Fear-mongering or fact:
The construction of ‘cyber-terrorism’
in U.S., U.K, and Canadian news media
A paper presented at
Safety and Security in a Networked World:
Balancing Cyber-Rights and Responsibilities
sponsored by the Oxford Internet Institute
8-10 September, 2005
Oxford, England
Susan Keith, Ph.D.
Assistant professor
Department of Journalism and Media Studies
School of Communication, Information and Library Studies
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
4 Huntington Street
New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901, USA
[email protected]
(732) 932-7500, ext. 8235
Fear-mongering or fact
1
Introduction
The term “cyber-terrorism” continues to be a source of conflict for Internet
researchers, policy-makers, scholars of cyberlaw, and Internet security firms. Coined in the
1980s by Barry Collin, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Security and Intelligence
in California (Conway, 2002), and formed by the union of the words “cyberspace” and
“terrorism,” “cyberterrorism” would seem to refer, simply enough, to terrorism that occurs
online. Things become more complex, however, when one considers that “terrorism” has, as
one author observed nearly 20 years ago, “different meaning for different people” (Perlstein,
1986, p. 187) and that the cyberworld is still so young that meanings of all the words used to
describe it are evolving rapidly (Weimann, 2004).
As a result, some scholars, government officials, members of the military
establishment, and security firms argue that cyberterrorism attacks – alone or in conjunction
with physical attacks – are a serious and/or imminent threat (Hinde, 2001; Sofaer &
Goodman, 2001; Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Science, and Research and Development,
2004; PITAC, 2005; Vatis, 2001; Verton, 2003). Meanwhile, other scholars counter that fears
of cyberterrorism are overblown (Giacomello, 2004; Ingles le-Noble, 1999), that serious
cyberterrorism is at least some years from being a reality (Denning, 2000), or that
cyberterrorism discussions tend not to provide a true picture of how the Internet is being used
by so-called “terrorist” groups (Kramer, 2003). Yet governments regularly issue reports on
cyberterrorism and newspapers run headlines like this one: “Cyberterrorism: Is your cash
safe from a nightmare on the net?” (Don, 2004).
Part of the reason for the struggle around terms used to describe cybercrimes, some
authors have asserted (Debrix, 2001; Embar-Seddon, 2002; Schell, 2002; Schell & Martin,
Fear-mongering or fact
2
2004), is their misuse by the news media. A few studies have attempted to document use of
cyber terms in the news media (e.g., Vegh, 2003), but little if any research has explored in
depth what meanings the media are building for the word “cyberterrorism” in the minds of
news consumers. This paper reports on research investigating how use of the term “cyberterrorism” has constructed meanings for audiences in the United Kingdom, the United States,
and Canada. It is based on a quantitative tracking of the use of “cyberterrorism” and a
qualitative content analysis of explicit and implicit definitions of “cyberterrorism” in news
magazine and newspaper stories published from 2001 through 2004.
The purpose of this study is not to take sides in the battle over whether cyberterrorism
is an immediate problem, a future threat, or an overhyped concept. Instead, this paper aims to
define the discourses around these concepts that are being built for citizens and policymakers
by the news media. This work is important because, for better or worse, “the mass media and
popular culture have altered how most Americans [and people of other nationalities] learn
about the world and how the world is run” (Altheide, 2004, p. 304). By laying out how one
portion of the mass media is defining cyberterrorism, this study provides an initial step
toward establishing a typology of terms that could help create a clearer picture of global
cyber crime. Because of legal and cultural differences among nations, it is already difficult
enough to respond to attacks on cyberspace. Disagreement on what is being targeted only
makes the problem more difficult. In addition, this study should provide information on
journalistic use of contested terms that could be of use to both scholars of media literacy and
journalism educators.
Fear-mongering or fact
3
Background: A definitional muddle
One difficulty with the term “cyberterrorism” is rooted in semantic struggles around
“terrorism.” The older word, believed to have been derived from the Latin terrere, “to
tremble” or “to frighten,” and given the French suffix “ism,” came into English as a
descriptor for the regime of bloodshed in the French revolution (Tuman, 2003, p. 2). Since
then, “terrorism” has been used to describe so many situations in which violence was used
for political ends in violation of social norms that “even the simple act of agreeing on a
definition has been politicized” (Ballard et al., 2002, p. 990).
This politicization was particularly evident in journalistic circles in the wake of the
attacks of September 11, 2001, when the Reuters news agency confirmed its longstanding
policy to “avoid the use of emotive terms” (Reuters, 2004, ¶5), including “terrorist,” except
in direct quotations and the BBC asserted that “terrorist” should be employed cautiously.
(Similar concerns have risen again since the July 7, 2005, London bombings.) Some in the
news media have criticized the policies – which would seem to owe more to the traditionally
U.S. journalistic ideal of objectivity (Schudson, 2003, pp. 84-85) than to the British tradition
of an at least somewhat partisan press – saying that they imply too much consideration for
promulgators of violence (LaRocque, 2001; Shying away, 2005; Worthington, 2005).
Reuters, however, has defended its policy as being necessary to protect journalists working
for an operation that reports on all sides of many conflicts (Campbell, 2001; Grande, 2002)
and even asked newspapers in the Canadian CanWest Global Communications group to
remove reporters’ bylines from Reuters stories into which CanWest editors had inserted the
word “terrorist” (Austen, 2004).
Fear-mongering or fact
4
Although no similar journalistic debate appears to have arisen around the word
“cyberterrorism,” neither has a consistent definition of that word emerged. Instead, Ballard et
al. (2002) write, the term generally has been conceptualized in one of three ways: vaguely, as
terrorism that occurs in cyberspace; legally, as those attacks against computers, networks, or
systems that governments have made unlawful; and specifically, incorporating accounts of
specific actions deemed to constitute cyberterrorism. There are several reasons, the authors
state, for this lack of consistency:
First, the operation definition of cyberterrorism changes over time. A
generation in human terms may be 25 years, but in technological time, it may
be only 3 years. The challenge … is not the same for general terrorism studies,
in which for years, the most common tactic has been bombings … . Second,
the choices of what will be included in the definitions, or even in the typology,
are usually based on the personal perspectives of researchers. For example, if
the author of a typology is an expert on hacking, the work he or she promotes
will generally focus on varieties of this activity. (p. 993)
Such explanations make the lack of a consistent definition of “cyberterrorism”
understandable, but they do not make it efficient – at least for those who believe that
cyberterrorism is an immediate threat that must be countered. As Debrix (2001) notes, unless
there is at least general agreement on what cyberterrorism is, there can be no effective
counter-cyberterrorism effort. This consideration would seem to be particularly important
because, as many scholars have pointed out, there is a communicative aspect to the politically
motivated violence commonly labeled “terrorism.” People who engage in such acts not only
seek to kill, maim, or disrupt; they also seek to let the world know that they have done so.
Research by media and peace studies scholars has demonstrated the efficacy of such tactics,
showing generally that media coverage of politically motivated violence can affect public
opinion about it perpetrators and can have an “agenda setting” function. (See, for example,
Weimann, 1990, 2000; Wanta & Hu, 1993.)
Fear-mongering or fact
5
Perhaps just as important, news media use of a hazy or overly broad definition of a
societal problem like cyberterrorism can contribute to the problem by feeding public fears of
the unknown. Debrix (2001) maintains that the media:
[T]errorize the public by shoving in their face images and discourses that
hammer in the presence of an uncertain danger and the need to take desperate
emergency measures. Perversely, the media use against the public the same
type of cyberterrorist weapons they claim to be condemning: data swarming,
information overload, security conspiracies on the Internet … Faced with such
a regime of mediatic terror, there is only one thing the population can and is
encouraged to do: be afraid, be very afraid. (p. 164)
Although most working journalists and some media scholars probably would say that Debrix
overstates the case, it is not unreasonable to assert that in news media coverage of a public
menace, imprecision in terms may tend to aggravate the public’s apprehension. Such fear,
Altheide has found, “plays an important role in the social construction of terrorism” (2004, p.
294), as do definitional issues. After researching mass media coverage of the September 11,
2001, attacks, Altheide concluded that “powerful news definitions and meanings of context
can be consequential if they are pervasive, constant, and, above all, not contradicted by
systematic discussion and debate” (p. 304).
Little work, however, has looked at how “cyberterrorism” has been conceptualized in
the media. The closest research has been a dissertation study (Vegh, 2003) of how the cyber
term “hacker” was used in 627 news articles published in The New York Times, The Wall
Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, and the San Jose (California) Mercury
News between March 2001 and March 2002. Because the September 11, 2001, attacks
occurred in the middle of data collection for that study, the author concentrated on
differences found before and after that point, noting that the number of articles that
conceptualized hacking as an online security issue generally increased somewhat after the
Fear-mongering or fact
6
attacks (p. 257) but that the very small number of hacker stories that dealt with terrorism was
little changed (p. 270).
Research questions
Because of the lack of literature on the use of “cyberterrorism” in the news media,
three research questions were posed:
RQ1: How, if at all, has the frequency of use of “cyberterrorism” changed in the
mainstream U.S., UK, and Canadian print media?
RQ2: Do the mainstream U.S., UK, and Canadian print news media explicitly define
“cyberterrorism” for their audiences? If so, how?
RQ3: What implicit definitions of “cyberterrorism” are constructed by the contextual
use of the term by the mainstream U.S., UK, and Canadian print news media?
Method
This paper is based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses of
articles published in mainstream U.S., UK, and Canadian English-language newspapers and
newsmagazines. First, to offer some evidence of how attention to “cyberterrorism” in the
news media has evolved, the frequency of usage of the word was traced, using the Lexis
Nexis Academic database. Then, a qualitative content analysis was conducted of uses of the
word “cyberterrorism” in 146 articles that appeared from 2001 through 2004 in sixty
mainstream, English-language U.S., U.K., and Canadian newspapers and newsmagazines. 1
1
Publications from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: Belfast News Letter, Belfast
Telegraph, Birmingham Post, Bristol Evening Record, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Independent, Irish
News, The (Newcastle) Journal, New Statesman, The Observer, Scotland on Sunday, The Scotsman, Sunday
Herald (Glasgow), Sunday Times, Western Mail (Cardiff); U.S. publications: Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Chicago Sun-Times, Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, Denver Post, Houston
Chronicle, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, New York Daily News, The New York Times, Newsweek, Oregonian
(Portland, Oregon), Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Post-Gazette, Rocky Mountain News (Denver, Colorado),
Sacramento (California) Bee, San Antonio (Texas) Express-News, San Diego (California) Union-Tribune, San
Francisco Chronicle, St. Louis (Missouri) Post-Dispatch, St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, Minneapolis
Fear-mongering or fact
7
The articles – all those containing “cyberterrorism,” or “cyber-terrorism,” or “cyber
terrorism” in their headlines, titles, or lead paragraphs 2 – were located using the “guided
news search” function of the Lexis Nexis Academic electronic database.3 Searches for the
terms were first done in the general news/major papers and general news/journals and
magazines categories. Then, to increase the number of articles from United Kingdom and
Canadian publications obtained, a similar search was conducted among the world
news/European sources and world news/North American-South American sources. Entries
from publications published outside the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada
were discarded, as were articles from non-news magazines and entries that consisted only of
photo captions, letters to the editor, corrections, or lists of events. Both news and opinion
articles, however, were included in the final sample.
For the quantitative part of the analysis, the numbers of articles from each year were
counted and those that contained explicit definitions of “cyberterrorism” were identified.
Then, in the qualitative analysis, individual uses of the word “cyberterrorism” were coded,
(Minnesota) Star-Tribune, U.S. News & World Report, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington
Post; Canadian publications: Brockville (Ontario) Recorder and Times, Calgary Herald, Daily Miner and
News (Kenora, Ontario), Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Toronto Globe and Mail, The Guardian
(Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island), Hamilton (Ontario) Spectator, Leader-Post (Regina, Saskatchewan),
London (Ontario) Free Press, Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Sun, St. John’s Telegram (Newfoundland), The Standard
(St. Catherine’s, Ontario), Stratford (Ontario) Beacon Herald, The Toronto Star, Vancouver Province,
Vancouver Sun, Windsor (Ontario) Star.
2
Articles that contained “cyberterrorism” in their lead paragraphs, headlines, or titles were considered more
likely to actually focus substantively on cyberterrorism than articles that merely used the term somewhere in
their text.
3
There are limitations to using electronic databases, such as Lexis Nexis Academic, for obtaining the articles
used in a content analysis. First, additions of publications to the database may have occurred during any
sampling period, which might skew results for a researcher interested in the frequency with which some
particular type of article appeared in the database. In addition, it is impossible to know whether some
publications failed to send some content to the database and/or whether articles produced by freelancers were
excluded because of U.S. copyright rulings that say such stories cannot be used in electronic databases without
the freelancers’ permission (Biskupic & Locy, 2001). In the absence of other free and easily obtainable sources
of content, however, electronic databases have become a commonly used tool in content analyses in media
studies (e.g., Shah & Nah, 2004).
Fear-mongering or fact
8
using the “microanalysis” process described by Strauss and Corbin (1998). “Open” and
“axial” coding and the constant comparative method were used to classify definitions and
usages of the term “cyberterrorism” and its orthographical variants. In keeping with the goals
of qualitative research, the aim of this part of the investigation was not to count or
quantitatively code particular usages of “cyberterrorism” but to locate, describe, and analyze
the discourses around cyberterrorism developed by the news media of the three countries.
Findings and discussion
RQ1: Cyberterrorism in the news
A simple tally of the number of articles in mainstream, general-interest, U.S., U.K.,
and Canadian publications that used “cyberterrorism” in headlines or titles or the lead
paragraphs traced a curvelinear pattern. (See chart below.) Frequency rose sharply from
1996, when the Lexis Nexis Academic database first recorded use of “cyberterrorism” in the
headline, title, or lead
Frequency of "cyberterrorism" articles
“major papers” newspaper
index, peaking from 2000 to
2002, then declining. The value
Frequency
paragraphs of an article in its
50
40
30
20
10
0
1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006
Series1
Year
of this finding is limited
because it is impossible to say how much of the pre-2000 increase in stories focusing on
cyberterrorism is the result not of growth of media coverage of the subject but of growth in
the number of publications contributing to Lexis Nexis Academic, which continues to add
new sources. However, it is useful to note that news media interest in cyberterrorism appears
to have been peaked before the attacks of September 11, 2001. That suggests that important
Fear-mongering or fact
9
themes in the news media discourse on cyberterrorism were developing before physical
attacks on New York and Washington took place.
RQ2: Explicit definitions of “cyberterrorism”
Frequency of explicit definitions
Of the 146 articles examined, only seven, or about 5 percent, provided an explicit
definition of “cyberterrorism.” Definitions were missing even from articles that placed the
term in quotation marks, suggesting it might be a created word (Arthur, 2002), or referred to
its “meaning”: “‘Cyberterrorism has a different meaning now,’ says Ruth Wedgewood of the
School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University” (Martin, 2001, p.
9A). Explicit definitions of “cyberterrorism” were more prevalent earlier in the study period,
when fewer news consumers could have been expected to have been exposed to news about
cyberterrorism. Five of the seven definitions found appeared in 2001 articles, all from U.S.
publications, with four of those being published between September 11 and the end of the
year. One definition was found in 2002, in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, and one in 2003,
in the London (Ontario) Free Press. One of the seven definitions appeared in an unsigned
opinion editorial; one – the earliest – was written by an intern, a newcomer to the practice of
journalism; and one was included by a freelance writer.
The low number of explicit definitions could suggest several things. First, it may be
that most journalists did not include formal definitions of “cyberterrorism” because they
believed the word was too common to need defining. Or it could be that most journalists
were unable to concretely define the term and so avoided using formal definitions in their
stories. Finally, it could be that journalists purposively chose not to formally define
“cyberterrorism” because they thought that implicit definitions served readers better. These
Fear-mongering or fact
10
possibilities will be explored further as the content of explicit and implict definitions are
analyzed.
Content of explicit definitions
The seven explicit definitions of “cyberterrorism” found ranged from the short and
rather vague phrase “the most insidious type of terrorism” (Wallace, 2001, p. A1), which
demands that the journalist and reader share a definition of “terrorism,” to a formal legal
definition used by the FBI: “a ‘premeditated, politically motivated attack against information,
computer systems, computer programs and data which results in violence against noncombatant targets by subnational groups of clandestine agents’” (Canton, 2003, p. D11E).
Only that FBI definition and a definition offered in The Guardian, “using computers to
intimidate others to further political or social objectives” (Butcher, 2002, p. 1), mentioned
political motivations, which are normally considered a key part of distinguishing terrorism
occurring outside cyberspace from other crimes. One definition, provided in the Boston
Globe by security consultant Peter Giannacopoulos, suggested that cyberterrorism requires a
“hostile person or group” (Jiang, 2001, p. H2), but none of the other four definitions
mentioned characteristics or attitudes that must be possessed by perpetrators for an action to
be considered cyberterrorism.
Nor did the definitions agree on what type of action constituted cyberterrorism. For
The Guardian, it was enough that the cyber action “intimidate” others in a politically or
socially motivated way (Butcher, 2002, p. 1). For the San Diego Union-Tribune, “attempts to
cripple critical electronic structures” were enough (Berdik, 2001, p. 6), and the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch required only that the actions be “designed” to “disrupt or disable” computer
networks (Web of Terror, 2001, p. B6). The definition offered by Giannacopoulos in the
Fear-mongering or fact
11
Boston Globe required the more active “use” of computers (Jiang, 2001, p. H2), and
Newsweek defined the actions that would constitute cyberterrorism as “assaults” (Now,
weapons of mass disruption?, 2001, p. 76).
There was also considerable variation in what the target of such actions would have to
be to constitute cyberterrorism. Two of the definitions from U.S. publications offered
ethnocentric conceptions: “electronic infrastructure in the United States” (Berdik, 2001, p. 6)
and “the nation’s computer networks” (Web of Terror, 2001, p. B6). Giannacopoulos avoided
that ethnocentrism but focused only on the commercial, “disruption of business or theft of
intellectual property” (Jiang, 2001, p. H2), while Newsweek made the object of
cyberterrorism much more general, defining its target as “anything dependent on or directed
by flows of information” (Now, weapons of mass disruption?, 2001, p. 76).
The clear distinctions among and limitations of these definitions – which, with two
exceptions, 4 were created by journalists – suggest that the most likely reason for a paucity of
definitions of “cyberterrorism” is that the journalists who help shape citizens’ opinions on
cyber policy are not merely divided, as scholars are (Ballard et al., 2002), about what the
term constitutes but unsure or, perhaps, misinformed. This is worrisome because, as the next
section will demonstrate, even when journalists avoid formal definitions of cyberspace terms,
they nonetheless construct meanings for their audiences through their choices of words and
examples.
4
The FBI definition of “cyberterrorism” cited by The Guardian and the definition offered in direction-quotation
style by security consultant Peter Giannacopoulos in the Boston Globe.
Fear-mongering or fact
12
RQ3: Making meaning through implicit definitions
Qualitative analysis, using open and axial coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) of the
contexts in which “cyberterrorism” was used in the 146 news and opinion articles that
formed the sample for this study, revealed that news accounts of cyberterrorism construct
meaning implicitly in two major ways:
„ By associating cyberterrorism with or distinguishing it from other real-world
and cyber-world concepts
„ By locating cyberterrorism along a likelihood-of-occurrence continuum
These methods of meaning construction are explained in the following sections.
The power of association
Links in the articles between the word “cyberterrorism” and other online and offline
concepts created meanings that told two contrasting stories. The first discourse suggested that
cyberterrorism is linked to computer viruses, cybercrime, and “hackers,” a term that
encompasses people ranging from those who enjoy “learning the details of computer systems
and how to stretch their capabilities to a malicious or inquisitive meddler who tries to
discover information by deceptive or illegal means” (Schell & Martin, 2004, p. 1). In some
instances, these associations were open to interpretation. For example, when The Scotsman
reported in 2001 that Britain’s Terrorism Act would target “computer hackers who use
‘cyber-terrorism,’” (Percival, 2001, p. 2) it used a construction that might be read to suggest
that the act was aimed only at hackers who are also cyberterrorists, not also the so-called
“White Hat” hackers, who “maintain that they are motivated by created exploits … including
the quest for knowledge or the need to find intrusion flaws by breaking into a computer
system with authorization” (Schell & Martin, 2004, p. 2).
Fear-mongering or fact
13
Other associations were less ambiguous. In 2001, for example, The Guardian used
appositional sentence structure to equate “cyberterrorism” with hacking: “If you believe
Robin Cook, the main threat we face from computers is ‘hacking’. Cyber-terrorism, he
warned his parliamentary colleagues, can ‘cripple Britain faster than a military strike’”
(Sutherland, 2001, 9). The San Antonio (Texas) Express-News set up a similar association
between cyberterrorism and hacking in 2002 when it used the headline “Cyber terrorism:
another grave issue” over an editorial that began, “Attempts to hack into computer systems
on which the Express-News, UTSA [the University of Texas at San Antonio] and other
organizations and agencies rely are common” (p. 2G). That editorial conceded that such
efforts are “usually the work of so-called ‘script kiddies,’ young hackers with too much time
on their keyboard-friendly hands and too much mischief in their computer-savvy heads” (p.
2G) – hardly a description of cyberterrorists. Most bizarrely, perhaps, the Boston Herald
linked cyberterrorism with attacks resulting from an apparent fetish expressed online:
A New York assistant principal who posed as a Boston University coed
obsessed with watching young men get tickled must serve six months in a
halfway house for cyberterrorism, a federal judge ruled yesterday. David
D’Amato, a balding, 40-year-old who begins law school next month at
Fordham, stood and apologized in federal court to his parents and to the
Internet users whom he attacked online after they refused to provide him with
more videos of tickling. (‘Territickle’ gets 6 months, 2001, p. 17.)
Just the opposite story – that cyberterrorism is distinct from hacking and other kinds
of cybercrime – was also told. Often, these distinctions were subtle, as when the Calgary
(Alberta) Herald described a program to “combat the threat of cyberterrorism and other
cybercrime” (Gray, 2002, p. B5), The Washington Post wrote that an alert system would be
“a clearinghouse of information on hacking, viruses, worms and cyberterrorism” (Krim &
Musgrove, 2004, p. E5), and The Birmingham (England) Post noted that “the threat of cyber-
Fear-mongering or fact
14
terrorism [was] being added rapidly to the increasing impact of email viruses and hacker
intrusions” (E-business, 2003, p. 23). By mentioning each of these cyber problems separately
in a list that did not make any of the words appositives of or subordinate to another, the
newspapers emphasized the distinctions among the meanings of the words, rather than the
associations of the concepts. Other constructions, however, made the distinction even plainer,
as when a Minneapolis Star-Tribune reporter wrote, “what the world has seen instead of
cyberterrorism is a continuation of cybervandalism by hackers” (Alexander, 2003, p. 1D), a
phrase that separated the cybercrime of cyberterrorism from the cybermisdemeanor of
vandalism.
It is interesting to note that although discourses that emphasized distinctions among
cybercrime concepts were present in each of the years studied, associations between the word
“cyberterrorism” and “hackers” were not present in the twenty-two articles analyzed from
2004. This may indicate that journalists’ understandings of “cyberterrorism” are shifting to
see it as distinct from other types of cybercrime or online mischief making.
Likelihood-of-occurrence continuum
Authors of the articles analyzed also created implicit definitions of “cyberterrorism”
by giving readers four distinct types of cues about how likely cyberterrorism was to occur.
These could be arranged along what might be called a likelihood-of-occurrence continuum.
At what might be conceptualized as the far left-hand side of the continuum, some articles
asserted the existence of acts of cyberterrorism. For example, The Guardian reported in 2001
that 32 percent of senior personnel in the Communications Management Association
“admitted being the victim of cyber-terrorism” (Hopkins, p. 1), and The Gazette of Montreal
invited readers to “enter the world of cyberterrorism. And if you think it exists only in
Fear-mongering or fact
15
Hollywood or virtual reality, that by hitting the ‘off’ switch on your computer you can get rid
of it, think again” (Sevunts, 2002, p. C1).
The discourse of cyberterrorism existing in the past or present was far less
representative, however, of the discussion overall than the discourse built around the next
point on the likelihood-of-occurrence continuum: the notion that cyberterrorism was an
imminent or growing threat. Articles throughout this collection echoed the idea, saying that
cyberterrorism was “a growing threat” (Kosseff, 2001, p. C01) or “realistic possibility”
(Harnden, 2002, p. A9) “that could reach any company” (Sherman, 2001, p. 68C),
represented “potential devastation” (Gast, 2001, p. 7P), made the United States “highly
vulnerable” (Toner, 2001, 4A), had been “upgraded from a Hollywood-type futuristic
scenario to a real concern” (Sevunts, 2002, p. C1). It would “bring the Internet down for at
least a day or two in the coming year” (Jamieson, 2002, p. A82), “might prove attractive to
[Iraqi] extremist groups” (Rojas, 2003, p. 27), and could be “aimed at networks that control
energy, water and other critical services (Krim, 2004, p. E02).
This litany of possible threats created an implicit definition of “cyberterrorism” for
readers as something that, though not already among us, was so likely that fear was
warranted. In fact, the “cyber attack-as-imminent threat” discourse may have created a
scarier definition of “cyberterrorism” than was implicit in articles that suggested that
cyberterrorism had already occurred. Language used in connection with defining
cyberterrorism as a growing but not yet real threat – “devastating,” “aimed,” “vulnerable” –
may have left a more frightening impression than would have the suggestion that
cyberterrorism, though already a fact, is survivable.
Fear-mongering or fact
16
Moving further right on the cyberterrorism-occurrence continuum, one encountered a
discourse that defined “cyberterrorism” as something that has not (yet) occurred. Generally,
this discourse asserted that there had been no verifiable cyberterrorist attacks but left open
some possibility that such attacks might occur. For example, Alexander (2003) noted in the
Minneapolis Star-Tribune that “Symantec Corp., a computer security firm, won’t rule out
cyberterrorism, but say they’ve never seen anything remotely like it” (p. 1D).
At the far right of the likelihood-of-occurrence continuum was discourse that
suggested that not only had cyberterrorism not occurred but that concerns about it also had
been overhyped. Somewhat surprisingly, this line of thought was evident even before and
immediately after the physical attacks of September 11, 2001. In the 2001 articles analyzed,
however, assertions that concerns over cyberterrorism were overblown were always
attributed to experts, as in this sentence from the Denver Post: “ ‘All the hype in the media
about cyberterrorism and viruses is distracting network executives away from the real threat,
which is their own employees,’ said Bob Forbes, vice president at Authentor Systems Inc., a
security software firm in Denver” (Beauprez, 2001, p. E-01).
In 2002 through 2004, however, assertions that cyberterrorism fears may have been
overplayed moved into parts of articles that were not direct quotations from sources. For
example, the lead paragraph of a 2002 San Francisco Chronicle article asserted that many
experts were “skeptical about the overall menace of cyber-terrorism” (Wallace, 2002, p.
A11) – even though the author of the article had called cyberterrorism “the most insidious
type of terrorism” (Wallace, 2001, p. A1) less than a year earlier. A 2003 Globe and Mail
column went further, stating as fact – without reference to an expert source – that “there were
only 10 documented cyberattacks on U.S. and British targets on Feb. 17 [2003], the day of
Fear-mongering or fact
17
massive worldwide anti-war protests that many security people warned would also be a nice
day for cyberterrorism” (Kapica, 2003).
A model of cyberterrorism coverage
Development of the four discourses lying along the likelihood-of-occurrence
continuum described above – cyberterrorism is a reality, cyberterrorism is likely threat,
cyberterrorism has never happened (yet), or cyberterrorism concerns have been overblown –
was aided, in part, by what might be conceptualized as “supporting actors”: accounts of
specific threats, fears, protections, expertise, and characteristics associated with one of the
conceptions of cyberterrorism. For example, the creation of an implicit definition of
cyberterrorism as a growing and impending threat was aided by descriptions of fears of
cyberterrorism, defenses against cyberterrorism, and the need for experts to study how to
thwart terrorism. Not all of these supporting accounts were available in each article; in fact,
most articles contained only one, two, or a few characteristics associated with the article’s
particular conception of the likelihood of a cyber attack. However, close readings of all 146
articles in the sample together suggested that a model of cyberterrorism coverage (see Table
1) could be developed by looking at how the supporting themes emerging from the articles’
conceptualizations of cyberterrorism related to the larger issue of the likelihood of a cyber
attack.
Table 1 – Cyberterrorism coverage model
Reality
Likely threat
Never happened
Overhyped
Fear is expected and justified
Terrorists lack the needed tech skills
Defense and protection are key concepts
Cyberterrorism is less effective than bombs
Civil liberties should
Awareness is important
be preserved
Experts are needed
Fear-mongering or fact
18
On the left side of the model, where one would find articles in which cyberterrorism
is implicitly defined as a reality or a likely threat, it is logical to also place articles that
contain fear appeals, such as descriptions of “growing fears about the threat of
cyberterrorism” (Hopkins, 2001, p. 1). To balance the fear appeals inherent in this discourse,
accounts of defense are important. So coverage includes battlefield language, such as “fight
against terrorism” (Miller, 2002, p. 4E) and “a strategy for combating cyberterrorism”
(Nairn, 2003, p. 10) and accounts of efforts to fight the threat, such as grants to universities
for anti-terrorism research (Spice, 2002, A-1; Argetsinger, 2002, A12).
On the near right side of the continuum, where articles implicitly define
cyberterrorism as something that has not occurred – and, thus, is not of imminent risk – or is
overhyped, there appears to be a need to offer justification for this stance. Two reasons were
most often offered in the articles considered here. First, there may be a “lack of technical
skill in potential terrorist nations” (Alexander, 2003, 1D). Second, cyberterrorism may not
appeal to the aims of those people whom we popularly call terrorists. As the Boston Globe
put it: “[C]yberterrorism lacks a certain something – namely, terror. ‘I know what terrorism
is,’ said Bruce Schneier of Counterpane Internet Security Inc. ‘It’s when a school bus blows
up or an airplane flies into a building. When I can’t get my e-mail, that’s not terrorism’”
(Bray, 2003, B11).
Underlying this two-sided model, but overlapping the division between the
reality/likely threat vs. never happened/overhyped sides, are descriptions from the articles of
about how news consumers should react to cyberterrorism. On the left side is represented the
need, in a threatening situation, to evoke expertise, which helped produce lead paragraphs
Fear-mongering or fact
19
like: “A Calgary computer security expert is helping Canadians protect themselves from
cyberterrorism while keeping an eye on electronic privacy” (Gray, 2002, p. B5). Awareness
extends underneath three of the topmost categories because it was invoked as important to
protect computer security whether cyberterrorism was a likely threat (Lessons to be learned,
2001, p. A10; Schwartz, 2002, C1) or only a dim prospect (Mackintosh, 2003, p. 4). As the
small amount of space given to civil liberties in the model indicates, the articles that
considered them (e.g., Butcher, 2002) were not representative of the collection overall.
However, inclusion in some stories of discussion of whether civil liberties might be trampled
in the rush to thwart an over-hyped cyberterrorism threat provides a counterweight to the left
side of the model, where relief from the “threat” of cyberterrorism is sought, in the form of
expert advice.
Because this model was derived from a particular collection of articles, it should not
be expected to be indicative of every group of articles on cyberterrorism, though the model
could very well prove useful in further study of diffusion of contested ideas in the
mainstream news media. It also offers a starting point for looking differently at
cyberterrorism. It suggests that the essential problem with using the word “cyberterrorism” is
bound up in whether cyberterrorism occurs – or occurs “enough” – to be seen as an important
problem.
Conclusions and ideas for future research
This work set out to determine how news media in Canada, the United Kingdom, and
the United States had conceptualized for news consumers and citizens the term
“cyberterrorism,” which is a source of conflict in industry, government, and the academy.
The research showed that definitions of “cyberterrorism,” already being developed in the
Fear-mongering or fact
20
news media before September 11, 2001, were rarely explicitly expressed and, when they
were, varied widely. In some ways, this is not surprising, given what Ballard et al. (2002)
pointed out about definitions of “cyberterrorism” among scholars: that they tended to lag
behind developments in the cyber world and reflect scholars’ particular areas of expertise.
Imagine how those factors might be multiplied for journalists. Any given journalist’s
coverage responsibilities may extend so far beyond cyberterrorism that he or she would be
very hard-pressed to notice the developments in a rapidly changing field that even scholars
might miss. Journalists might also find themselves grasping to use in defining
“cyberterrorism” the terms they know, just as scholars who are experts on hacking, Ballard et
al. (2002) say, tend to create typologies of cyberterrorism that are overly focused on hacking.
So the more important question became: How did the news media build implicit
definitions of “cyberterrorism,” those embedded in the contexts in which the term was used?
The answer is that implicit definitions mirrored the disagreement in the academy and
industry. Implicit definitions began by associating with “cyberterrorism” a variety of online
and physical-world concepts that produced oppositional meanings for the word, as either
related to or distinct from other types of cybercrime and cyber mischief. Implied definitions
also owed much to conceptualizations of how likely cyberterrorism was to occur. They took
that crucial area of disagreement, then crafted four conflicting stories about those threats,
weaving in supporting themes of fear, threats, the need for expert advice, calls for awareness,
and calls for the support of civil liberties.
This work shares the limitations of all content analysis: It can tell us what the mass
media appear to have done, but it can only guess at what the effect those choices might have
on audiences. Although there has been considerable research on the effect of media reports of
Fear-mongering or fact
21
terrorism on audiences, there has been little, if any, research on how audiences perceive
potential terrorism risks or how they respond to confusion of terminology in the news media.
Future research also might profitably consider a larger number of articles, starting with
earlier dates, to allow for tracing of the development of news media definitions of
“cyberterrorism.”
The research suggests that we are still far from universal agreement on the meaning
of “cyberterrorism,” and so are far from knowing how to respond to it or defend against it.
The limitations of the research tend to suggest that much more study needs to be done before
we know how disjointed the definitions and interpretations are, and thus how much progress
needs to be made toward an effective defense structure.
Fear-mongering or fact
22
References
Alexander, S. (2003, February 13). The cyberterror scare. Star Tribune, p. 1D.
Altheide, D. (2002). Creating fear: News and the construction of crisis. New Brunswick, NJ:
Transaction.
Altheide, D. (2002). Consuming terrorism. Symbolic Interaction 27 (3), 289-308.
Argetsinger, A. (2002, May 15). Va. Colleges get funding to help fight cyber-terror; GMU
and JMU awarded $6.5 million U.S. grant. The Washington Post, p. A12.
Arthur, C. (2002, December 21). DJ wrote virus that hit 27,000 computers. Financial Times,
no page number.
Austen, I. (2004, September 20). Reuters asks a chain to remove its bylines. The New York
Times, p. 9.
Ballard, J. D.; Hornik, J. G.; and McKenzie, D. (2002). Technological facilitation of
terrorism. American Behavioral Scientist 45 (6), 989-1016).
Beauprez, J. (2001, November 5). Computer threats lurk inside and out; Layoffs raise
hacking fears. Denver Post, p. E-01.
Berdik, C. (2001, August 28). Hacktivism: Hackers-activists push their causes using
technology. San Diego Union-Tribune, p. 6.
Biskupic, J., & Locy, T. (2001, June 26). High court sides with writers Says publishers must
pay authors for articles put into databases. USA Today, p. 3A.
Bray, H. (2003, March 24). Cutting through cyberterror hype. The Boston Globe, p. B11.
Butcher, M. (2002, December 5). Online: Cyber hype: Cyberterrorism is giving governments
an opportunity to curb civil liberties, but is it really a lethal weapon? The Guardian,
p. 1.
Campbell, K. (2001, September 27). When is ‘terrorist’ a subjective term? Christian Science
Monitor, p. 16.
Canton, D. (2003, April 25). Cyber attacks a concern. London (Ontario) Free Press, p. D11E.
Conway, M. (2002, November). Reality bytes: Cyberterrorism and terrorist ‘use’ of the
Internet. First Monday 7 (11) Retrieved August 5, 2005, from
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_11/conway/index.html
Fear-mongering or fact
23
Debrix, F. (2001). Cyberterror and media-induced fears: The production of emergency
culture. Strategies: Journal of Theory, Culture & Politics 14 (1), 149-168.
Denning, D. E. (2000, May 23). Cyberterrorism: Testimony before the Special Oversight
Panel on Terrorism Committee on Armed Services U.S. House of Representatives.
Available at http://www.cs.georgetown.edu/~denning/infosec/cyberterror.html
Don, A. (2004, June 6). Cash: Cyberterrorism: Is your cash safe from a nightmare on the net?
The Observer, p. 7.
Dunnigan, J. F. (2002). The next war zone: Confronting the global threat of cyberterrorism.
New York: Kensington Publishing Corp.
E-business: Wake-up call over online security. (2003, February 4). Birmingham Post, p. 23.
Embar-Seddon, A. (2002). Cyberterrorism: Are we under siege? American Behavioral
Scientist 45 (6), 1033-1043.
Gast, S. (2001, November 4). Q&A: As computers proliferate, terrorists find more targets.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, p. 7P.
Giacomello, G. (2004). Bangs for the buck: A cost-benefit analysis of cyberterrorism. Studies
in Conflict & Terrorism 27, 387-408.
Grande, C. (2002, September 18). Reuters learns to face its public. Financial Times, p. 15.
Harnden, T. (2002, June 28). Al-Qaeda plans cyber attacks on dams: Terrorists studying
switching systems for water, power grids. Ottawa Citizen, p. A9.
Hinde, S. (2001). Incalculable potential for damage by cyber-terrorism. Computers &
Security 20, 568-572.
Hopkins, N. (2001, April 3). Cyber terror threatens UK’s biggest companies. The Guardian,
p. 1.
Ingles le-Noble, J. J. (1999, October 21). Cyberterrorism hype. Jane’s Intelligence Review.
Retrieved August 7, 2005, from
http://212.111.49.124/cyberterror/resources/janes/jir0525.htm
Jamieson, J. (2002, December 26). Internet a terror target: Invasion of Iraq would galvanize
malicious hackers, expert says. The Vancouver Province, p. A82.
Jiang, J. (2001, December 30). Job explainer: Security consultant. The Boston Globe, p. H2.
Kapica, J. (2003, March 6). Cyberwar, what is it good for? Virtually nuthin’. Globe and
Mail, no page number available.
Fear-mongering or fact
24
Kramer, R. (2002/2003). Internet use by terrorists and content analysis of terrorist Websites.
Master’s thesis, University College, London).
Kosseff, J. (2001, September 26). Experts raise cyberterrorism awareness. The Oregonian, p.
C01.
Krim, J. (2004, April 2). U.S. goals solicited on software security; Task force suggests
limited regulation. The Washington Post, p. E02.
Krim, J., and Musgrove, M. (2004, January 29). U.S. takes anti-virus role; Web site to track
cyber-attacks, advise consumers. The Washington Post, p. E05.
LaRocque, P. (2001, December). Fighting the word war. Quill magazine, p. 46.
Mackintosh, H. (2003, February 20). Working it out: Dot bomb. The Guardian, 4.
Martin, S. T. (2001, September 23). Searching for terrorists? Check U.S., Canada. St.
Petersburg Times, p. 9A.
Nairn, G. (2003, March 12). Seeking safety nets in an unsafe world. Financial Times, p. 10.
Nakashima, E. (2001, July 11). Specialist accuses Bush of ignoring ‘talent drain.’ The
Washington Post, p. A17.
National Infrastructure Protection Center. (2001). Cyberprotests: The threat to the U.S.
information infrastructure. Retrieved August 5, 2005, from
http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/websites/unt/nipc/www.nipc.gov/publications/nipcp
ub/cyberprotests.html
Now, weapons of mass disruption? (2001, October 29). Newsweek, p. 76.
Percival, J. (2001, February 20). Straw defends extended anti-terror legislation. The
Scotsman, p. 2.
Perlstein, G. R. (1986, November). The changing face of terrorism: From regicide to
homicide. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology
30 (3) 187-193.
President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee. (2005) Cybersecurity: A crisis of
prioritization. Retrieved August 7, 2005, from
http://www.nitrd.gov/pitac/reports/20050301_cybersecurity/cybersecurity.pdf
Reuters. (2004, October). Editorial policy. Retrieved August 15, 2005, from
http://about.reuters.com/aboutus/editorial.
Rojas, P. (2003, April 24). Online: The paranoia paid off. The Guardian, p. 27.
Fear-mongering or fact
25
Schell, B. H. (2002). The hacking of America: Who’s doing it, why, and how. Westport, CT:
Quorum.
Schell, B. H., & Martin, C. (2004). Cybercrime: A reference handbook. Santa Barbara, CA:
ABC/CLIO.
Schudson, M. (2003). The sociology of news. New York: W.W. Norton.
Sevunts, L. (2002). Cause for concern: experts. The Gazette, p. C1.
Shah, H., & Nah, S. (2004). Long ago and far away. Journalism 5 (3), 259-278.
Sherman, E. (2001, October 15). Terror’s next target? Newsweek, 68C.
Shying away from the ‘T’ word. (2000, July 17). The Boston Herald, p. 22.
Sofaer, A., & Goodman, S. E. (2001). Cybercrime and security: The transnational dimension.
In Sofaer, Abraham, & Goodman, Seymour E., Eds., The transnational dimension of
cyber crime and terrorism, pp. 1-34. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press.
Spice, B. (2002, October 8). CMU taking a leading role in war against cyberterrorism.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, p. A-1.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures
for developing grounded theory, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Science, and Research and Development of the U.S. House
of Representatives Select Committee on Homeland Security. (2004, December).
Cybersecurity for the homeland.
Sutherland, J. (2001, April 16). Forget pornography and hackers – gambling is the real
danger on the net. The Guardian, p. 9.
‘Territickle’ gets 6 months. (2001, July 17). The Boston Herald, p. 17.
Toner, M. (2001, November 4). Cyberterrorism danger lurking. Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
p. 4A.
Tuman, J. S. (2003). Communicating terror: The rhetorical dimensions of terrorism.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Vatis, M. A. (2001, September 22). Cyberattacks during the war on terrorism: A predictive
analysis. Report issued by the Institute for Security Technology Studies at Dartmouth
College. Retrieved August 7, 2005, from
http://www.ists.dartmouth.edu/analysis/cyber_a1.pdf
Fear-mongering or fact
26
Vegh, S. (2003). Hacking for democracy: A study of the Internet as a political force and its
representation in the mainstream media. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland.
Verton, D. (2003). Black ice: The invisible threat of cyber- terrorism. New York: McGrawHill Osborne Media.
Wallace, B. (2001, November 12). Next major attack could be over Net. The San Francisco
Chronicle, A1.
Wallace, B. (2002, June 30). Security analysts dismiss fears of terrorist hackers; electricity,
water systems hard to damage online. San Francisco Chronicle, p. A11.
Wanta, W., & Hu, Y. (1993). The agenda-setting effects of international news coverage: An
examination of differing news frames. International Journal of Public Opinion
Research 5 (3), 250-262.
Web of terror. (2001, October 12). St. Louis Post-Dispatch, p. B6.
Weimann, G. (2000). Terrorism as theater: Mass media and redefinition of image. In Hanna
Herzog and Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Eds., Language and communication in Israel, pp.
497-515. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Weimann, G. (2004, December). Cyberterrorism: How real is the threat? Washington:
United States Institute of Peace. Retrieved August 5, 2005, from
http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr119.html
Worthington, P. (2005, July 25). This is war – so pick sides. The Toronto Star, p. 7.