Critical Investigation #Task5 (Introduction)

Did the news media provide a fair and accurate representation of British youth during the 2011 riots?


Despite the fact that the majority of people involved in the London riots were youths, was there a fair and accurate representation of British youth? An example of "British youths are the most unpleasant and violent in the world"[1], this is how the youths were described on the Daily mirror two days after the tragic events took place. The rioters were mainly given a negative representation without any news institution explaining or considering the reasons behind the riots. The national outbreak occurred when the unarmed 29 year old Tottenham resident Mark Duggan was killed by the British police as he suffered from a gunshot wound to the chest, the death of Mark Duggan resulted in peaceful protest which took place outside of Tottenham police station, this later on went to cause a national outbreak amongst the British youth which caused major riots which started off in the streets of London and the proceeded to other cities around the UK, this was a major tragedy for Britain and caused a moral panic across different communities. In this essay there will be an investigation of how the British youth have been represented in the media and how much the negative stereotype of youths is reinforced in the media, there was a variety of different headline and articles published by the major players in British news media. The British newspapers consistently featured dramatic images of what the Daily Mirror called 'young thugs with fire in their eyes and nothing but destruction on their mind', or the Daily Express called simply 'flaming morons'.

Critical Investigation Task #4

Essay plan

Introduction

• introduce what my question is and the particular case study (London riots) 
• talk about youths in London in general

"The newspapers consistently featured large, dramatic images of what the Daily Mirror called 'young thugs with fire in their eyes and nothing but destruction on their mind', or the Daily Express called simply 'flaming morons'." - Theres a riot going on  https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/media-magazine/articles/16831

Paragraph 1 

• What caused the riots
• Briefly talk about the events during the London riots including some statistics.
• also which newspapers covered the story the most
• Moral Panic

"Daily Mirror (13 August 2011) talked of ‘Anarchy in the UK – teenage wasteland’: ‘With their hoodies and bandannas no longer hiding their faces, the thugs who left us in the grip of anarchy for four days were finally exposed" 

http://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/65884_Youth_Crime__Representations,_Discourses_and_Data.pdf

Paragraph 2

• talk about the stereotypical views of the youth in the media
• how the newspapers described the youth
• Medhurst theory of stereotype(shorthand)
• Go into depth about whether the riots gave a fair representation of the youth

"In particular, it's interesting to look at how the participants were described. In most of the tabloid media coverage, the rioters were consistently and repeatedly identified as young people. These were the 'feral youth', the 'hoodies' and 'yobs' who apparently rampage uncontrolled in our cities, bent simply on destruction for its own sake." -

Theres a riots going on https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/media-magazine/articles/16831

Figures show more than half of the stories about teenage boys in national and regional newspapers in the past year (4,374 out of 8,629) were about crime. The word most commonly used to describe them was "yobs" (591 times), followed by "thugs" (254 times), "sick" (119 times) and "feral" (96 times). -  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hoodies-louts-scum-how-media-demonises-teenagers-1643964.html

Other terms often used included "hoodie", "louts", "heartless", "evil" "frightening", "scum", "monsters", "inhuman" and "threatening".

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hoodies-louts-scum-how-media-demonises-teenagers-1643964.html

“Anarchy in the UK – Teenage wasteland, with their hoodies and bandanas no longer hiding their faces, the thugs who left us in the grip of anarchy” - Uk riots: Anarchy in the UK -

"The Daily Mirror (9 August 2011) spoke of ‘Yob Rule’; the Daily Express (15 August 2011) talked of ‘hooded youths in pitched battles with police, all reason gone and high on destruction’; the Daily Mail (11 August 2011)" 

 http://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/65884_Youth_Crime__Representations,_Discourses_and_Data.pdf

Paragraph 3

• talk about wider context and what other factors may have caused the riosts such as unemployment rates, police mistreatment. 
• Explain why the descriptions were inaccurate

"76% of reporting of young people is negative.
Only 12% of crime is committed by young people.
39% of adults are unaware of the positive things young people do.
Nearly 750 young people completed an online poll for the British Youth Council (BYC) and YouthNet - 80% believed unfair portrayal in the media led to strained relations with older generations. " - http://www.ukyouth.org/resources/youth-statistics/item/379-young_people_in_the_media#.Vh5eHvlViko

paragraph 5 

• How the youths were described by the biggest news media such as daily mail and the gaurdian

‘BRITISH YOUTHS ARE “THE MOST UNPLEASANT AND VIOLENT IN THE WORLD”’ (Daily Mail, 10 August 2011) and ‘LORD OF THE FLIES GANGS RULE ESTATES’ (Sunday Times, 17 August 2003). The first was inspired by the riots in London and elsewhere in the summer of 2011;    

http://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/65884_Youth_Crime__Representations,_Discourses_and_Data.pdf

Conclusion

• Explain whether the  representation of youth in the media was accurate or not.
• talk about an overall view with youth and the media and how its changed over the year

Academic books

Bloom, C. (2012). Riot city: Protest and rebellion in the capital. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bottom of Form

Briggs, D. (2012). The English riots of 2011 a summer of discontent. Hook, UK: Waterside Press.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Clark, C. (2008). Media portrayal of young people impact and influences. Place of publication not identified: National Children's Bureau.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Conboy, M. (2007). The language of the news. London: Routledge.Top of Form

Bottom of FormCottle, S. (2006). Mediatized conflict developments in media and conflict studies. Maidenhead, Berkshire, England: Open University Press.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Haywood, I. (2012). The Gordon riots: Politics, culture and insurrection in late eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Top of Form

Jones, O. (n.d.). The establishment: And how they get away with itTop of Form

Bottom of Form

Jones, O. (2011). Chavs: The demonization of the working class. London: Verso.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Negrine, R. (2007). The political communication reader. London: Routledge.

Critical Investigation Task #3

Historical text analysis and research

1981 Brixton riots

The 1981 Brixton riot, or Brixton uprising, was a confrontation between the Metropolitan Police and protesters in Lambeth, South London, England, between 10 and 11 April 1981. The main riot on 11 April, dubbed "Bloody Saturday" by TIME magazine,  resulted in almost 280 njuries to police and 45  injuries to members of the public over a hundred vehicles were burned, including 56 police vehicles; and almost 150 buildings were damaged, with thirty burned. There were 82 arrests. Reports suggested that up to 5,000 people were involved.

These two images above are newspaper front pages from the 1981 Brixton Riots and the 2011 London riots. From the two images we can see the differences in the images as the one on the left from the Brixton riots show the police holding off the rioters as they are being attacked, this is also an image which has been hand drawn. In addition to this the title of the paper also says "To think this is England" this shows us that the paper then blamed the whole country for these events all though it was only a small part of the country that took part. Also, they didn't target a specific minority when they were talking about who was involved. This newspaper also promotes the fact that England was going through and moral panic and that they were all together. 

On the other hand, the second paper from the 2011 riots is completely different to the first paper. This is automatically visible from the title which says "Flaming morons" this shows us that they are directly targeting a group of people who were involved, in addition, the use of image is also quite extreme as they have an image of a burning car in the background of a youth in a hooded jumper. This shows us how much societies morals have change as back in 1981 if something happened in the UK the media would blame them selves as a whole where as now the media is attacking certain groups of different people(Mainly Minorities). Also, there is a quote which says "Thugs and thieves terrorise Britain's streets" this shows us that the media are portraying the youth to be the only victims as they didn't focus on the reasons behind it" The media also try to make the people who participated in the riots to not be part of the British society as they may be ashamed of what's happened.

Academic research and bibliography

Task #2 is to pull this information together in an updated blog posting of all your notes and quotes so far INCLUDING a complete bibliography of your research so far. Make sure you include the following:

• Author-Year-Title-Place-Publisher info; 
• Quotes (+ Page References) from the book that can be linked to your study; 
• A short explanation of each one explaining how it is relevant to you/your topic. 
• Finally, post up on your blog a Complete Bibliography (so far) to include ALL the books you currently have quotes from. It MUST contain at least TEN different academic books or journalsas well as all your online and Media Magazine sources. 
• Note: your FINAL bibliography will be much more extensivethan this - we are simply looking for a minimum of 10 academic sources from your research so far. 

1) Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class. London: Verso, 2011. Print. Written by Owen Jones


"More than half of the city's children live in poverty."  pg-73
I could use this quote to support me on my SHEP when i want to speak about other issues and debates surrounding this topic

2) The Establishment: And How They Get Away with It. Print. Written by Owen Jones


"you're aware that you are being othered"

"you're are seen as almost as the enemy of the state"

"you're seen as more likely to commit crime and most likely to be unemployed"

3) The Language of the News. London: Routledge, 2007. Print. Written by Martin Conboy 

"Newspapers has always had a central role in creating 'Imagery communities" 


"a continuing position in youth crime in urban areas of britain which makes sense as a form of shorthand within the accepted norms of the newpaper"


4) The English Riots of 2011 a summer of Discontent. Hook, UK: Waterside, 2012. Print. Written by Daniel Briggs 

- "While the riots of 2011 announced a new chapter in violent youth disorder Britain was already in the thick of a moral panic concerning its young people" pg-45

This explains how the London riots caused a moral panic through youth disorder, a moral panic is an instance of public anxiety or alarm in response to a problem regarded as threatening the moral standards of society. I could use this quote for my SHEP wider context analysis. 

5) Riot City: Protest and Rebellion in the Capital. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Print. Written by Clive Bloom

-"Youth unemployment are signs of increasing crime, relationships between communities and the police and the use of stop and search"  

6) Media Portrayal of Young People – impact and influences written by Catherine Clark, Amrita Ghosh, Emrys Green, Naushin Shariff

"We also found that media stories are not representative of the youth population as a whole, as they tend to focus on minority groups that are extreme examples of young people. For example, if the content of the story is negative it's usually very bad, focusing on young people who are criminals or badly behaved. Positive stories are often linked with the self achievements of extraordinary individuals with rare talents, rather than average young people. Evidently not all young people are like these two extremes" 

7) Speaking and Listening: The 2011 English Riots written by: Leah Bassel

"The concerns of this paper speak to broader debates over the mediated politics of representation and how fair representation is not only an issue for the industry but for democratic representation in society as a whole"

8) mad mobs and English 


"Yet its coverage did not necessarily counter more generally negative representations of young people in the media. Media reports did not reflect that more young people were involved in the clean-up operation than the riots and a submission to the Leveson Inquiry by the Youth Media Agency 'highlighted the "discriminatory attitude of the media towards children and young people during and following the riots"' (Victims Panel Final Report 2012: 84)[10]"

9) London riots 2011

-"Its constituent elements were gangs, shootings, stabbings, family dysfunctions, lack of community cohesion and the hovering background ambiance of 'gangsta rap' music." pg-45

This is a quote talking about why some people may have took part in the London riots, this is a representation of why some people took part because from all the other articles most of the rioters said they did this because of their hate towards the police.

-"when interviewed about youth behavior during the riots, Kenneth Clark, the justice secretary said that Britain had cultivated a 'lost generation' of young people" pg-45

This is a quote from Kenneth Clark who is secretary of justice, and he believes that the young people of Britain are misguided and are part of a "Lost generation" 

10)  The Gordon Riots: Politics, Culture and Insurrection in Late Eighteenth



"There has been some research looking at how young people feel about the media, and about how they are represented. The British Youth Council did a survey to find out young people’s views on how they are portrayed by the media and by politicians. The survey had over seven hundred responses from 12-25 year olds. Amongst the key findings were that 98% felt that the media always, often or sometimes represents them as antisocial."

Media Tutorial

• Comparison between tabloid/broadsheet front page (consider ideologies)
• Moral panics research
• closer analysis of the images

Textual Analysis

This is a broadsheet newspaper reporting the day after the riots. they titled the article saying "Blame the police; "why the rioters say they took part". During the london riots alot of people didnt understand the reason why all these youths had so much anger, there was the belief that the riots were just because of the police assisination of mark duggan, however alot of other people who rioted had their own reasons such as; Previous police harrasment, goverment not supporting the lower class and the misrepresentations of society. The media language shows that this newspaper isnt going directly at the youth but it is showing that they are showing both sides of the story. This is mainly targeted at the ABC1 audience which are people who probably wouldnt have any links to the youth and they wont understand what they go through. This represents the youth to be protesters rather than rioters because this newspaper is probably trying to communicate that there is a reason behind them protesting rather than doing it just to loot. Next, the use of the image on this front page also very powerful, the image looks like its representing an image of hell from the darkness.in addition to this, they have also included quotes from the youths who participated in the riots and in these quotes they show alot of anger towards the police. The gaurdian didnt use any images of anyone invloved in the riots which was interesting. 

This is a tabloid newspaper which is completely different to the broadsheet one. this can be seen immediately from the use of images. in this picture you can see a british youth who is represented to be a villian to society, this is because in the image we can see the youth who is wearing a hooded tracksuit and covering his face, and behind him there is a large fire which looks like it came from a car explosion, from the first look at this image we get a an understanding that they are trying to create a sense of fear for the audience. Next, the title says "The anarchy spreads" this word means a state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems. in addition, there was a also a quote on the front page saying "To blame the cuts is immoral and cynical . This is immoral criminality pure and simple" this quote is basically expressing that the rioters are pure criminals and are rioting for no logical reason whereas the gaurdian talks about both sides and also speaks from the rioters perspective.This image reinforces the popular stereotype which believes that young british males are chavs, negative and violent people. This can be linked to Medhurst theory of stereotypes which believes that we label a group of people as a shorthand to describe them.This image also looks very dark to the audience which makes them get the understanding that these youths are uncontrollable. Also, the fire in the image shows that these youths are creating hell. In conclusion, this shows the difference on how a broadsheet delivers news and a tabloid paper delivers news.

Critical investigation: Media Magazine and online research

1) There’s a riot going on

• "In particular, it's interesting to look at how the participants were described. In most of the tabloid media coverage, the rioters were consistently and repeatedly identified as young people. These were the 'feral youth', the 'hoodies' and 'yobs' who apparently rampage uncontrolled in our cities, bent simply on destruction for its own sake."

• A good starting point is to look at the language that was used to describe what took place. To talk about 'riots' rather than, for example, 'civil disturbances' or 'unrest' - or even 'uprisings' or 'protests' - immediately defines the meaning of the events in particular ways. The word riot suggests something wild and unrestrained, something fundamentally irrational that cannot be explained. The riots, we were told, were simply an 'orgy of brutality', in which people appeared to lose all rational control.

• The newspapers consistently featured large, dramatic images of what the Daily Mirror called 'young thugs with fire in their eyes and nothing but destruction on their mind', or the Daily Express called simply 'flaming morons'.

• The spectre of the mob, of marauding gangs, of the violent underclass, has a long history; although in the Conservatives' account of the social collapse of 'Broken Britain', these fears have taken on a new urgency. These young people, we were told, had not been sufficiently socialised: they were led simply by a kind of 'childish destructiveness'.

• In fact, many of the people ultimately convicted for crimes during the rioting were by no means young. Youth offending, youth detention and reoffending have declined in recent years. Meanwhile, just a few weeks later, young people achieved record passes in their GCSE and A Level exams. Those involved in the disturbances were obviously a small minority. Yet in much of the media coverage, they came to stand for Young People - or particular categories of young people - in general.

• There is obviously a class dimension to these representations. The 'feral youth' imagined by the politicians and the tabloid headline writers are implicitly working-class. In his recent book Chavs, Owen Jones points to the emergence of a new form of class contempt in modern Britain. The working class, he argues, has become an object of 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.

• Again, this is despite the fact that many of those ultimately convicted after the rioting were in respectable middle-class jobs, or from wealthy backgrounds.

• 
  

2) We’re All in this Together - Structured Reality TV and Social Class

• In August 2011 riots in London, Manchester, Liverpool and other British cities highlighted the disenfranchisement felt by many who perceive themselves to be at the bottom of the social pile. Austerity policies put in place after the banking crisis in 2008 and as a response to the global economic crisis, mean that Major's idea of a classless society seems further away now than perhaps it did twenty years ago.

Icons in the hood - how working-class youths became chavs

• Most recently, Plan B's music video for iLL Manors contentiously uses footage from the London riots of summer 2011, and appears to celebrate the stereotypes that the media perpetuate about council estate youths. Both lyrics and video take pot-shots at politicians, and specifically David Cameron's rhetoric about 'hugging a hoodie' and Brokeitain. It is a visceral, rage-filled, arguably hypocritical, difficult and challenging piece of media that has been hotly debated and defended by Plan B in interviews. Overall it seems its message is, It is filed with imagery of chavs behaving as society expects them to, and would make a perfect case study to analyse for the representation of youth.

• 71% of articles from a range of tabloid, broadsheet and local papers involving young people were negative in tone, and a third were crime-oriented.

• But what really brought the chav back into the headlines were the 2011 riots. Hooded youths running wild in cities across the country were displayed endlessly on the nightly news and all over the newspapers with their faces covered, tracksuits and bling on show, looting and engaged in apparently wanton destruction. The repeated figure of the Adidas-clad youth cockily strutting in front of a flaming vehicle adorned many front pages; and in many readers' eyes this anonymous participant became an icon of the state of modern Britain.

• Whatever your opinion of chavs, chavettes and hoodies, the representation of young people in the British media can definitely have an impact on people's attitudes in real life. When asked about chavs, a group of school students classified them as in the habit of causing trouble, hanging round the streets, drinking and taking drugs' [They are] working class, they live in council houses'. Their parents 'don't care, and they don't work.Harris, 2007, The question that must be asked is, to what extent this attitude comes from the students observing and interpreting what they see around them, and how much of it is a result of iconic representations created and perpetuated by the media? In order to answer this, we must look at some of the most iconic images of the chav that have appeared in the media, from television sketch shows to national newspapers, over the past decade.

4) There’s a riot going on

• These kinds of images of young people are unfortunately typical of much news media coverage. A 2005 IPSOS/MORI survey found that 40% of newspaper articles featuring young people focused on violence, crime or anti-social behaviour; and that 71% could be described as having a negative tone. Research from Brunel University during 2006 found that television news reports of young people focused overwhelmingly either on celebrities such as footballers or (most frequently) on violent crime; while young people accounted for only 1% of the sources for interviews and opinions across the whole sample.

• a study by the organisation Women in Journalism analysed 7,000+ stories involving teenage boys, published in online, national and regional newspapers during 2008. 72% were negative - more than twenty times the number of positive stories (3.4%). Over 75% were about crime, drugs, or police: the great majority of these were negative (81.5%) while only a handful were positive (0.3%). 

• Many of the stories about teenage boys described them using disparaging words such as yobs, thugs, sick, feral, hoodies, louts, heartless, evil, frightening and scum

British hip hop and grime –chavvin’ it large?
As with so many other youth movements
– from mods to rockers, hippies and emos –
popular music has undoubtedly had a significant role to play in creating and perpetuating the iconic image of the chav. British artists such as N-Dubz have been referred to as chavs; Dappy in particular, with his stringy hat and controversial brushes with the law, conforms to the typical idea of the aggressive, rude and almost comical image of the chav.Most recently, Plan B’s music video for iLL Manors contentiously uses footage from the London riots of summer 2011, and appears to celebrate the stereotypes that the media perpetuate about council estate youths. Both lyrics and video take pot-shots at politicians, and specifically David Cameron’s rhetoric about ‘hugging a hoodie’ and Broken Britain. It is a visceral, rage-filled, arguably hypocritical, difficult and challenging piece of media that has been hotly debated and defended by Plan B in interviews. Overall it seems its message is if you stereotype people as socially worthless then they will grow into those stereotypes It is filled with imagery of chavs behaving as society expects them to, and would make a perfect case study to analyse for the representation of youth.I predict a riot – chavs hit the headlines The word chav may have been in decline in mainstream media since December 2004, when stories about chavs reached a peak: 114 were published in that month alone (Smith, 2005). But the press representations of young people are still overwhelmingly negative. Recently71% of articles from a range of tabloid, broadsheet and local papers involving young people were negative in tone, and a third were crime-oriented.

It’s not surprising then that Plan B and others are concerned about stereotypes becoming self-
fulfilling prophecies: Here, then, is a modern folk devil maligned

Media Conference Notes

Benefits of the internet

• Connection
• Information
• Voices in your head
• Political action
• Campaigning
• Financial reward
• Games
• Learning
• Friendship

Disadvantages of the internet

• Bullying
• Extremis
• Abuse
• Scams and rip off's
• Fraud
• Conspiracy theories
• The Dark Web
• child sexual abuse
• Unwanted porn

What Do Film Producers Do?

• hire the staff and cast
• editing
• choosing where to film, is it safe? do you have to be insured?
• Financial sources
• back up plans

Murdered By My Boyfriend

• It was based on a true story
• Director decides how everything is shown rather than the writer
• she visited families to get a better understanding of what happened.

Owen Jones

• We live in an unfair society
• young people are being mistreated
• media is controllled by people from privalleged backgrounds and from private schools.
• society still discriminates

Notes and quotes

Media Texts

Articles about youth representations in the media.

http://www.ukyouth.org/resources/youth-statistics/item/379-young_people_in_the_media#.Vh5eHvlViko

• 76% of reporting of young people is negative.
• Only 12% of crime is committed by young people.
• 39% of adults are unaware of the positive things young people do.
• Nearly 750 young people completed an online poll for the British Youth Council (BYC) and YouthNet - 80% believed unfair portrayal in the media led to strained relations with older generations.

http://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/65884_Youth_Crime__Representations,_Discourses_and_Data.pdf

• This introductory chapter is designed to promote a critical understanding of the relationship between youth and crime. The equation of these two terms is widely employed and for many is accepted as common sense.

• ‘BRITISH YOUTHS ARE “THE MOST UNPLEASANT AND VIOLENT IN THE WORLD”’ (Daily Mail, 10 August 2011) and ‘LORD OF THE FLIES GANGS RULE ESTATES’ (Sunday Times, 17 August 2003). The first was inspired by the riots in London and elsewhere in the summer of 2011;

•  ‘when the words “children” and “media” occur together it is nearly always in the context of public anxiety about harmful effects, bad examples, corruption of innocence and cultural decline’

• A retired prison doctor and psychiatrist was quoted by the Daily Mail (10 August 2011) as believing British youth were ‘the most unpleasant and potentially most violent young people in the world’ and that the British were now in ‘great fear of their own arrogant, knife-wielding children'

• Daily Mirror (13 August 2011) talked of ‘Anarchy in the UK – teenage wasteland’: ‘With their hoodies and bandannas no longer hiding their faces, the thugs who left us in the grip of anarchy for four days were finally exposed

• An estimated 15,000 people were involved in the riots; about one-quarter were aged under 18

• Yob is a species of young white working class male which if the British media is to be believed, is more common than ever before. The yob is foul mouthed, irresponsible, probably unemployed and violent. The yob hangs around council estates where he terrorises the local inhabitants

• The Daily Mirror (9 August 2011) spoke of ‘Yob Rule’; the Daily Express (15 August 2011) talked of ‘hooded youths in pitched battles with police, all reason gone and high on destruction’; the Daily Mail (11 August 2011) maintained that ‘“feral” children run wild in the streets of UK cities’. A retired prison doctor and psychiatrist was quoted by the Daily Mail (10 August 2011) 

#

• The Daily Mirror (9 August 2011) spoke of ‘Yob Rule’; the Daily Express (15 August 2011) talked of ‘hooded youths in pitched battles with police, all reason gone and high on destruction’; the Daily Mail (11 August 2011)

• The ‘positive’ aspects of ‘youthfulness’ that were given coverage were largely accounted for by the atypical careers of a small number of media celebrities and sporting personalities. A tripartite image of youth emerged: as either gifted, dangerous or innocent
• The Riots: In Their Own Words
• London Riots 2011 [ Our Crime ]
• Riot Night - England Riots 2011 Documentary
• London's Burning (2011)
• Is Britain Racist?

7/10 stories reported in the news about young black men are linked to crime

Language in the News

written by: Martin Conboy

News articles by the gaurdian
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/aug/11/riots-social-media-gang-culture

• In a parliamentary question in July, she asked the Home Office what assessment they had made "of the contribution of social media to gang culture and related youth violence"; the reply was: "There has been no formal assessment of the contribution of social media to serious youth violence."
• "In the last few years, there has been a real escalation of youth violence, mostly youth on youth, which is why adults have largely been unaware of it."

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/aug/05/chalk-farm-edinburgh-london-riots

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/dec/05/riots-revenge-against-police

• Responding to the findings, the Association of Chief Police Officers said: "The disorder seen in August was unprecedented in its scale of violence and the way in which events escalated rapidly. It took people by surprise, not enough police officers were available initially and it eventually required 16,000 of them to restore order. Of course the way in which those events took place and were seen by others through the media had an impact on confidence in the police, and it is important that lessons are learned from all the different processes and reports investigating what happened. In a survey of 270 rioters, it would be quite odd if a high proportion did not cite the police as a factor in their behaviour. But August also showed the ability of our police to restore order using robust, common sense policing in the British way."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/09/uk-riots-psychology-of-looting

• It's not one occasional attack on dignity, it's a repeated humiliation, being continuously dispossessed in a society rich with possession. Young, intelligent citizens of the ghetto seek an explanation for why they are at the receiving end of bleak Britain, condemned to a darkness where their humanity is not even valued enough to be helped."

https://www.teachit.co.uk/attachments/20516_1.pdf

• The events were labelled the ‘London riots’. What are the connotations of the word ‘riot’? Why not ‘civil unrest’, ‘dispute’ or ‘protest’? 

• The Daily Mirror reported of “Young thugs with fire in their eyes and nothing but destruction on their minds.” This comment accompanied a front page with the headline “Yob rule” found here, and the first image is shown on the accompanying resource:
  http://www.politicshome.com/images/1.1.Front_Pages/Mirror_090811.png

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2024284/UK-riots-2011-Liberal-dogma-spawned-generation-brutalised-youths.html

• Rampage: We are told that youths roaming the streets are doing so because they are angry at unemployment, but a quick look at an apprenticeship website yields 2,228 vacancies in London

• If you live a normal life of absolute futility, which we can assume most of this week’s rioters do, excitement of any kind is welcome. The people who wrecked swathes of property, burned vehicles and terrorised communities have no moral compass to make them susceptible to guilt or shame.

• They are illiterate and innumerate, beyond maybe some dexterity with computer games and BlackBerries.

• They respond only to instinctive animal impulses — to eat and drink, have sex, seize or destroy the accessible property of others.

• The depressing truth is that at the bottom of our society is a layer of young people with no skills, education, values or aspirations. They do not have what most of us would call ‘lives’: they simply exist.

• They are products of a culture which gives them so much unconditionally that they are let off learning how to become human beings. My dogs are better behaved and subscribe to a higher code of values than the young rioters of Tottenham, Hackney, Clapham and Birmingham.

• They are an absolute deadweight upon society, because they contribute nothing yet cost the taxpayer billions. Liberal opinion holds they are victims, because society has failed to provide them with opportunities to develop their potential.

• They have no sense of responsibility for themselves, far less towards others, and look to no future beyond the next meal, sexual encounter or TV football game.

 (http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/aug/09/london-riots-kidsparents-police) 

• “Residents paint a depressing picture of alienation, anger, boredom and mischief”- This signifies that the writer is bias stating that the people who live in Hackney are making the place worse and saying they are up to mischief. This creates the idea to the reader that all people in hackney are bad even when its possible that people who rioted may have come from outside of Hackney. Title: “A generation”- This signifies that the writer of the article is making an accusation of all teenagers and young people, generalising that they are all the same instead of individuals. This connotes that the writer is likely exaggerating the article and making the participants in the riots a lot larger than what they seem. “Don't respect their parents or police”- This connotes that the younger people are the ones to blame, cutting the law and parents out on who's to blame. This is questionable since some sources claim that it was the police/law that killed an innocent man (Mark Duggan) which sparked off the riots with them to blame. This all equates to connotations of bias on the writers part due to them shifting the blame.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8630533/Riots-the-underclass-lashes-out.html

• No one seemed surprised. Not the hooded teenagers fleeing home at dawn. Not Ken and Tony, who used to live in Tottenham and had returned to stand vigil over the missiles and torched cars littering an urban war zone. 

https://www.hertsmere.gov.uk/Documents/08-Parks--Leisure/Children--Young-People/Final-Report---Unbalanced-negative-media-portrayal-of-youth.pdf

• As our research shows, the younger generation have been ignored when they have tried to make a stand and instead are being put down by the media. A current example of this is how the recent student fees protests were sensationalised by the media as ‘riots’ ‐ which deflected away from the real issue and made them look irresponsible. 

• A good recent example of this negative portrayal in the media towards the younger generation is when the student fees protests were held in London. These groups of young people joined together in a peaceful protest to stand up for their beliefs and for something that was going to, or was, affecting their lives in a major way. These peaceful protests were soon turned into riots when some disrespectful youths joined and decided to take violent action. Most of these violent rioters weren't even of the age group that would be affected by the rise of the university fees, however, the media took advantage of this news opportunity and only focused on the stories that the reporters thought would sell newspapers. This news was extremely unbalanced, didn't give all of the facts, and the peaceful protests were not mentioned in most cases, neither were the reasons behind why these protests/riots took place.

• The media portrayal of teenagers plays a big role in that teenagers are stereotyped wherever they go and whatever they do. When people see teenagers they are suspicious of them and suspect that they are up to no good. This has a very bad effect on teenagers as they always feel that people are watching them and suspicious of what they are up to.

• This affects youth and the communities they live in in major way, as the younger generation are forced away from mainstream society because others have heard and read negative portrayals of youth. 

• An implication is the public perceptions of young people is determined by the media portrayal of young people as yobs, hoodies or gang members. They are led to believe that young people are violent, dangerous, disrespectful, bad mannered and overall lazy members of society. This pushes away youth people and could, in some scenarios, begin to transform ambition into abusive behaviour. 

University websites/academic papers online.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep01303?WT.ec_id=SREP-20130226

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6757.2000.tb01168.x/abstract


http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1745-9125.12004/pdf


http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-37210-0_34#page-1


http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264275112000315

Any other relevant sites/articles - the more the better.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/dec/05/who-were-the-rioters

• The debate in the aftermath of the August riots could easily have left the impression that those involved were exclusively young, black gang members with long criminal histories.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/aug/16/london-riots-young-people-voice-anger

• There are different reasons [why people rioted], some are doing it for the right reasons, some just for the sake of doing crime, people have had enough. But even the people taking advantage have a reason. It's very hard to get jobs, these people are from poor areas, have nothing, they want stuff for free. Other people, like myself, have had enough of the government. It's self-explanatory – the government doesn't care about us, there are no jobs.

• I don't think people are protesting in the right way. I saw people from 13 to 30 there. I saw everyday, normal people in the shops, helping themselves. Everyone has had enough of paying taxes so the rich get richer.

• A lot of trials and tribulations led to this, people think everyone has no reason. It can't get worse for us, people in the ghetto. No one cares about us so what are we supposed to do? There has always been a big gap between youth and the police. We're trying to get their attention. People are crying out for help.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15426720

• England rioters 'poorer, younger, less educated

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14462688

• "Young people are bored and feel they have nothing to lose," said former gang member Kim Gardner, who now mentors young people in gangs to try to help them turn their lives around.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14467988

• Many of the 600 people arrested after Monday's rioting are young men in their 20s who have never had a previous skirmish with the law.

http://media.edusites.co.uk/article/ocr-a2-media-studies-g325-section-b-collective-identity-youth/

• “Youth are still subject to a constructed, stereotypical identity in many ways but within a rapidly changing digital landscape”.

There’s a riot going on

• "In particular, it's interesting to look at how the participants were described. In most of the tabloid media coverage, the rioters were consistently and repeatedly identified as young people. These were the 'feral youth', the 'hoodies' and 'yobs' who apparently rampage uncontrolled in our cities, bent simply on destruction for its own sake."

• A good starting point is to look at the language that was used to describe what took place. To talk about 'riots' rather than, for example, 'civil disturbances' or 'unrest' - or even 'uprisings' or 'protests' - immediately defines the meaning of the events in particular ways. The word riot suggests something wild and unrestrained, something fundamentally irrational that cannot be explained. The riots, we were told, were simply an 'orgy of brutality', in which people appeared to lose all rational control.

• The newspapers consistently featured large, dramatic images of what the Daily Mirror called 'young thugs with fire in their eyes and nothing but destruction on their mind', or the Daily Express called simply 'flaming morons'.

• The spectre of the mob, of marauding gangs, of the violent underclass, has a long history; although in the Conservatives' account of the social collapse of 'Broken Britain', these fears have taken on a new urgency. These young people, we were told, had not been sufficiently socialised: they were led simply by a kind of 'childish destructiveness'.

• In fact, many of the people ultimately convicted for crimes during the rioting were by no means young. Youth offending, youth detention and reoffending have declined in recent years. Meanwhile, just a few weeks later, young people achieved record passes in their GCSE and A Level exams. Those involved in the disturbances were obviously a small minority. Yet in much of the media coverage, they came to stand for Young People - or particular categories of young people - in general.

• There is obviously a class dimension to these representations. The 'feral youth' imagined by the politicians and the tabloid headline writers are implicitly working-class. In his recent book Chavs, Owen Jones points to the emergence of a new form of class contempt in modern Britain. The working class, he argues, has become an object of 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.

• Again, this is despite the fact that many of those ultimately convicted after the rioting were in respectable middle-class jobs, or from wealthy backgrounds.

• These kinds of images of young people are unfortunately typical of much news media coverage. A 2005 IPSOS/MORI survey found that 40% of newspaper articles featuring young people focused on violence, crime or anti-social behaviour; and that 71% could be described as having a negative tone. Research from Brunel University during 2006 found that television news reports of young people focused overwhelmingly either on celebrities such as footballers or (most frequently) on violent crime; while young people accounted for only 1% of the sources for interviews and opinions across the whole sample.

• a study by the organisation Women in Journalism analysed 7,000+ stories involving teenage boys, published in online, national and regional newspapers during 2008. 72% were negative - more than twenty times the number of positive stories (3.4%). Over 75% were about crime, drugs, or police: the great majority of these were negative (81.5%) while only a handful were positive (0.3%). 

• Many of the stories about teenage boys described them using disparaging words such as yobs, thugs, sick, feral, hoodies, louts, heartless, evil, frightening and scum.

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Critical investigation proposal

1)Working title

"Did the news media provide a fair and accurate representation of British youth during the 2011 riots?"
The presentation I did will help me put together my final question for my critical investigation. The current question I will be answering is "Did the news media provide a fair and accurate representation of British youth during the 2011 riots?" this is a very powerful question because there will be a lot of wider context to cover in terms of demographics, unemployment rates, newspaper articles and news reports. In addition to this there is going to be a lot of resources available to me on the internet for me to use.
2)Angle

• is the way the british media represnting youths having an affect on the audiences opinions?
• Is this simply a moral panic of the 21st century or is further regulation required?

3)Hypothesis
The more the British media continue to marginalise British youths, the more it will cause youths to continue being rebellious. 
4)Linked production piece
Music video similar to Plan B's Ill Manors.

5)MIGRAIN

Media Representations
In this text the main people who are represented are black people and Youths, they are represented in a bad way as being violent, aggressive ,"Thugs" and "Yobs", The people are describing them in this way are the British media.

They are being described like this mainly because of the tragic events that occurred in the 2011 London riots. The reason they are being represented in this way is because stats show that the demographics of the London riots were that 90% of the people who had court were aged under 21 and over 45% of the people in the London riots were black, so therefore the media would put the main focus on this minority group,although its not a fair representation of the whole minority group.
Media Languages and Forms 

• The denotations of the London riots were that the people involved with these acts were chaotic, violent, thugs and insane people who just wanted to loot free things. However, the connotations could be the deeper meaning in terms of issues within the society and government such as poverty and low incomes

• The significance of the connotations are that it creates an interest on what gave these rioters the fuel to take part and it will also discover both sides of the incident rather than just looking at what the media represents it to be.

• The non verbal meanings of the text shows us that the rioters are reinforcing the stereotypes they already have on them, such as being heavily involved in crime, aggressive and violent as you would be able to tell from their facial expressions. 
• They're also wearing tracksuits and sports wear which makes them fit better into the description of a "Thug"

• The mise en scene shows that they're already in the streets in terms of the settings.

• These were the images that were most dominant images and iconography, and was relevant to major themes of the text

• Media Audiences

• The audience for this particular case is aged between 16-60. This is because what happened was a moral panic for the whole of the UK and for some even worldwide as the London Olympics were only a year after. 

• I also believe that the newspaper mainly target the ABC1 demographic because they are the ones who were most likely not to be involved. 

• The physchographics could've been targeted at the reformers, resigned, explorers and aspirers. the assumptions are that they aren't aware of what is going on in the UK in terms of Poverty, Low income houses, lack of jobs, police harassment, and made the youths look like they were just rioting for the sake of it

Unemployment rates are continuing to increase which means that a lot of people(mainly young) are struggling to get jobs in order to pay for essential things they need, this could mean that it would lead them to crimes, as research showed that their is a direct correlation between the amount of people behind on bills and the crime rate in London.

Could the government have done something to prevent the riots from happening?
Could they have done something different after the riots?

7)Issues/Debates

• Representation and stereotyping in the media and how news corporations such as the BBC and The Guardian represented youths during the London riots, i mainly looked into how they were represented in a negative way and the stereotypes created by the media were reinforced.

• Moral Panics, the text i will be focusing on which is the 2011 London riots caused a major outbreak and Moral panic within the country

• News Values since this was a moral panic, the news gave this particular text a lot of prominence.

• Media effects refer to the theories about the ways in which mass media and media culture affect how their audiences think and behave. and in this case, it is how the rioters reacted to how the News represented them.

• Media technology and the digital revolution – changing technologies in the 21st century

8)Theories

Medhursts theory of representations. This theory believed that stereotypes are used as a shorthand to represent a group of people which is usually a minority. This was done a lot during the London riots as youths were labelled as "thugs" and "Yobs" to identify the rioters.

Perkins theory of Representations, This is similar to the Medhurst theory which is the theory believing that the media use stereotypes to get a message across in the media.

Media texts
For my critical investigation my main focus will be on the 2011 London Riots, this is because this particular event caused alot of controversy between race and social issues within society and the media. Also, this event happen in London which caused a moral panic,this is an advantage to me because i have a lot of knowledge on this particular event.

Other media texts

• BBC News
• The Guardian
• Ill Manors(Movie)

TV documentaries

• The Riots: In Their Own Words
• London Riots 2011 [ Our Crime ]
• Riot Night - England Riots 2011 Documentary
• London's Burning (2011)

Books

Language in the News

written by: Martin Conboy

Internet Links
1. At least FIVE from Media Guardian or Guardian Culture or another newspaper website.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/aug/11/riots-social-media-gang-culture
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/aug/05/chalk-farm-edinburgh-london-riots
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/dec/05/riots-revenge-against-police
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/09/uk-riots-psychology-of-looting


2. At least FIVE from university websites/academic papers online. Use Google Scholar as a starting point.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep01303?WT.ec_id=SREP-20130226
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6757.2000.tb01168.x/abstract
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1745-9125.12004/pdf
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-37210-0_34#page-1
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264275112000315

3. Any other relevant sites/articles - the more the better.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/dec/05/who-were-the-rioters

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/aug/16/london-riots-young-people-voice-anger

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15426720

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14462688

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14467988