Drug dealers gone digital: using signalling theory to analyse criminal online personas and trust

IF 1.4 Q2 CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY

Global Crime Pub Date : 2020-08-20 DOI:10.1080/17440572.2020.1806826

S. A. Bakken

引用次数: 16

Abstract

ABSTRACT Online and digital platforms play a central role in today’s illegal activities and related networks. Communicating through these channels makes creating an online criminal identity crucial to establish oneself as trustworthy and meet the needs of potential buyers, especially when reaching out to strangers in a market. A highly needed skill is balancing the signals of attracting wanted attention and of avoiding possible risks. This article explores how social media drug dealers present themselves in 173 Facebook profiles. The analysis of these online criminal personas is applied in two stages: a) a broader content analysis of the profile content and b) by using signalling theory to understand the overall visual presentation of these online criminal personas. I find that sellers fall into three main persona types: the professional dealer, private dealer, and cultural dealer. These personas signal trust in different ways through their choice of pictures, text, and personal information.

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毒贩走向数字化:利用信号理论分析犯罪分子的网络角色和信任

在线和数字平台在当今的非法活动和相关网络中发挥着核心作用。通过这些渠道进行交流，使得创建一个在线犯罪身份对于建立自己的可信度和满足潜在买家的需求至关重要，尤其是在市场上与陌生人接触时。一项非常需要的技能是平衡吸引注意力和避免潜在风险的信号。本文探讨了社交媒体毒贩如何在173个Facebook个人资料中展示自己。对这些网络犯罪人物角色的分析分为两个阶段:a)对概要内容进行更广泛的内容分析;b)使用信号理论来理解这些网络犯罪人物角色的整体视觉呈现。我发现卖家可以分为三种主要的角色类型:专业经销商、私人经销商和文化经销商。这些角色通过他们对图片、文字和个人信息的选择，以不同的方式表达信任。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Global Crime CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY-

CiteScore

3.90

自引率

4.50%

发文量

期刊介绍： Global Crime is a social science journal devoted to the study of crime broadly conceived. Its focus is deliberately broad and multi-disciplinary and its first aim is to make the best scholarship on crime available to specialists and non-specialists alike. It endorses no particular orthodoxy and draws on authors from a variety of disciplines, including history, sociology, criminology, economics, political science, anthropology and area studies. The editors welcome contributions on any topic relating to crime, including organized criminality, its history, activities, relations with the state, its penetration of the economy and its perception in popular culture.