A Case-Study on American Perspectives on Cyber and Security

In 2009, the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 was introduced to U.S. Congress while the media were reporting about China's role in the Ghostnet-network. In 2010, WikiLeaks and selected newspapers published confidential documents, stirring up a cybersecurity debate. This article discusses these narratives in the context of securitization. The methodology consists of linguistic theory, namely the systemic functional language theory, and the securitization theory of the Copenhagen School. The analysis realizes as examination of the structures and evaluations of the action descriptions referring to the threat. As a result we can see that cyber discourse is a synonym to threat discourse. The agenda of cyber discourse is not purely about security, but is a reflection of the battle over cyber authority and the question of its status as a battle space.