ESRC Wales Doctoral Training Partnership PhD Studentship: Online Grooming Communication - From Online Groomer Profiling to Professional Practice Enhancement

Applications are invited for an ESRC Wales DTP funded PhD studentship (collaborative scheme) in Linguistics with a focus on Online Grooming Discourse.

Despite an increase in Online Grooming, research into its many characteristics is scant and relies primarily on what is known about grooming in offline settings. Moreover, although Online Grooming is acknowledged to be a communicative process, hardly any research has systematically examined its discourse features. Notable exceptions include the research programme conducted over the past four years within the Online Grooming Communication Project at Swansea University (Co-Directors: Prof Nuria Lorenzo-Dus and Dr Cristina Izura). This has succeeded in, amongst others, developing a pioneer model of Online Grooming Discourse (Lorenzo-Dus et al 2016) and identifying OG communicative profiles vis-à-vis certain discourse practices (e.g. praise and trust development), mapping them onto speed of grooming variables.

This studentship proposal builds upon the work of the Online Grooming Communication Project. It is geared towards validating the Online Grooming Discourse model. As a joint studentship with the leading child protection charity, the NSPCC, a core objective of this research will be to translate key findings into recommendations for enhancing professionals’ practice and prevention software development. The research carried out as a result of this studentship should also contribute to raising awareness of the Online Grooming Discourse model and inform national policy-changes on Online Grooming in the UK. Its main aims are:

Research methods: The project will deploy interdisciplinary methods from the fields of Digital Discourse Analysis and Evaluation Research.

The scholarship will be supervised by Prof Nuria Lorenzo-Dus (Linguistics, Swansea University), Dr Cristina Izura (Psychology, Swansea University) and an expert in Online Safety from the NSPCC.

Applications are welcome for both full and part-time study, and the studentship is available as either ‘1+3’ (i.e. funding for one full time year of research training Master’s followed by three years of research funding for full-time doctoral study, or the part-time equivalent), or ‘+3’ (i.e. funding for three years of full-time doctoral study only, or its part-time equivalent), depending on the needs and background of the applicant.

Eligibility

ESRC studentships are highly competitive. Applications are invited from exceptional candidates with an excellent academic background in Linguistics and /or Public Policy. It is expected that the successful candidate will have a first class or strong upper second class honours degree, or appropriate Master’s degree.

Applicants should also have experience of:

working on Child Online Safety issues
working for the NSPCC or a similar child protection organisation(s) in a policy or research role
Full awards (fees plus maintenance stipend) are open to UK Nationals and EU students who can satisfy UK residency requirements.

The University values diversity and equality at all levels and encourages applications from all sections of the community.