Purpose Recent advances in technology have raised a potentially promising service to overcome difficulties associated with remote witnesses: live video‐feed interviews. The efficacy of this mode of interviewing, however, lacks empirical evidence, particularly with children in an investigative context. Methods This study explored the effects of live video‐feed compared to face‐to‐face interviewing on the memory reports of 100 children (aged 5–12). Children participated in an innocuous event and were interviewed 1–2 days later by experienced interviewers. Results Analyses indicated that live video‐feed interviewing was just as effective as face‐to‐face interviewing in terms of the accuracy and informativeness of children's accounts. Video‐feed interviews, however, required a higher number of clarification prompts compared to face‐to‐face interviews. These findings were not influenced by children's familiarity with technology. Conclusions An initial test of live video‐feed interviewing indicates it is a safe and effective method for interviewing children about an innocuous event.

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In the early morning of Saturday 22 September 2012 an Australian woman, Gillian 'Jill' Meagher, was reported missing after spending an evening out with work colleagues in suburban Brunswick (Melbourne, Victoria). Thousands of Australians followed the crime event as it unfolded via the mainstream news and online. On Sunday 23 September, a Facebook group 'Help Us Find Jill Meagher' was created, accumulating 90,000 followers in just four days, while the hashtags #jillmeagher and #meagher were two of the highest trending topics on Twitter across Australia. This article focuses on the social media narrative constructions of this crime: from Jill's initial disappearance, to the identification of her alleged killer and discovery of her body, through to the street march held in her memory on Sunday 30 September 2012. Through a qualitative analysis of a Twitter dataset comprising over 7000 original tweets, the article explores metanarratives of sexual victimisation, 'risk' and 'safety', as well as 'digilantism' and activism that characterised Australian Twitter users' responses to this violent crime. In doing so, the article reflects on collective practices of meaning-making in response to public crime events that are enabled in a digital society.

This study examined the investigative interviewing of Australian Aboriginal children in cases of alleged sexual abuse, with a focus on three commonly included components of interview protocols: ground rules, practice narrative, and substantive phase. Analysis of 70 field transcripts revealed that the overall delivery and practice of ground rules at the beginning of the interview was positively associated with the spontaneous usage of rules in children's narratives of abuse. When specifically examining the "don't know" rule, however, only practice had an effect of children's usage of the rule (as opposed to simple delivery or no delivery at all). Children spoke more words overall, and interviewers used more open-ended prompts during the substantive phase when the interviews contained a practice narrative. Children most often disclosed sexual abuse in response to an open-ended prompt; however, they produced the most words in response to suggestive prompts. This article concludes with a discussion of the effectiveness of ground rules, practice narratives, and questioning with Aboriginal children.

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