From Online Post to Crime Report: A Lesson Learned from a Social Media Defamation Case

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the lingual data of speech on Facebook posts, alleged to have resulted in defamation and to describe the case handling process by the police in Banyumas City, Central Java Province, Indonesia. The data was collected through documents handed over by the police. The data was analyzed qualitatively within the framework of forensic linguistic theory. The main findings of the study are that there were six linguistic aspects on the Facebook posts suspected to contain a defamation case under study, namely dialectology, forensic phonetics, forensic language style, language structure analysis, discourse analysis, and authorship. Additionally, the case handling process underwent seven steps, i.e. delivery of application letter from the police to head of linguists’ office, delivery of  assignment letter to appointed linguists by head of linguists’ office, linguists’ documents examination by the police, data collection from the police, forensic linguistic data analysis, review session of analysis results, and submission of final results to the police. This study suggests that upholders of law and linguists should work hand in hand in the interest of justice and that linguists build their understanding of law issues within this multidisciplinary practice, while at the same time, upholders of law benefit from the experience of linguists as expert witness.

https://doi.org/10.26803/MyRes.2024.19