Send us a text

In this episode, Dr Simon McKenzie talks with Julia Sluspka about how the metaphors we use to understand cyberspace impact on how we imagine it should be regulated. They discuss the ways in which the conceptualisation of cyberspace is contested. Is it like spatial territory? Are states engaged in cyber war? Or is it like an ecosystem, or infrastructure? The metaphor we adopt frames the problems we see and the solutions we arrive at. 

Julia Slupska is a doctoral student at the Centre for Doctoral Training in Cybersecurity and the Oxford Internet Institute. Her research focuses on technologically-mediated abuse like image-based sexual abuse ('revenge porn') and stalking, as well as emotion, care and metaphors in cybersecurity. 

Further reading

• Julia Slupska, 'War, Health and Ecosystem: Generative Metaphors in Cybersecurity Governance', Philosophy & Technology (2020).
• Julia Slupska, 'Safe at Home: Towards a Feminist Critique of Cybersecurity' in Whose Security is Cybersecurity? Authority, Responsibility and Power in Cyberspace (St. Anthony's International Review 2019 no. 15)
• George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (1980, University of Chicago Press).
• Dominik Lukeš, 'Hacking a metaphor in five steps', Metaphor Hacker (July 18 2010).
• Florian Eggloff, 'Cybersecurity and the Age of Privateering: A Historical Analogy', Cyber Studies Working Paper No. 1 (March 2015, University of Oxford)
• Donald Schön  'Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy' in Ortony, A. (Ed.) Metaphor and Thought (1993, 2nd ed, Cambridge University Press).
• Mariarosaria Taddeo, 'On the Risks of Relying on Analogies to Understand Cyber Conflicts' (2016) 26 Minds and Machines 317-321.
• Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (2nd ed., 2014, University of California Press).
• Karen Levy and Bruce Schneier, 'Privacy threats in intimate relationships' 6(1) Journal of Cybersecurity (2020).
• Cornell Tech Univerisity Project on Computer Security and Privacy for Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence
• Katherine Miller, James Shires, Tatiana Tropina, Gender Approaches to Cybersecurity(2021, UNIDIR)