Cuteness as a form of communication. An on-line experience.

Abstract

During the 20th century popular culture has been developing a special communication form which hasn't been used before. Cuteness as a form of communication has become a new effective method of strategic marketing, PR campaigns and branding. Cute appeal is a biological factor that has been developed through thousands of years during the evolution to provide a necessary care for the offspring. But during the decades the cute appeal has been turned to an effective form of communication with almost guaranteed effects on the target audience. This research has been aiming to detect who is using cuteness as a form of communication on-line and how are they using it. The most effective method for this type of research is a qualitative method. The field of the research has become the World Wide Web and over a hundred samples have been collected. The samples of interest were the web-pages which are using cuteness as a form of communication. The samples were divided into four groups with several subgroups. To analyse them the four perspectives of cuteness have been created based on the theoretical background and previous research. The results helped to get a deeper understanding of cuteness as a form of communication on the private level, corporate/organizational and even on the level of educational institutions and nonprofit organizations.