Branding Terror: Crisis Communications and Marketing Management in 'V for Vendetta'

This thesis presents an original model for the examination of public relations campaigns in the context of political rhetoric, studying terrorism as a political phenomenon. The overall model incorporates an analysis of the elements present in marketing and crisis communications campaigns, metaphorically relating them to a struggle between two symbolic regimes dramatized as a battle of public relations campaigns in the film V for Vendetta. The rhetoric of each of these campaigns is intended to motivate target audiences to identify with each campaign's goals and objectives and can be used as a tool for analyzing discourse. The significance of this study lies in the examination of the commonly-used areas of political communications and marketing, and applies these concepts to delineate the political rhetoric of terrorists.