Disguises of Power: Kawaii in the Japanese Cyberspace

This research begins with a critical analysis of the kawaii and the cyberspace literature in the Japanese context. Based on that framework, I distinguish three main kawaii discourses: as advertisement and for attraction; as a statement or rebellion; and as soft power. I select three Japanese organisations, belonging to different sectors, in order to examine whether there is an intention behind utilising their respective kawaii aesthetics to communicate a particular idea. While the messages differ based on the organisation, similar visual techniques are expended in all three cases. I hypothesise that the visual kawaii content of each organisation would fall into one of the aforementioned three main types of kawaii discourse. All examined organisations are not directly associated with the culture of cuteness. Analysis of the materials is made through visual discourse analysis, website scraping and website crawling. It revealed that indeed, all of the organisations have an agenda, put...Show moreThis research begins with a critical analysis of the kawaii and the cyberspace literature in the Japanese context. Based on that framework, I distinguish three main kawaii discourses: as advertisement and for attraction; as a statement or rebellion; and as soft power. I select three Japanese organisations, belonging to different sectors, in order to examine whether there is an intention behind utilising their respective kawaii aesthetics to communicate a particular idea. While the messages differ based on the organisation, similar visual techniques are expended in all three cases. I hypothesise that the visual kawaii content of each organisation would fall into one of the aforementioned three main types of kawaii discourse. All examined organisations are not directly associated with the culture of cuteness. Analysis of the materials is made through visual discourse analysis, website scraping and website crawling. It revealed that indeed, all of the organisations have an agenda, put forward through the respective cute imagery. However, that agenda did not necessarily fit within the above straightforward categories that the literature suggested. Therefore, for the particular circumstances of my research, I revised the aforementioned kawaii categories to also encompass: kawaii discourse as a tool for continuity and ease; as a contraption of attraction; as a quest for peace. Finally, I conclude that cyberspace is a much more versatile medium than any of the historical kawaii channels and therefore, its contemporary communication implications do not necessarily fall into a particular category – it can address multiple ones simultaneously, reaching a vast audience. In addition, I present a visualisation of the Japanese governmental sector website network, which reveals unforeseen external digital connections of the Ministry of Defense website with closely related to kawaii organisations.Show less

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Disguises of Power: Kawaii in the Japanese Cyberspace