Online Grooming Communication: The Child’s Perspective

Online child sexual abuse (OCSEA) is a global pandemic and constantly evolving threat and urgent child protection emergency. It is a crime that takes many forms including digital child sexual grooming (DCSG). DCSG is estimated to affect one in eight children at some point in their childhood. Yet research into children’s perspectives and experience of DCSG remains scarce. Children’s discourse within or about their DCSG interactions is yet to be systematically studied, effectively silencing their voices. This thesis aims to address this important gap in knowledge by examining children’s accounts of their DCSG experiences via data provided by a UK national counselling helpline. A qualitative discourse analysis approach was adopted, with a focus on facework and appraisal theory. Children’s discourse provides vital insights into DCSG as a discursive process of goal (re)negotiation between communicative agents. Findings simultaneously validate and enhance previous understandings of DCSG interactions built upon the study of groomer language and address the identified research gap of a lack of focus on children’s discourse. Results evidence, in children’s own words, how multi-directional constraints shape their behaviours and thus agency in DCSG contexts. They also show children’s experiences and strategic efforts to navigate these constraints. The focus on groomer’s tactical manipulative communication and accompanying facework, as represented in the child’s discourse, uncovers new insights. For the first time the intersection of tactical manipulation, facework, emotion and their impacts on behaviour are explored. Research findings also emphasise the importance of future inquiry into children’s discourse in DCSG contexts. The findings provide broad scope for application across a public health approach to combatting child sexual abuse in all its forms. A continued commitment to this research agenda is essential to ensure holistic understandings of groomer <->child interactional dynamics.