for researchers of tourism experiences. They can provide rich insights on how tourists express the transformational effects of their experiences for the self. This study of travel blogs by nineteen British bloggers reveals how elements of the narrative relating to self-reflection and emotions are central to the process of transforming their travel experiences into personally meaningful experiences. Bloggers implicitly and explicitly express how travel contributes to self-identity, signalling self-development. The study contributes to knowledge about the lasting impact of long term travel on people, adding meaning symbolic of an evolving self

Communities of Empowerment: Exploring the Discourse Practices of Plus-Size Fashion Bloggers

Tämä väitöskirja tarkastelee pluskokoisten (engl. plus-size) muotibloggaajien verkkoyhteisössä tapahtuvaa vuorovaikutusta. Tutkimuksen fokuksessa ovat ne kielelliset ja diskursiiviset käytännöt, joita blogiyhteisön sisällä käytetään yhteisöllisyyden, identiteettien ja voimaantumisen kokemuksen rakentamiseen. Tutkimuksen kohteena on kahdestakymmenestä naisesta koostuva ryhmä, jonka kaikki jäsenet identifioituvat pluskokoisiksi, kirjoittavat muotiblogeja ja asuvat Iso-Britanniassa. Menetelmällisesti väitöskirja yhdistää blogitekstien ja -kommenttien laadullisen diskurssianalyysin määrälliseen, korpuslingvistiseen lähestymistapaan. Blogeista kerättiin tutkimusta varten noin 4,2 miljoonan sanan korpus. Blogitekstien tarkastelun lisäksi analysoin bloggaajien vastauksia kahteen kyselytutkimukseen, jotka lähetettiin heille vuosina 2015 ja 2017. Kyselyvastauksia tutkin temaattisen analyysin keinoin. Pluskokoiset naiset ovat olleet marginalisoituja muodin kentällä useiden vuosikymmenten ajan. Valtavirtamuodin kuvastossa he ovat näkymättömiä, eikä vaateteollisuus tarjoa heille samaa vaihtoehtojen kirjoa kuin pienempikokoisille naisille. Muotiblogien kautta valtavirtamuodin ulkopuolelle jääneet ryhmät, kuten juuri pluskokoiset naiset, ovat kuitenkin päässeet ilmaisemaan itseään ja tyylitajuaan uusin tavoin, muodostaen samalla sosiaalisia suhteita muiden samassa tilanteessa olevien ihmisten kanssa. Väitöstutkimukseni tarjoaa tähän mennessä puuttuneen kielitieteellisen näkökulman tähän ajankohtaiseen ilmiöön. Tutkimustulokseni osoittavat, että pluskokoisten muotiblogien genren sisällä on enemmän vaihtelua kuin aiemmat tutkimukset aiheesta ovat esittäneet. Siinä missä aiempi tutkimus on korostanut pluskokoisten naisten muotiblogien ja lihavuusaktivismin suhdetta, omissa tutkimustuloksissani korostuu yhteisön sisäinen monipuolisuus. Toisille bloggaajille aktivismi on blogin keskiössä, kun taas toiset identifioituvat ennen kaikkea muotibloggaajiksi ja haluavat tulla nähdyksi samassa valossa, kuin ne hoikat naiset, jotka kirjoittavat samankaltaisia blogeja. Joissakin blogeissa aiheiden kirjo on myös hyvin laaja, eivätkä vartalon kokoon ja siihen perustuvaan syrjintään liittyvät kysymykset näin ollen nouse yhtä keskeisiksi teemoiksi, kuin aktivismifokusoituneissa blogeissa. Yhteisön sisäisistä eroavaisuuksista huolimatta sen sisälle on muodostunut normatiivisia käytäntöjä, jotka ilmenevät myös ryhmän jäsenten käyttämässä kielessä. Esimerkiksi ryhmän sisäistä, sosiaalista identiteettiä rakennetaan käyttämällä tiettyä sanastoa pluskokoisten naisten vartaloiden kuvaamiseen. Ryhmäspesifejä kielellisiä ja diskursiivisia käytäntöjä hyödynnetään myös yhteisön rajojen määrittelyyn ja ryhmään kuulumattomien rajaamiseen sen ulkopuolelle. Yhden blogiyhteisön syvällisen tarkastelun lisäksi tähän väitöskirjaan sisällytetyt neljä tutkimusartikkelia muodostavat pohjan uudelle teoreettiselle ja menetelmälliselle mallille, jota voidaan tulevaisuudessa käyttää muiden verkkoviestintään pohjautuvien yhteisöjen tutkimiseen. Erityisesti väitöstutkimukseni tuloksia voidaan hyödyntää sosiaalisesti marginalisoitujen ryhmien yhteisöllisyyden tutkimuksessa. Tutkimustulokseni osoittavat, että kyseisten yhteisöjen kohdalla erilaisten aineistojen ja menetelmien yhdistäminen on erityisen tärkeää kokonaiskuvan muodostamiseksi tutkimuksen kohteena olevasta yhteisöstä. Väitöskirjani toimii myös esimerkkinä siitä, että marginalisoitujen ryhmien tutkimuksen ei tulisi keskittyä ainoastaan marginalisoidun ryhmän ja valtavirran välisiin suhteisiin, vaan kiinnittää erityistä huomiota myös ryhmän sisäisiin eroavaisuuksiin ja hierarkioihin. Koska digitaalinen viestintä on nykyään osa jokapäiväistä elämäämme, verkossa muodostuneet yhteisöt eivät välttämättä enää pysy erillään internetin ulkopuolisista suhteista. Tämä väitöstutkimus osoittaa, kuinka blogien kirjoittamisesta alkunsa saanut yhteisö voi kehittyä moniulotteiseksi verkostoksi, joka hyödyntää useita viestinnän kanavia ja jaettuja resursseja. Erityisesti marginalisoiduille yksilöille tämänkaltainen verkostoituminen voi olla voimavara sekä internetissä että sen ulkopuolella. Useille tutkimukseni kohteena olleille pluskokoisille naisille blogin kirjoittaminen toimi eräänlaisena ponnahduslautana psykologiseen, sosiaaliseen ja taloudelliseen voimaantumiseen.This doctoral dissertation explores the interactions that take place within an online community of plus-size fashion bloggers. Specifically, it focuses on the linguistic and discursive practices that these bloggers use to build community, to construct identities and to establish a sense of empowerment. The group of bloggers under investigation in the dissertation consists of 20 UK-based women who identify as plus-size and author fashion-focused blogs. Methodologically, the dissertation combines the qualitative discourse analysis of blog texts and comments with a quantitative, corpus-based investigation of a larger blog corpus of roughly 4.2 million words. In addition to textual blog material, questionnaire responses collected from the bloggers on two occasions (in 2015 and 2017) were studied using methods of thematic analysis. Plus-size women have been marginalized in the field of fashion for several decades. They are offered less clothing options than smaller women and ostracized in fashion imagery. Fashion blogs, however, have enabled people who have not had a voice in traditional fashion media to express their sense of fashion and to build relationships with similar others. This dissertation adds an important linguistic perspective to the existing literature on plus-size fashion blogging by addressing the variation within this sub-genre of fashion blogs through detailed linguistic and discursive analyses. The results reveal that there is more variation within the plus-size fashion blogging genre than previous studies have indicated. While earlier research has highlighted the activist aspects of plus-size fashion blogging, the results of this dissertation show that even though some bloggers identify strongly with the fat acceptance movement and have adopted a fat-activism-driven approach to blogging, others focus on more general fashion-related content, or blog about a wider variety of topics. However, despite these in-group differences, normative practices and behaviors can be observed within the community of plus-size fashion bloggers, and these practices are constructed through and reflected in the language the bloggers use. For example, using specific terms to describe plus-size women’s bodies functions as a way of constructing social identity within the blogging x community. At the same time, linguistic and discursive means are also used for maintaining the boundaries of the community by highlighting the differences between group members and outsiders. In addition to an in-depth investigation of one specific community of bloggers, the four articles included in this dissertation contribute to building a theoretical and methodological model for studying online interaction within other groups. In particular, the dissertation provides a new framework for studying the online interaction of groups that are marginalized in the mainstream media and society. The results show that when it comes to the study of such communities, combinations of different types of data (qualitative and quantitative), as well as several methodological approaches, are needed. This dissertation also illustrates that when researching marginalized groups, researchers should not focus merely on the relationship between a specific group and the societal structures and hierarchies that marginalize this group – the inner dynamics of the community of marginalized people also need to be investigated in detail. As digital communication has become a part of modern everyday life, communities that are formed on the internet no longer necessarily stay within the online realm, separate from our offline relationships. The findings presented in this dissertation illustrate how a community that starts out as an aggregate of people interacting on a particular digital platform can evolve into a complex, layered and multi-faceted network where individuals communicate through a variety of media, using a variety of shared resources. This type of community development may benefit marginalized individuals both online and offline. For many of the plus-size women investigated in this dissertation, blogging has functioned as a steppingstone to psychological, societal and financial empowerment

The corporate blog as an emerging genre of computer-mediated communication: features, constraints, discourse situation

Digital technology is increasingly impacting how we keep informed, how we communicate professionally and privately, and how we initiate and maintain relationships with others. The function and meaning of new forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC) is not always clear to users on the onset and must be negotiated by communities, institutions and individuals alike. Are chatrooms and virtual environments suitable for business communication? Is email increasingly a channel for work-related, formal communication and thus "for old people", as especially young Internet users flock to Social Networking Sites (SNSs)? Cornelius Puschmann examines the linguistic and rhetorical properties of the weblog, another relatively young genre of CMC, to determine its function in private and professional (business) communication. He approaches the question of what functions blogs realize for authors and readers and argues that corporate blogs, which, like blogs by private individuals, are a highly diverse in terms of their form, function and intended audience, essentially mimic key characteristics of private blogs in order to appear open, non-persuasive and personal, all essential qualities for companies that wish to make a positive impression on their constituents.Digital technology is increasingly impacting how we keep informed, how we communicate professionally and privately, and how we initiate and maintain relationships with others. The function and meaning of new forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC) is not always clear to users on the onset and must be negotiated by communities, institutions and individuals alike. Are chatrooms and virtual environments suitable for business communication? Is email increasingly a channel for work-related, formal communication and thus "for old people", as especially young Internet users flock to Social Networking Sites (SNSs)? Cornelius Puschmann examines the linguistic and rhetorical properties of the weblog, another relatively young genre of CMC, to determine its function in private and professional (business) communication. He approaches the question of what functions blogs realize for authors and readers and argues that corporate blogs, which, like blogs by private individuals, are a highly diverse in terms of their form, function and intended audience, essentially mimic key characteristics of private blogs in order to appear open, non-persuasive and personal, all essential qualities for companies that wish to make a positive impression on their constituents

Scientific and Parascientific Communication

There is an increasing need for scholars and scientists to not only conduct research that has a significant impact on society but also to communicate that research widely. Such research outreach also contributes to engaging wide, diverse audiences. As such, the discursive practices have become more and more complex, multimodal, and multimedia-based for scholars and scientists. Scientific communication is currently shared to a great extent with peers in technology-mediated contexts, which allows formal scientific publications to be opened to public viewing. Alongside this so-called “primary output” (Puschmann 2015), new ways, modes, and discourses are being used to bring science closer to a lay audience and promote citizen participation. The affordances of existing and emergent platforms are fostering a change in audience roles, and with it, the erosion of boundaries between scientific communities and the general public, entailing the dissemination of scientific information and knowledge beyond the former (Trench 2008). We are thus witnessing the development of discursive practices which may be referred to as instances of “parascientific communication”. These practices transcend previously well-delimited communities and spheres of communication. Parascientific genres are evolving based on authoritative or expert knowledge (communicated through conventional, sanctioned scientific genres) but not subjected to the filters of internal, formal science communication (Kelly and Miller 2016). This Special Issue seeks to gain a better understanding of the purposes and specific features of these new scientific communication practices

Negotiating The Interconnections of Sociality, Identity, Fan Activism And Connectivity Within The Twilight Community

In my dissertation, “Negotiating the Interconnections of Sociality, Identity, Fan Activism and Connectivity within the Twilight Community”, I examine the ways in which women employed a shared interest in a cultural text to establish meaningful social relationships with other fans. Rather than focusing solely on consumptive pleasure, these fans of the Twilight series utilized the intense popularity of the franchise to engage in charitable activities. Through these common threads of identity, community, virtual technologies, and charity, I contend that the Twilight fandom represents a new form of fan community, which is trending upward and creating an impact beyond the traditional sphere of fandom. The internet and virtual technologies continue to increase the interconnectedness between people, and the ways in which experiences –online and offline—intermingle and flow back and forth to create vibrant fan communities that impact the world with both consumptive pleasure and altruistic intentions. As such, it becomes relevant to understand the ways in which fandom and the ensuing activities are enacted and experienced by people in a contemporary, technologically mediated community

The everyday life and information practices of a natural immunity advocate

Parents continue to decline or delay immunizing their children resulting in outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease across the United States. Efforts to profile these parents struggle to find demographic consensus or create a consistent profile of which parents make these problematic decisions. These parents are often assumed to be under the sway of misinformation, exacerbating the division between them and healthcare providers. Research about this population typically studies the behavior in isolate and in relation to the mainstream view where it is normative to vaccinate one’s children. This dissertation, a grounded theory embedded chronological case study of a vaccine-avoidant mommy blogger, describes a worldview where vaccination avoidance and delay is normative and documents related behaviors and beliefs that accompany not vaccinating one’s children. This was accomplished using multiple methods, particularly inductive coding, memoing, quantitative and qualitative content analysis, bibliometrics, and digital ethnography. Data streams included seven years of blog posts, videos, comment threads, information citations, artifacts endorsed or created by the blogger, and an assessment of family resemblances between the blogger and her digital peer network. From the data emerged a theoretical model that overlapped with Ludwik Fleck’s theory of thought collectives and Elfreda Chatman’s theory of information poverty. The findings include a set of family resemblances observed in the data and artifacts and assessed against a network of nearly 90 other cases. The findings include bibliometric evaluation of the information the blogger cited and discussion of her information behavior and how information operates within her worldview, where vaccine avoidance and delay is normative.Doctor of Philosoph

Ella Mills and Deliciously Ella on Instagram: The evolution of a successful entrepreneur and wellness brand

This thesis investigates from a visual social media studies perspective the increasingly popular practices of a highly active online actor, the influential plant-based food advocate and successful entrepreneur Ella Mills. Its aim is to document and analyse some ways in which popular Instagram visual narratives have contributed to the formation of plant-based eating practices, wellness discourses and lifestyle choices in the UK. The analysis proceeds in two steps. First, I use a combination of mixed methods to analyse 4,000 Instagram images from the Deliciously Ella account and their relevant captions from 17 January 2013 to 24 October 2018. The deliberate choice of a lengthy time frame involves a novel visual social media approach called “Comparative Instachronics”, which offers a new way of dealing with a single Instagram account. Second, I provide a deeper analysis of my visual sample by using several conceptual approaches such as a) authenticity, b) class, inequality and distinction, c) enrichment. Interpretation of the sample using these concepts allowed me to make an important discovery early enough in the research process: plant-based food, though integral to the nature of the Deliciously Ella business, is not the leading visual cue. On the contrary, food’s significance is mediated by other important factors, such as Mills’ personal health story and details of her family and personal life and those of people close to her. The central finding of this thesis is that the elements surrounding the visual imagery of plant-based food function as essential facilitators of the Deliciously Ella project and the brand’s evolution across time. By going beyond the visual material to analyse social media images as distinct items through lengthy periods of time, the thesis makes an original methodological contribution to visual social media studies

Proceedings of the 11th Toulon-Verona International Conference on Quality in Services

The Toulon-Verona Conference was founded in 1998 by prof. Claudio Baccarani of the University of Verona, Italy, and prof. Michel Weill of the University of Toulon, France. It has been organized each year in a different place in Europe in cooperation with a host university (Toulon 1998, Verona 1999, Derby 2000, Mons 2001, Lisbon 2002, Oviedo 2003, Toulon 2004, Palermo 2005, Paisley 2006, Thessaloniki 2007, Florence, 2008). Originally focusing on higher education institutions, the research themes have over the years been extended to the health sector, local government, tourism, logistics, banking services. Around a hundred delegates from about twenty different countries participate each year and nearly one thousand research papers have been published over the last ten years, making of the conference one of the major events in the field of quality in services