Knowing how organizations engage employees can help researchers and practitioners better understand how to effectively communicate and engage employees to create an efficient and collaborative work environment. This research sought to discover if Tesla Motors strategically communicated values from its Master Plan through company blogs to create an imagined community. The theory of imagined communities provided the theoretical foundation. This research used a content analysis of words and phrases within Tesla's Master Plan and 2015 corporate blog. Although the blog provided some indication that it was communicating values, this study concluded that the Master Plan did not provide enough value information to support a strategic imagined community. This study does, however, imply that imagined communities can be used in public relations research. / Master of Arts / Knowing how organizations engage employees can help researchers and practitioners better understand how to effectively communicate and engage employees to create an efficient and collaborative work environment. This research sought to discover if Tesla Motors intentionally communicated values from its Master Plan through company blog posts to create an imagined community. This research used a content analysis of words and phrases within Tesla’s Master Plan and 2015 corporate blog. Although the blog communicated some values, this study concluded that the Master Plan did not provide enough information to support a strategic imagined community.

In recent years, scholars have emphasized the importance of collective memory in the making of national identity. Where does death fit into the collective memory of American identity, particularly in the economic and social chaos of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? How did death shape the collective memory of American national identity in the midst of a pluralism brought on by immigration, civil and labor rights, and a transforming culture? On the one hand, the commemorations of public figures such as Ulysses S. Grant, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt constructed an identity based on Anglo-Saxonism, American imperialism, and the “Strenuous Life.” This was reflected in the burial of American soldiers of the Spanish American and Philippine American wars and the First World War. On the other hand, the commemorations of soldiers and sailors from the Civil War, Spanish American War, and Great War created opportunities to both critique and appropriate definitions of national identity. Through a series of case studies, my dissertation brings together cultural and political history to explore the (re)production and (trans)formation of American identity from the Civil War to the Great War. I am particularly interested in the way people used funerals and monuments as tools to produce official and vernacular memory. I argue that both official and vernacular forms of commemoration can help historians understand the social and political tensions of creating national identity in a burgeoning industrial and multicultural society.

This study examines the issues of Transnistrian conflict, Transnistrian identity and Transnistrian statehood through the fields of historiography, economic development, language and educational politics, religion, Soviet ideology and the place of memory in two parts of the Republic of Moldova, Bessarabia and Transnistria. The results of this study reveal the influence of the above-listed spheres on identity in both regions, the significant role of the leadership of Transnistria and the Republic of Moldova in shaping peoples' opinion and strengthening the idea of Transnistrian statehood, and the existence of regional identity in Transnistria during a phase of transition.

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This thesis starts from Anderson¡¦s theory of ¡§Imagined Community¡¨, through the angle of ¡§Nationalism¡¨ and the ¡§Historical State Approach¡¨, to study the development of ethnic politics in Indonesia. In the analysis of historic events, this research hopes to represent the phenomenon of ethnic politics in Indonesia. According to the development of Indonesian Nationalism, this dissertation divides the political history in Indonesia into four stages, ¡§the independent stage¡¨, ¡§the national integration stage¡¨, ¡§the national cooperation stage¡§ and ¡§the democratic transformation stage¡¨, also there are two factors----¡§the state dominate¡¨ and ¡§the ethnic group politic mobilization¡¨ ---- being cross-compared their relations within the four historic stages. This thesis concludes: Indonesia as an ¡§imagined community¡¨, which leads the cleavage in the Indonesian national society. Lack of efficient institution for national integration at the beginning of the national independence, the cooperation politics in the New Order stage, both tended to build the inequality between different ethnic groups, which is the main reason for racial conflict after the democratization, and also the general factor affecting the ethnic politics in Indonesia. Individual factors affecting the ethnic politics in Indonesia include elements of the culture in religion, of the economy in region and the history in international politics, of the racial immigration and economy¡Kwhich form the ethnic consciousness and ethnic identity. Under the effects of the general and individual levels, nowadays the Indonesian ethnic politics presents itself as¡GA. Religion: Muslim parties contestation, the religious demonstration outside the institution, and the regional conflicts in religion. B. Region: secessionism, islanders demanding for regional autonomy or for federalism. C. Race: race violence against Indonesian Chinese, regional racial murders caused by the interior immigration policy. This dissertation concludes with elements of the above three levels, which show the phenomenon of contemporary ethnic politics in Indonesia.

Languages are not just systems for communication, they are also often a marker of ethnic and/or national identity and sometimes a politically contentious issue. A country where this is the case is Latvia, which has a large Russian-speaking population. During the Soviet occupation of Latvia, Russian became the dominant language in public life. Since regaining independence, Latvia has pursued language policies aimed at strengthening the position of the Latvian language, at the expense of the Russian. Latvian is the single official language and over the last decades, the bilingual education system inherited from the Soviet Union has moved towards an increasing share of Latvian as the language of instruction. In 2018, the Latvian parliament amended two educational laws, meaning the share of subjects being instructed in Latvian in so-called minority schools increased markedly. The decision was controversial and was opposed by parties with a large Russian-speaking voter base. The purpose of the thesis is twofold. The first is to describe and analyse the arguments of political actors[1] regarding mono- and multilingual education, focusing on the reform of 2018. The arguments will be analysed in relation to theory regarding the connection between nationalism/nationhood and language, and theory on linguistic minority rights. The second part of the purpose is to advocate normatively and constructively for an approach regarding two different areas of policy: 1) Whether Russian should be an official language or not. 2) Language policy in education. The point of departure for the analysis is the aspiration to create a sense of national belonging, where both Russian-speakers and Latvian-speakers are seen as a part of the Latvian imagined community. In order to create this sense of inclusive imagined community, the approach seeks to be impartial in relation to the “pro-Latvian” and “pro-minority” positions with regards to language policy. The normative argumentation also seeks to include and balance the values of linguistic minority rights and preserving small languages (such as Latvian). For the first part of the thesis, a descriptive idea analysis is applied. The arguments are analysed in relation to my theoretical framework, which consists of various concepts relating to the relationship between language and nationalism and models regarding linguistic rights. The main analytical tool is the concept of an imagined community, where a sense of national belonging and social cohesion can be based on either mono- or multilingualism. In the second part, a normative and constructive method is used to argue for my position in a systematic fashion.   The arguments of the proponents of the 2018 reform can be described as based on the idea that Latvian is the common and unifying language of all the Latvian residents and one of the foundations of the imagined Latvian community. At the same time, the proponents claim wanting to ensure that members of linguistic minorities can preserve their language, and that the reform provides the right to learn a minority language. The opponents of the reform argue that, while it is important that students learn the Latvian language, drastically decreasing the level of instruction is an assimilatory policy that will weaken rather than strengthen the national unity.   In the second part, the author suggests that Latvian will remain the single official language since granting the Russian language official status may cause the language decline of Latvian, and because the issue is very divisive. In terms of language in the school system, the author concludes that Latvian ought to have a special position in Latvia and should therefore be the dominant language. Therefore, Latvian should be the main language of instruction, in the proportions prescribed by the 2018 reform. Another conclusion is that all students, regardless of mother tongue, should learn Russian on at least an elementary level. [1] Specified under “Delimitations”.

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This paper examines the Army Community Covenant, a formal document intended to strengthen the official and unofficial relationships between U.S. Army posts in the United States with their surrounding civilian communities. Critical Discourse Analysis is applied to trace the genealogy of the verbal and visual constructs and semiotics of the document, from the rhetoric of George Washington that acculturated the Continental Army to the present day, and considering the perspectives of nationalism and familial relationships in the deliberate selection of key terminologies. This research concludes with the recognition of the documents' potential effects, both positive and negative, upon its intended participants and audience, and proposes extensions for further research in the areas of the U.S. Army and army families, as well as the perceptions of identity and struggles for representation that exist. / Master of Arts

This thesis concerns the study of ethnic minority groups and their national identity formation process as a result of their collective experience during, and understanding of, World War One. The groups observed are Black Americans and German Americans from the United States, as well as the Irish from Great Britain. Each groups’ identity progression and understanding of the war differed from their counterparts, while having still exhibited similarities of which highlight how different forms of nationalism played a role in the lives of ethnic minorities. A Marxist theoretical framework of nationalism and tradition is applied through the works of Benedict Anderson, Eric Hobsbawm and Terrance Ranger. The results convey how American nationalism served to further solidify a greater sense of American national identity for the respective ethnic groups, though through a process of apathy and coercion. British nationalism revealed how its version of the phenomena lacked sufficient proximity to the respective group, thus resulting in the Irish rejection of the British nation and its form of identity. These results further illustrate how both nations were in many ways sovereign and limited in their ability to form a political and social community with these groups. Lastly, it is revealed that the internal differences in each group followed a universal trend wherein those group members who served in combat roles during the war, inhibited a greater sense of national identity than those who did not see combat. This result serves as the foundation for my new theory, known as the Fog of War Complex.