* Warning: Today’s episode contains descriptions of child sexual abuse material. *

In today’s episode, Dr Nicci MacLeod and Prof. Tim Grant are joined by Dr Emily Chiang, one of our Research Fellows at AIFL, about her research into identity performance in online child sexual abuse conversations.

By tracing 17 different personas from a single perpetrator, Dr Chiang explored linguistic differences in identity performance and online grooming strategies. Together, Dr Chiang and our hosts go over how her research may help future grooming and child sex abuse cases.

Have a question for Nicci or Tim? Email us at writingwrongs@aston.ac.uk and we may answer it during an upcoming episode!

Check out the official AIFL blog for more forensic linguistic goodies here: https://medium.com/@AIFLblog

If you have been affected by any of the themes in this week’s episode, please contact one of these free resources:

https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/

https://www.helpguide.org/find-help

Production Team: Mark Round, Jordan Robertson, Neus Alberich Buera, Karolina Placzynta

Sound: Mark Round

Editing: Nicci MacLeod

Visual design: George Grant

Additional Voices: Karolina Placzynta

With our thanks to Dr Emily Chiang and Dr Zoe Adams

Professor Tim Grant’s home page: Tim Grant - Aston Research Explorer

Dr Nicci MacLeod’s home page: Nicci MacLeod - Aston Research Explorer

Dr Emily Chiang’s home page: Emily Chiang - Aston Research Explorer

Both Tim and Emily are part of the Europewide Horizon SALVUS project looking at the investigation of online child abuse and exploitation across Europe. You can find out more about the SALVUS project here: https://salvusproject.eu

Research Papers:

Deceptive identity performance: Offender moves and multiple identities in online child abuse conversations

Online grooming: moves and strategies

Do Perverted Justice chat logs contain examples of Overt Persuasio⁠n and Sexual Extortion? A research note respondingto Chiang and Grant 2017 and 2018.