MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Hollywood has long specialized in the use of fear as a way to engage and entertain its audiences. One of the most recent uses of fear as a way to draw in the public has been to offer stories that focus on a Cyberterrorist attack. Even though this kind of attack has not yet occurred, there have been other kinds of “cybercrimes” against individuals and companies that have taken place via the Internet, including identity theft and copyright infringements. As a result of these concerns, there has been an increasing effort on the part of government and the media to build up defenses against these potential attacks and to create regulations to thwart the potential crimes that could occur. This paper will explore how cybercrimes and cyberterrorism have been portrayed in recent films. We will first describe some of the key films that have been made from the early 1980s through now which help form this relatively new genre, and look at some of the common themes in these films. We will then focus on the narratives of two conventional Hollywood thrillers, one from the Bond franchise, “Skyfall,”and the other from the “Bourne Legacy,” trilogy. We will look at how they tap into contemporary fears about nationalism, technology, governmental threats to our personal freedoms as well as the fear, more generally, of the ease with which criminals can wreak havoc on our infrastructures. We will ask to what extent these representations are realistic, whether they refer to real events, and ask how they affect the public’s perceptions about cyberterrorism. In the second part of our presentation, we will ask whether there is a place for film and television to instead support a different way of understanding potential cyberthreats, and to act as a form of “edutainment,” or “securitainment,” that is, to help educate the public about appropriate strategies and responses to deal with potential threats?