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Cyberthreats in Popular Visual Culture

Publication date: 07.12.2018

The Polish Journal of the Arts and Culture. New Series, 2018, 7 (1/2018), pp. 7 - 28

https://doi.org/10.4467/24506249PJ.18.001.9775

Authors

,
Myriam Dunn Cavelty
the Center for Security Studies, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (Zurich, Switzerland)
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Lorretta Holloway
Enrollment and Student Development, Framingham State University (Framingham, USA)
All publications →

Titles

Cyberthreats in Popular Visual Culture

Abstract

This paper focuses on how cyberthreats have been represented in popular visual culture (Western and Asian). These cultural products are an interesting site where the technical and the political effects of cyberthreats are presented together, giving them a particular weight and place in the discourse. The paper discusses three dominant representations (machine out-of-control, computers used as weapons, and amassing or withholding of data as threat) and then identifies three commonalities between them. The first concerns the surprising “passivity” of technology, making the human the main problem in this story, the second is the importance of non-virtual geography, turning machines into mere additions of normal human life, and the third concerns the normalization of the threat through time. Cyberthreats are part of our lives now and they are so deeply embedded, they cannot be separated from them anymore.

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Information

Information: The Polish Journal of the Arts and Culture. New Series, 2018, 7 (1/2018), pp. 7 - 28

Article type: Original article

Titles:

English:

Cyberthreats in Popular Visual Culture

Polish:

Cyberthreats in Popular Visual Culture

Authors

the Center for Security Studies, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (Zurich, Switzerland)

Enrollment and Student Development, Framingham State University (Framingham, USA)

Published at: 07.12.2018

Article status: Open

Licence: CC BY-NC-ND  licence icon

Percentage share of authors:

Myriam Dunn Cavelty (Author) - 50%
Lorretta Holloway (Author) - 50%

Article corrections:

-

Publication languages:

English

View count: 2014

Number of downloads: 1347

<p> Cyberthreats in Popular Visual Culture</p>