The cyber-doom effect: The impact of fear appeals in the US cyber security debate
Sean T. Lawson, Sara K. Yeo, Haoran Yu, Ethan Greene · 2016
In the US cyber security debate, observers have noted there is a tendency for policymakers, military leaders, and media, among others, to use frightening ‘cyber-doom scenarios’ when making the case for action on cyber security (Dunn Cavelty, 2008, p. 2). Some have conjectured that these fictional cyber-doom scenarios, which exemplify ‘fear appeals’ in communication research, have the potential to undermine productive debate aimed at addressing genuine cyber security challenges (Valeriano and Ryan, 2015, pp. 7, 196). Yet, few have directly investigated the impacts of such rhetoric. Here, we assess the impact of cyber-doom scenarios by contextualising them within existing scholarship on the impact of fear appeals, a well-studied phenomenon in communication science. First, we review qualitative and quantitative research on fear appeals and their effects. Next, we report results of an empirical study that takes advantage of a nationally televised docudrama depicting a hypothetical cyber-doom scenario. Through content analysis of real-time responses to this docudrama on the social media platform Twitter, we assess the effects of this particular cyber-doom scenario on a large audience. Our findings suggest that the use of such extreme fear appeals in the absence of clearly communicated and efficacious information about how to respond to the threat is counterproductive, as they can lead to a sense of fatalism and demotivation to act. Thus, concerns that the use of cyber-doom scenarios could impair efforts to motivate appropriate policy responses to genuine cyber security threats are warranted.