Must we all be rhetorical theorists?: An anti‐democratic inquiry

Darsey, James

doi:10.1080/10570319409374494

Cited by 12 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 22 publications

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“…On the one hand, rhetorical analysis offers a "close-up" view of specific exemplars, or key texts, crafted by primary stakeholders in the evolution of cyber security policy and political discourse. By examining these texts closely, we are able, as argued by rhetorical scholars, to identify how structures of meaning are gradually built (Leff 1990;Darsey 1994). On the other hand, the "satellite view" offered by content analysis of a broad swath of texts across a period of time enables us to identify variations in the intensity of discussion of cyber security via the cyber Pearl Harbor analogy, as well as who is participating in that discourse, based on what concerns, and with what aims (Hart 1990;Hoffman & Waisanen 2015).…”

Section: Content Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Cyber Pearl Harbor: Analogy, fear, and the framing of cyber security threats in the United States, 1991-2016

Lawson

Middleton

2019

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During the two and a half decades leading up to the Russian cyber attacks on the 2016 U.S. presidential election, public policy discourse about cybersecurity typically framed cybersecurity using metaphors and analogies to war and tended to focus on catastrophic doom scenarios involving cyber attacks against critical infrastructure. In this discourse, the so-called “cyber Pearl Harbor” attack was always supposedly just around the corner. Since 2016, however, many have argued that fixation on cyber Pearl Harbor-like scenarios was an inaccurate framing that left the United States looking in the wrong direction when Russia struck. This essay traces the use of the cyber Pearl Harbor analogy and metaphor over the 25-year period preceding the Russian cyber attacks of 2016. It argues that cyber Pearl Harbor has been a consistent feature of U.S. cybersecurity discourse with a largely stable meaning focused on catastrophic physical impacts. Government officials have been primarily responsible for driving these concerns with news media uncritically transmitting their claims. This is despite the fact that such claims were often ambiguous about just who might carry out such an attack and often lacked supporting evidence.

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Section: Content Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%