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Unpacking cyberterrorism discourse: Specificity, status, and scale in news media constructions of threat

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2016

Lee Jarvis*
Affiliation:
Reader, International Security, University of East Anglia
Stuart Macdonald
Affiliation:
Professor in Law and Deputy Director, Centre for Criminal Justice and Criminology, Swansea University
Andrew Whiting
Affiliation:
Lecturer, Security Studies, Birmingham City University
*
*Correspondence to: Lee Jarvis, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, NR4 7TJ. Email: l.jarvis@uea.ac.uk

Abstract

This article explores original empirical findings from a research project investigating representations of cyberterrorism in the international news media. Drawing on a sample of 535 items published by 31 outlets between 2008 and 2013, it focuses on four questions. First, how individuated a presence is cyberterrorism given within news media coverage? Second, how significant a threat is cyberterrorism deemed to pose? Third, how is the identity of ‘cyberterrorists’ portrayed? And, fourth, who or what is identified as the referent – that which is threatened – within this coverage? The article argues that constructions of specificity, status, and scale play an important, yet hitherto under-explored, role within articulations of concern about the threat posed by cyberterrorism. Moreover, unpacking news coverage of cyberterrorism in this way leads to a more variegated picture than that of the vague and hyperbolic media discourse often identified by critics. The article concludes by pointing to several promising future research agendas to build on this work.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© British International Studies Association 2016 

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