Qi Zhu
Professor: Matthew Tinkcom and Jeanine Turner
Introduction to Communication, Culture and Technology
December 12, 2015
Final Reflective Essay
In the era of the information revolution, more conflicts are emerging. Among them, cyber security is one of the main issues many states confronted with. As two key actors, the U.S. and China should cooperate to strengthen the security and resilience of cyberspace. It is better for the two countries to reach a consensus and cooperate to remedy the problem of cyber security.
P ROBLEM :
Different perception can be one of the main reasons to trigger some communication inefficiency between the
U.S. and China in this issue. So we can assume that the U.S. and China have the different understanding on cyber security. Zachary Goldman clarified the differences between two countries and quoted “In Washington, cybersecurity is fundamentally about preventing unauthorized access to digital systems and, notwithstanding massive foreign hacking of US government databases, mainly focuses on protecting private-sector data as well as critical infrastructure. In Beijing, cybersecurity is essentially state-centric, safeguarding against digitally enabled threats to the regime, internal and external.” 1 This essay will discuss the problem in law aspect
(Professor Jones’ lecture) and communication aspect (Professor Bode’s lecture).
R ESEARCH Q UESTIONS
1
Differing outlooks impede Sino-US cooperation to enhance cybersecurity. (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2015, from http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1846146/differing-outlooks-impede-sino-us-cooperation-enhance

1.
How do the U.S. and China attempt to regulate cyber security in different ways?
2.
How can social media narrow the perception gap in terms of cyber security?
M ETHODOLOGY T OWARDS R ESEARCH Q UESTION O NE : C ONTENT A NALYSIS
Sample size is all cybersecurity-related laws and regulation of the U.S. and China after 2010. After similar codes being grouped together, conceptual labels should be established based on Zachary Goldman’s theory mentioned before, analysis can focus on two main aspects: surveillance (different measures to punish) and purpose of espionage (commercial purposes and espionage for political or military objectives) 2 . Building a coding frame, based on the main to take a subset of the data, and to generate the coding frame from that. For avoiding the bother of transcription, several coders are working together to complete the code sheet.
A NSWER
If there were no significant content differences in legislations, we can recognize that the U.S. and China have the similar understanding on cybersecurity. Thus, scholars should consider other reasons for little prospect for progress in US-China cyber-dialogue.
2
Differing outlooks impede Sino-US cooperation to enhance cybersecurity. (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2015, from http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1846146/differing-outlooks-impede-sino-us-cooperation-enhance

If legislations have the different highlights, scholars can invite other less ambiguity terms to substitute the term of cybersecurity. And the overlapping content such as individual privacy provides a kernel of hope that the U.S. and China might be able to cooperate at beginning step.
3
However, some might be missing as a result of this approach. We consider the problem in the field of law and based on the assumption that the legislation can reflect the country’s understanding towards cyber security.
But there could also be other possibilities that citizens from China and the U.S. may share identical views.
Different perceptions of different governments do not necessarily mean that different perception of different citizens. The understanding between governments and the citizens may be also different. Inter discipline can be introduced to make up for the possible situation. Further sociology research needs to be done to analyze the citizens’ understanding of cybersecurity.
M ETHODOLOGY T OWARDS R ESEARCH Q UESTION T WO : E XPERIMENTAL S TUDY
The independent variable is cybersecurity content on social media. The dependent variable is the change of the attitude. All participants were randomly assigned to either experiment group or control group.
Pretest
：
All participants are required to finish a survey to estimate their basic understanding. All questions in the survey served as an index of understanding of social security.
Test: Participants in the experimental condition are exposed to social media content about the cyber security.
3
Arquilla, J., & Ronfeldt, D. (1996). The Advent Of Netwar [Product Page]. Retrieved December 13, 2015, from http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR789.html

All participants in experiment group are required to follow the Facebook and Twitter accounts which will post some information about cybersecurity during experiment time. In the control condition, participants are not allowed to be exposed to social media in the experiment period of two months.
Posttest: Afterwards, participants are given the same survey as the pretest one to estimate their attitude changing after the test.
A NSWER
If social media do not change concept in participants’ mind in the experiment group, we may exaggerate the role of social media to remedy this problem. Moreover, other ways should be taken into consideration to change people’s mind for consensus in terms of cybersecurity.
If social media can change people’s attitude towards cybersecurity, it can be viewed as a good strategy to promote consensus to some extent.
Also, as the psychology of the public towards this issue is also important to reduce the conflict in understanding. The discipline of psychology can also be used as a way to complement. 4
4
Wiederhold, B. K. (2014). The Role of Psychology in Enhancing Cybersecurity. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social
Networking, 17(3), 131–132. http://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2014.1502