This thesis can be segmented in two distinct but complementary parts. The first part addresses the problem pertinent to coded digital watermarking systems development require namely the selection of a (uncoded) modulation technique to be part of a coded architecture. Therefore, performance bounds for uncoded techniques are an important tool for coded system optimization, aiming at operation close to capacity. This part introduces a new performance lower bound for uncoded binary watermarking modulation techniques, based on a simple equivalence with a binary communication system, considering an additive gaussian attack model. New M-ary unidimensional and multidimensional Spread Spectrum based modulation techniques are introduced, including their improved versions. The performances of the proposed techniques are determined, and the performance lower bounds for the corresponding techniques classes are determined as well. The second part of this thesis, introduces a new methodology for the design and analysis of digital watermarking systems which, from an information theoretic point of view, incorporates robustness and fragility. The proposed methodology is developed by focusing on the probability of error versus watermark-to-noise ratio curve, describing the technique performance, and a scenario for coded techniques which takes into account not only the coding gain, but also the robustness or fragility of the system. This new concept requires that coded digital watermarking systems design be revisited to also include the robustness and fragility requirements. Turbo codes, which appropriately meet these requirements, can be used straightforwardly to construct robust watermarking systems. Fragile systems can also be constructed by introducing the idea of polarization scheme. This new idea has allowed the implementation of hybrid techniques achieving fragility and robustness with a single watermark embedding. Simulation results supports the introduced methodology and allowed us to enhance the discussion on the polarization scheme.