This thesis presents a study of how identification, according to Kenneth Burke's theory, can be observed in the media-related practices promoted by the cyber-activist collective Anonymous. Identification is the capacity of community-building through the use of shared interests. Burke affirms that, as human beings are essentially social, identification is the very aim of any human interaction. Cyber-activism deeply relies on this capacity to promote and legitimise its campaigns. In the case of Anonymous, the collective became extremely popular and is now a frequent presence even in street protests, usually organised online, around the world. Here, I argue that this power was possible through the use of identification, which helped attract a large number of individuals to the collective. Anonymous was particularly skilled in its capacity to create an ideology for each campaign, which worked well to set up a perfect enemy who should be fought against by any people, despite their demographic or social status. Other forms of identification were also present and important. Although it is impossible to measure how many people or what kind of people Anonymous has been attracting, the presence of identification as a strong phenomenon is undeniable, since the collective is now one of the most famous cyber-activist organisations.

The modern city is the cradle of human activity, and through it humankind has both the ability to strip the planet of life and the ability to create thriving social and ecological systems. Strategic and interactive urbanisms that nurture multifarious ways of being in the world need to be formulated to save the natural world from ecological disaster. This paper traces the genealogy of the city from the unexplored wilderness to the to the conflux of technology and nature on city streets. Following the work of Neil Smith and William Cronon, this paper finds the roots of the urban system in the social construction of nature. Considering Martin Heidegger’s thoughts on technology along with David Harvey’s analysis of the urban system, it argues that city-building is a technē, an art which allows humankind to be at home with the world. As a part of this project, an interactive web application for gathering images and stories about urban spaces was created to provide a tool for citizen urbanism. The application, The Department of Civic Images, engages people in a dialogical urbanism that encourages citizens to see their environment as an intricate and valuable life network.

Herein lies the journey of change, from being a frustrated and isolated designer, to finding a connected practice expressing my personal values. Much was learnt on the journey regarding the nature of my practice and how it changed, about sustainability and what it means for my practice, tactics, framing and the recognition of a greater potential of my communication design practice beyond material considerations to becoming a device for connection leading to a more sustaining practice. This research is of value to communication design practitioners wishing to move towards a more sustainable practice. It provides insight into the deeper issues of sustainability applied to communication design practice, a guide to important literature of the field, and some possibilities for an expanded form of communication design practice.

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The role of visual communication design continues to increase in importance around the world. In Bahrain, organisations are increasingly considering visual communication design as a means of accomplishing organisational goals. The research aims to understand the process by which design managers in organisations in Bahrain manage and evaluate visual communication designs to gain strategic advantage. Even though the management of visual communication design has not yet been recognised as a separate category of design management in Bahrain, its processes and approaches may differ from other management applications. This research opens with a contextual overview of the visual communication design management field, before presenting an understanding of how visual communication design can be utilised as an innovative approach to the strategic structuring organisational thinking. Methods have been developed for investigating how Bahraini client design managers manage visual communication design projects. Observational studies and interviews with client design managers and creative directors have been conducted to obtain an understanding of the visual communication design process, together with evaluation procedures in the Bahraini context. These empirical investigations have led to the development of a conceptual framework that describes the visual communication design management process and the evaluation procedure that is carried out by client design managers in Bahrain. The remainder of this thesis explains the outcomes of each phase of the research. The unique contributions of this study are embodied in a discussion of the findings together with reflections and recommendations for those involved and interested in design management in Bahrain.

This thesis aims to establish the recommendations, proposals and procedures under which the company Mediaresearch will be able effectively use marketing communication and build a unique Corporate Identity. Through strong identity company will be able to influence its image among stakeholders. The theoretical part describes the different elements of corporate identity including the current trends. These components are then supplemented by appropriate research methods for the situation analysis. The theoretical part is followed by analysis of the company's market position. In addition to the analysis of current practices the findings of two internal employee surveys and interviews with the Board are used for the deduction of the recommendations. Each element of corporate identity is analysed separately and marketing recommendations are then drawn in wider context.

This research explores how human values and concerns are manifested and negotiated through the process of design. In undertaking this study, a variety of design interventions were explored to facilitate how values can be articulated and discussed amongst project stakeholders during the design process. These design interventions will be referred to as projects within the exegesis. In this exegesis, I will argue for the importance of a dialogic process among project stakeholders in the creation of a human-centred design practice in communication design. This exegesis explains the central argument of the research and how the research questions were investigated. It presents a journey of the discoveries, learnings and knowledge gained through an inquiry of the research questions. The total submission for this research consists of the exegesis, exhibition and oral presentation. Through each mode of delivery I will share and illuminate how the research questions were investigated.

MP3 blogs and their aggregators, which have risen to prominence over the past four years, are presenting an alternative way of promoting and discovering new music. I will argue that MP3 files greatly affect MP3 blogs in terms of shaping them as: a genre separate from general weblogs and music blogs without MP3s, especially due to the impact of MP3 blog aggregators such as The Hype Machine and Elbows; a particular form of rhetoric illuminated by Kenneth Burke's dramatistic ratios of agency-purpose, purpose-act and scene-act; and as a potentially subversive subculture, which like other subcultures, exists in a symbiotic relationship with the traditional media it defines itself against. Using excerpts from multiple MP3 blogs and their forums, interviews with MP3 bloggers and Anthony Volodkin (creator of The Hype Machine), references to MP3 blogs in traditional press, and Burke's theory of dramatism and Hodge and Kress's theories of social semiotics, I will demonstrate that the MP3 file is not only changing the way music is consumed and circulated, but also the way music is promoted and discussed.