A Conceptual Model of Cyberterrorists’ Rhetorical Structure in Protecting National Critical Infrastructure

This study presents a conceptual paper on developing a model of cyberterrorists’ rhetorical structure. The objectives of the study are to identify the type of rhetoric’s in cyber terrorists’ communication, analyze how the cyber terrorists utilize appeal to audience, stylistic devices and argumentation in their communication and to propose a model of cyber terrorists’ rhetorical structure. A rhetorical analysis is conducted by examining recent cyberterrorists sites in popular media. Several categories are utilized; Appeal to the audience; Stylistic devices and Argumentation model. Drawing on a selected theoretical framework a combination of quantitative word-level analysis and qualitative coding will be used to assess the categories which are framed by cyber terrorists.