You are cordially invited to attend an online guest lecture in forensic linguistics, organised by the “Online Selves – Left Online” research group. To receive the Zoom link, please sign up here by October 7: https://forms.office.com/r/NTKuRW62uK
In this lecture we will examine manipulation in relation to digital practices outside the law. These will be brought together within the concept of digital grooming. Three such digital practices will be considered: sexual luring of minors, recruitment by extreme ideology groups (radical right and jihadi) and cajoling into drug trafficking. The lecture will also focus on methodological approaches to digital grooming, advocating the use of those that connect the micro, meso and macro levels of discourse analysis. Examples from digital sexual grooming chatlogs and vendor profiles in crypto-drug markets will be shown – and interactively discussed – for illustrative purposes.
In addition to discussing digital grooming as a discourse practice, during the lecture we will also reflect upon ethical aspects of conducting research on distressing / sensitive topics, and on the challenges of and opportunities in taking the results of such research out of academia’s ‘ivory tower’ and into supporting front-line practitioners tasked with keeping us safe online. The latter will make reference to Project DRAGON-S (https://www.swansea.ac.uk/project-dragon-s/) – a co-creation project into online child protection involving law enforcement, NGOs, policy makers and multi-disciplinary academics.
**Please be aware that this lecture will include discussion of content that can be upsetting or distressing.**
For more information, please contact daria.dayter@tuni.fi