1 Author’s Note: Thanks to Melani McAlister, Laura Cook Kenna, Julie Passanante Elman, Kyle Riismandel, Laurel Clark, Bret Schulte, and Television & New Media’s anonymous reviewer for their insightful comments on previous drafts of this project. Television & New Media Volume XX Number X Month XXXX xx-xx © 2008 Sage Publications 10.1177/1527476408323345 http://tvnm.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com “The WarGames Scenario” Regulating Teenagers and Teenaged Technology (1980–1984) Stephanie Ricker Schulte George Washington University WarGames (1983), the first mass-consumed, visual representation of the internet, served as both a vehicle and framework for America’s earliest discussion of the internet. WarGames presented the internet simultaneously as a high-tech toy for teenagers and a weapon for global destruction. In its wake, major news media focused on potential realities of the “WarGames Scenario.” In response, Congress held hearings, screened WarGames, and produced the first internet-regulating legislation. WarGames engaged a “teenaged technology” discourse, which cast both internet technology itself and its users as rebellious teenagers in need of parental control. This discourse enabled policy makers to equate government internet regulation with parental guidance rather than with suppression of democracy and innovation, a crucial distinction within 1980s cold war context. Thus, this article historicizes the internet as a cultural text, examining how technology and its regulation shaped and were shaped by cultural representations. Keywords: internet; film; politics; history; teenagers; WarGames F rom his bedroom sanctuary, David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) used his home computer to change failing grades, to impress a girl, and to bring the world to the brink of global destruction in the 1983 film WarGames. A suburban teenaged computer-hacker, Lightman spent much of his life exiled in his locked room, unsu- pervised by his parents, playing on his home computing system. Unmotivated by high school academic and extracurricular activities, Lightman taught himself to use a modem to connect with other computers and ultimately unintentionally hacked into the Pentagon’s defense system. 1 Although Joshua, the military’s computer, uttered its eerily monotone warning “Wouldn’t you prefer a nice game of chess?” Lightman impatiently pressed on, replying “Let’s play Global Thermonuclear War.”Assuming he was playing an unreleased videogame, Lightman engaged a realistic war-simulation program, commanding missiles and tactical maneuvers that nearly brought the United States and Soviet Union to nuclear war. A critically acclaimed and immensely popular film, WarGames grossed nearly $80 million and was nominated for four