- A peaceful demonstration.
- Newspapers, TV screens and the Internet where flooded with reports and images of crowds rampaging.
Representing young people: language, race, class and selection
- Language that was used, To talk about 'riots' rather than, for example, 'civil disturbances' or 'unrest' - or even 'uprisings' or 'protests'.
- Riot suggests something wild and unrestrained.
- Were simply an 'orgy of brutality.
- To lose all rational control.
- The rioters were consistently and repeatedly identified as young people.
- 'Feral youth: the 'hoodies' and 'yobs'.
- One black. hooded young man which appeared on at least five front pages.
- Daily Mirror called 'young thugs with fire in their eyes and nothing but destruction on their mind.
- In fact, many of the people ultimately convicted for crimes during the rioting were by no means young.
- Media coverage, they came to stand for Young People - or particular categories of young people - in general.
- A class dimension to these representations.
- Tabloid headline writers are implicitly working-class.
- Fear and ridicule, not just In this kind of media coverage but also in popular figures such as little Britain's Vicky Pollard and Catherine Tate's 'Am I bovvered?' character.
- Race was also an issue - and it was certainly implicit In the media's selection of images.
- The Issue of race was Ignored or disavowed in much of the mainstream coverage.
A tradition of fear
- That 40% of newspaper articles featuring young people focused on violence, crime or anti-social behaviour.
- 71% could be described as having a negative tone.
- Television news reports of young people focused overwhelmingly either on celebrities such as footballers or (most frequently) on violent crime.
- Young people accounted for only 1% of the sources for interviews and opinions.
- 7,000+ stories involving teenage boys, published online.
- 72% were negative- more than twenty times the number of positive stories (3.4%).
- Over 75% were about crime, drugs, or police.
- Stories about teenage boys described them using disparaging words such as yobs, thugs, sick, feral, hoodles, louts, heartless, evil, frightening and scum.
A long history
- Media talked up the disturbances into a bigger 'moral panic.
- Media play a role in 'deviance amplification'.
- Media stereotypes are never simply inaccurate: they always contain a 'grain of truth.
- Media coverage can be seen to reflect a much more general fear of young people (and especially of working-class young people) that is very common among many adults: the media speak to anxieties that many people already have.
- Media stories about teenagers were identified as the single biggest reason for this wariness (51%).
- Stan Cohen's theory of deviance amplification.
The media in the riots
- The role of the media here isn't straightforward.
- Violence was put on popular culture: it was rap music, violent computer games or reality TV that was somehow provoking young people.
- Looting of sportswear shops had been inflamed by advertising.
- Evidence of the narcissism and consumerism of the 'Big Brother.
- Very long history of the media being blamed for young people's misbehaviour.
The role of technology: social networking
- The rioters were also seen as somehow skilful enough to co-ordinate their actions by using Facebook. Blackberry and Twitter.
- Technology fuelled Britain's first 21st century riot.
- Users of social networking in the revolutions that took place in countries such as Tunisia, Egypt and Syria.
- Police might be empowered to 'turn off the Internet' at the first sign of trouble.
- Media and technology can be used by authorities as means of surveillance and control.
- lt's also worth noting here the use of CCTV (Britain has the highest penetration of CCTV cameras in the world), and indeed of 'rolling' 24-hour news channels, as means of surveillance.
The rise of the 'commentariat': framing the issues
- A struggle for 'ownership' of the issue. Different people - politicians, community leaders, media commentators, 'experts'- offer different accounts of what Is happening.
- The issue becomes an opportunity for them to make broader points, and to promote their own views.
- Very few of these commentators have any direct experience of the events they are talking about.
- Such 'experts' often have very little relevant expertise, or any valid evidence to back up their opinions.
- In today's media, this kind of instant commentary has proliferated, and ordinary people can become involved far more easily than was the case before.
- New media have created many more opportunities for people to have their say.
- Kinds of "participatory' media; while some even see this as evidence of a wholesale democratisation of the communications system.
- 'Big Media'-of powerful, centralised corporations controlling media - is now finished.
- Now living in a world of instant opinion - and Indeed instant abuse and bigotry.
Instant explanations
- The riots represented some kind of judgment about our civilisation as a whole.
- 'Broken Britain' - the claim that we are living In a fractured society that Is rapidly spiralling down Into anarchy.
The loss of discipline - parents, schools and law and order
- More generally, there have been proposals for curfew zones specifically for teenagers; and in some instances whole families are to be deprived of benefit or evicted from their council homes.
- From this point of view, the riots were primarily about poverty and Inequality.
Left-wing responses: inequality and poverty
- The UK has one of highest levels of inequality In the Western world.
The influence of capitalism
- Much more generally, there are those who see capitalism itself as the problem.
- It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat.
Political hypocrisy
- David Cameron and Boris John son as young members of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford University.
- Nick Clegg was convicted of arson In his youth.
Whose voices?
- How far the media contribute to- or actually prevent- public understanding?
- Media frame and represent such issues really help us to make sense of what happened?
- Media would see this as indicative of healthy public dialogue.
- Tory politician Enoch Powell's prediction that Immigration would result in 'rivers of blood' in Britain's cities.
- We could see this as a matter of freedom of speech, or the Incitement to racial hatred.
- Why the media see it as appropriate to give space to people who- whatever otherexpertise they may have- clearly have none whatsoever In the area they are supposed to be discussing.
Making sense of "riots"
- What some call a riot, others call an uprising.
- Riots may well have deep-seated social causes; but there Is often an emotional element.
- Opportunism, as people take the chance to Indulge In behaviour that would normally be taboo.
- We heard hardly anything from the people who were involved.
This article has started me on the investigation into is our world a reflection of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. This article has exposed me to new idea on how the media can information, misguided and influence the public by what thay say and who said it. For further investigation I think it might be appropriate of follow up on the theory of deviance amplification by Stan Cohen's that was discussed with in this article.
No comments:
Post a Comment