Nowadays, there are many trends and changes happening in the market industry, in order to cope with the rise of technologies. Brands are finding new, modern, and revolutionary ways in order to elevate their identities into new levels. Therefore, the adoption of motion graphics and videos yield remarkable improvements in marketing in general. The benefits of motion graphics and its impact on the field of design and marketing have attracted the attention of researchers and businesses around the world. This thesis focuses on the benefits of motion graphics in branding, and how it can add more values, opportunities, and movement to digital brand identities in order to make brands live and breathe. First, the term “Motion Graphics” is introduced and defined, for it is a vague concept for some of the viewers. In addition, a small description of the history of branding and motion graphics is touched upon, in order to give the viewers, the idea of where both fields came from and how they evolved to the level they are now. Second, the thesis uses a qualitative method such as semi-structured interviews, together with data through the insights, experiences, and knowledge of professional designers working in the field. The interview method is chosen because it is best suited to provide a more complete understanding of the research problem than quantitative data for this specific topic. Then this thesis continues to illustrate the importance of adding motion graphics in every digital brand. Where each brand can have its own unique style of animation that can differentiate their identity in the market. Therefore, some examples are presented as well as some successful digital brands that have their own animation and illustration style that make their identity stand out. Finally, the results show that motion graphics is indeed in demand and may become a norm to be added in every digital brand toolkit. In addition, motion graphics can add dynamism, can reflect the digital brand and its attributes in a better way, help brands convey their messages in a more effective way, and can increase the value and make it more suitable for social media.

This thesis makes a contribution to the vast field of International Relations research conducted on Russia and its neighbors. Following constructivist scholarship focusing particularly on national interests, state identities, and the concept of ‘us and them’, the research shines light on how Russia has positioned itself in regards to the Europeanization process of neighboring Georgia. The thesis is additionally founded on understandings of European integration theories as well as information on the empirical case of complicated relationships Russia has with Georgia but also with the European Union. The steps of Georgia’s Europeanization process (2006-2014) are used as a pin point to define a time limit for the study and to analyze how shifts in a state’s surroundings can affect its identity presentation and national interests. The study is conducted as a qualitative content analysis utilizing public statements issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the Russian Federation.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / In this thesis, I explore representations of gender, race and sexuality in a select group of South African magazines - Men's Health, FHM, Blink, True Love, Femina and Fair Lady - between 2003 and 2005. From a feminist poststructuralist perspective, I argue that these magazines present particular subjectivities as normative; privileging and centering one pole within dichotomies of gender, race and sexuality. The exploration considers ideas of social responsibility in the discourses of magazine editors, and how these are linked to subjective representations of gender, race and sexuality. I focus on the magazines' presentations of racialised heteromasculinities, and its connections to presentations of women as particular kinds of sex objects. I explore the hyper(hetero)sexual presentation of black and white femininities in women's magazines, attempting to illustrate how these presentations translate into efforts to remain or become heterosexually desirable to an unnamed and unmarked, but clearly masculine audience.

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The gender binary is a pervasive idea in society which suggests that there only exist two genders – man and woman. The wide array of differing gender identities would suggest otherwise. Identifying as nonbinary means that you reject the gender binary and identify somewhere between, in both, or beyond the binary. However, research on nonbinary identities has been relatively scarce which suggests an importance of furthering the knowledge in the area. This study aims to examine how nonbinary students navigate their identity at university in Sweden. This is done by examining and trying to understand (1) their experience and treatment by peers and teachers, (2) how they manage these experiences at university, and (3) the experiences that obstruct and facilitate their navigation of their identity. To answer the aim, semi- structured interviews with 6 participants were conducted and analyzed with the help of thematic analysis. The empirical data was analyzed through the lens of cisnormativity, which refers to the idea that everyone’s gender identity is and should be congruent with the one assigned at birth. The findings shows that while nonbinary students in Sweden have generally good relations towards peers and faculty, they are all exposed to microaggressions in the form of misgendering, deadnaming, and invalidating experiences. To manage these discriminating interactions, they develop strategies in the form of preventive measures, avoiding confrontation, confronting behavior as well as the responsibility to educate. The experiences of facing these obstacles as well as the exclusion and erasure of nonbinary identities, was easier facilitated with the support and kinship from peers and faculty. These findings emphasize the importance of removing the burden of responsibility from nonbinary people by normalizing gender identities outside the binary and inviting them into the master narrative of cisnormativity.

This study explores the influence of chronic stress in college students. It focuses on the broader chronic stressors that college students experience related to physical and mental health, financial health and wellbeing, and presence of social supports, then addresses the more specific chronic stressors related to intersecting identities of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. This phenomenon is analyzed under the theoretical frameworks of social determinants of health, intersectionality, and systems theory. An online survey with both open and closed-ended questions was conducted with undergraduate social work students from the Bachelors of Social Work program at the University of Central Florida. The results of the study found that there was links between intersecting identities of participants with higher levels of chronic stress based on their chronic stress scores and participant responses on the influence of their identities on barriers to their physical, mental, and financial health.

How do shifting geopolitical landscapes influence foreign policy discourses and identities of international actors? This thesis analyses the discursive identities constructed in the European Union’s official foreign policy discourse on China since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The EU-China relationship is complex, and recent literature has identified that the EU’s discourse toward China has become more assertive and securitized. The analysis is undertaken to gain insight into how identities are constructed against the backdrop of deteriorated and ambiguous EU-China relations and China’s influential role in the war. It takes a poststructuralist approach to discourse analysis, building on the work of Lene Hansen (2006), arguing that identities are relational and constructed through discourses. The analysis examines how Presidents of the EU’s supranational institutions constitute the EU’s identity vis-à-vis China in speeches. The analysis finds that China’s identity often is constructed as a threat to the identity of the EU and the rules-based world order, while simultaneously recognizing China as an invaluable partner that the EU cannot break away from. The thesis provides a deeper understanding of the main structural point of this relationship and the ambiguous nature and dynamics of identities in foreign policy discourses in a new, high-stake empirical context.

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This project responds to a problem in scholarship describing the relationship between virtual avatars and their physical users. In Life on the Screen, Sherry Turkle identifies points of slippage wherein the persona of the avatar becomes conflated with the user‘s sense of self to create an authentic self predicated on both real and virtual experiences (Turkle 184-5). Although the conflation of the authentic self with the virtual has provided various affordances for serious games or other pedagogical projects such as classrooms hosted through the game Second Life, the processes enabling identification with an avatar have been largely overlooked. This project examines several layers of influence that affect how users play with identity to create successful social performances within an online community connected to a work of fiction. In doing so, the user must consider his or her own motivations for creating a persona, how these motivations will allow the avatar to achieve social acceptance, and how these social performances connect to the scene created by the work of fiction. Using an online role-playing forum based on a work of fiction as a site of analysis, this project will borrow from game studies, dramatism, and identity theory to create a framework for discussing processes through which users identify with their virtual avatars.