DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF SECURITIZATION IN CYBER SPACE

Abstract

Theories of secuitization have an immense influence over the understanding of the discourse of (in)security of cyber space. The securitization theory founded within the „Copengagen school„ defines securitization in the frame of socially constructed and context defined speech acts. The use of speech acts related to security and defining security allows the speakers and institutions to define and act upon the security threats and perception of threats. The securitization theory defines three key elements of the process: the actor or the agent of the securitization process (the individual of the group perfroming the speech act), the act of securitization (the discourse of the existential threat) and the object of securitization (the entity existentially threatened, usually the state/society). The end result of the process is the securitization as such, meaning the transfer of the act from one domain (e.g. politics or technology) to another domain (e.g. security, regulation, legal framework). The securitization of cyber space became a priority in the last two decades as an add-on to the cinetic nature of conflicts. The concept of discourse of securitization in cyver space defines three main sub-discourses: the discourse of technical and software threats based on metaphors linked with biology and diseases, the discourse of cyber criminal and terrorism and the discourse of cyber warfare linked with metaphors of conflict and war. The securitization of cyber space and representation of cyber threats has been successfull in using strong metaphors on diseases, sickness, medicine, criminal and warfare effectively representing as a security threat an abstract and technological area which was prior to securitization limited to a small circle of computer experts. The effective securitization speech acts have contributed to creation of conditions for governmental interventions in an area which has not been perceived as a security threat before. In the case of cyber security we can not only talk about securitization but rather hypersecuritization – an extensively extended securitization process with a tendency to overemphasize and reinforce threats so as to introduce new countermeasures, limitations, control and surveiliance.