Faculty/School

Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice

Topic status

We're looking for students to study this topic.

Research centre

Centre for Justice

Primary Supervisor

Dr Shannon Colville
Position
Lecturer
Division / Faculty
Faculty of CI, Education & Social Justice

Other QUT supervisors

Professor Cassandra Cross
Position
Professor
Division / Faculty
Faculty of CI, Education & Social Justice

Overview

This project aims to generate new knowledge about victimisation pathways into forced criminality. It focuses on how people describe becoming involved in exploitative or scam-related situations, including who is victimised, who appears to be at higher risk and when and where victimisation takes place.

The core research problem is that forced criminality is often difficult to detect until harm has already occurred. Existing research tells us that people can be drawn into criminal exploitation through deception, pressure or coercion, but less is known about how victimisation unfolds from the perspective of those who describe these experiences online.

This project asks: what do Reddit narratives reveal about who is victimised in forced criminality, who appears most at risk and the contexts in which victimisation takes place?

Research engagement

Students will engage with Reddit, a public online forum where users post questions, personal experiences and advice-seeking narratives across topic-based communities. They will help identify relevant Reddit posts about recruitment, exploitation, scams and forced criminality, prepare the data for analysis and code narratives using NVivo.

Research activities

Students will work with the supervisory team and another VRES student.

Students can expect to:

  • identify relevant Reddit narratives
  • use NVivo to code Reddit narratives
  • apply a structured coding framework
  • identify patterns in who is victimised
  • examine when and where victimisation occurs
  • help write up the findings

Research skills

Students will develop skills in qualitative research using public online data. This will include identifying relevant Reddit narratives, applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, developing and using a coding protocol, coding data in NVivo and identifying patterns across narrative accounts. They will also build skills in qualitative analysis, critical interpretation and academic writing.

Outcomes

The project aims to generate new knowledge about patterns of victimisation in forced criminality. It will examine how people describe the circumstances that made them vulnerable, the points at which exploitation escalated and the settings in which victimisation occurred.

The expected outcome is a qualitative analysis of Reddit narratives that identifies key victimisation patterns and risk contexts. The findings will help clarify who appears most at risk, how victimisation unfolds and what future research should examine.

The findings will form the basis of a co-authored journal article on victimisation pathways into forced criminality.

Skills and experience

This project would suit a student interested in victimisation, cybercrime, scams, human trafficking, online communities, exploitation or qualitative research.

The ideal student will have:

  • good time management skills
  • strong attention to detail
  • good written communication skills
  • the ability to work well with others
  • an interest in qualitative research and academic writing

Previous experience with qualitative coding, Reddit data or NVivo would be an advantage.

Start date

2 November, 2026

End date

19 February, 2027

Location

Kelvin Grove Campus and Online

Keywords

Contact

Shannon Colville

07 3138 7103

shannon.colville@qut.edu.au