The Cultural Construction of Cybersecurity: Digital Threats and Dangerous Rhetoric

ABSTRACT:This article explores the contemporary construction of public culture around cybersecurity in the United States, using discourse analysis to critically examine the rise of militaristic rhetoric around digital threats in news reports and public statements by government officials and corporate experts. Cybersecurity has gone from being an obscure focus of tech and security experts to an issue of public concern. My approach advances theorizations of digital media and politics by bringing together insights from digital media studies and the anthropology of security to analyze how public culture around "cybersecurity" is being discursively constructed by authorities, and to advance theorizations of digital media and politics. Given the pervasive role of digital media in Americans' lives, I contend that discourses that represent cybersecurity in terms of national security, equating hacking with cyberwar and cyberterrorism, contribute to the militarization of private civil and social life while failing to address wider vulnerabilities and threats to democracy associated with digital media.