Emoji, THIS and 120 scientists from all over Russia... RUDN University discussed how to analyze media texts in forensic examination

At the end of the conference, the participants put forward a thesis. At the present stage of development of fundamental linguistics and expert practice, most of the difficulties are associated with the assessment of media texts, which represent a new form of exchange of verbal, visual, and auditory information. Thus, Alexander Babuk, Ph.D., leading employee of the scientific and practical center of the State Committee for Forensic Expertise of the Republic of Belarus, spoke about the importance of emoji in identifying verbal threats in Internet communications. He called for people to start describing emoji when analyzing modern Internet texts, because they have long become part of communication between people.

Maria Berdnikova, an expert at the Department of Digital and Speech Information of the ECC of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, spoke about how criminals use various verbal structures to disguise their intentions. Most often this occurs in dialogues in which bribes are discussed. Criminals use anaphoric pronouns (“this is THIS”, “THIS is it”), break logical connections between sentences, and insert additional syllabic or sound components into the word.

“This conference was attended by philologists, journalists, and experts who were attached to linguistic expertise. State and non-state experts met at the RUDN University on one platform. Everyone shared their vision of how media text works together with forensic research and value judgments,” Svetlana Smirnova, Doctor of Law, Professor, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation, Director of the Institute of Forensic Expertise of the RUDN University.

“The conference is a good opportunity for dialogue between specialists from different areas of expert activity. This way we increase the efficiency of our work, because only by meeting can we discuss and develop ways to solve complex issues,” Viktor Nemchinov, director of the Moscow Research Center.

The conference was co-organized by the Moscow Research Center with the support of the Department of Regional Security and Anti-Corruption of the City of Moscow.