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) 

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• 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.

2828 words 17466 characters

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

Tutorial Targets

1. Research news values - Galtung & Ruge

2. Broadcast media examples

3. Charlie Brooker (Newswipe) on the London riots

Ignite presentation learner response

Ignite evaluation

Significance: 3/5

Structure: 4/5

Simplicity: 3/5

Rehearsal: 3/5

TOTAL: 13/20

WWW:

• Powerful choice of images
• Starts with a question
• Background research(Context, demographics, good overview)
• Fluent style
• Good pace
• Highlighted text
• Some theory (Two step flow) 
• Front Pages
• V.Good on context

EBI:

• Too much text on some slides(With the quotes)
• Talk about different media institutions, I didn't focus enough on the media representations. 
• I should have spoke more about how the London riots caused a Moral panic
• I also should have mentioned the stereotypes that are already on the minority group.

The presentation i put together will help me put together my final question for my critical investigation. The current question I will be answering is "Does the British media give a fair representation of youths in England?" 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.

Ignite Presentation

Summer Coursework

England rioters 'poorer, younger, less educated'(BBC News)

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

In this article there is a detailed breakdown of the demographics in the London riots which show the following facts:

• Some 90% of those brought before the courts were male and about half were aged under 21 
• Only 5% were over the age of 40 
• Of those defendants whose ethnicity is known: 46% were black, 42% were white, 7% were Asian and 5% were classified as "other". In some areas - such as Salford - this partially matched the ethnicity of the general population, in others - such as Nottingham - it was not representative of the general population 
• Some 35% of adults were claiming out-of-work benefits, which compares to a national average of 12% 
• Of the young people involved, 42% were in receipt of free school meals compared to an average of 16% 

Who were the rioters?(The Guardian)

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

In some areas, government figures and the Reading the Riots data paint the same picture. MoJ figures revealed that, where ethnicity was recorded, 33% of those appearing in the courts on riot-related charges were white, 43% were black and 7% Asian. The figures varied significantly from area to area, often closely resembling the ethnic makeup of the local population: in London, 32% of defendants were white, in Merseyside, the figure was 79%.

Similarly, in the Guardian/LSE study, though a slightly larger proportion were from an ethnic minority (50% black, 5% Asian) or of mixed race (18%), this again varied significantly from area to area, with the ethnic makeup of interviewees in Salford and Manchester overwhelmingly white.


London riots: young people voice their frustrations(The gaurdian)http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/aug/16/london-riots-young-people-voice-anger


This article contains interviews with young people (some who were involved in the riots) discussing their opinions and point of view of the London Riots. Here are a few of them; 








Leroy, 20, Clapham, south London
"I watched the rioting. I don't condone people burning down houses but at the same time what can I say to them? If that's what they feel they need to do to get people's respect and get noticed, I'm not going to argue with them or blame them for what they are doing."


I'm angry and frustrated. I feel the same as them. Angry with everything – society, police, the way they treat us. They don't treat us like human beings. I've been stopped and searched and I've refused to give my details, and because I don't give my details the police officer says he's taking you for a strip search. I can't tell you why everyone decided to do this now but it has been a build-up over the past few years. Especially for people in my age group and younger."

This young man expresses his opinions on why there are so many angry protesters, one of the main reasons is being stopped and harassed by police

Nas, 28, involved in riots in Brixton, south London
"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."
Kevin, 17, Isle of Dogs, east London
"I was passing through Mare Street, [in Hackney, east London] and saw a lot of looting. There was a wide range of people there: young people, mothers, some people who were definitely at uni. I can't say why they were doing it but I think this whole Mark Duggan [shot by police in Tottenham, north London] thing is an excuse. People are using that as an open door to get free stuff.People are angry with the police though, that is real. They have mistreated youth, I've experienced that myself. I was walking out of a jewellery shop the other day and I was searched. I'd say I've been searched at least six times this year, they've never found anything on me. I know my white friends don't get searched as much.
It does frustrate me but I think it's an efficient way of stopping crime."

London riots: Teenagers 'lack hope'

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

Many of London's teenagers have been rioting because they "lack hope" and "feel let down by society", according to youth group leaders.

"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.

Why did so many youths riot in London?

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.
So what turned so many young people into rioters?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjWifAuTwJg

This was an interview done post riots with some London Youths and they expressed how the riots benefited them and their families. "Christmas came early", they also explained how frustrated they were about the economy and how difficult it is for them to get jobs .
one of the youths who was aged 16 also explained how he managed to loot items for his son. He explained that he 

Darcus Howe, a West Indian Writer and Broadcaster with a voice about the riots. Speaking about the mistreatment of youths by police leading to an up-roar and the ignorance of both police and the governement. 

The London Riots in August 2011 had a massive impact on the way in which 21st century teens of London are represented in the media. The terms ‘looters’ ‘hoodies’ ‘yobs’ and ‘thugs’ along with a variety of other offensive terms were used to describe the teens who took part in the London riots.

Social media played an extremely big role during the London Riots, this is because this was the main source of communications for rioters so they could plan meet ups and when they would go out rioting.

Skepta made a lyric refrencing the London riots by saying "Tell Boris he lucky that i made it rapping or i wouldve been looting to" this shows us that a man who has reached a very high level of success still understand the stuggle of people living in london,

Many people believe that the majority of people rioted because they were unemployed and since the economy of the UK is really terrible, it could potentially lead to people committing crimes. 

The two graphs above show the correlation between the amount of people who are behind on bills in the UK and the crime rate. London was the highest on both graphs.

"Significantly, foreign coverage of the disturbances was much more balanced than British reporting in terms of the images used, analysis and breadth of interviewees," writes Marc Wadsworth, editor of the-latest.com, the citizen journalism website that is helping to organise the event.

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

Narrative
The audience are positioned to be suppressed as they don't have much say in whats going on in the media as it all speaks for itself.It is represented as the police officers are the heroes and the villains are the rioters. 
Media Institutions

What is the institutional source of the text?
In what ways has the text been influenced or shaped by the institution which produced it?
Is the source a public service or commercial institution? What difference does this make to the text?
Who owns and controls the institution concerned and does this matter?
How has the text been distributed?

Media Values and Ideology
The major values that were emphasised in the media was that the Youths in London were the main problem and the evil in society and the media and police officers were the ones who are the protagonist in these situations.

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 arent 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.

The representation of race/ethnicity in the media

MM32 "Africa's Finest Hour"

Mainly focus on south Africa's Apartheid and how some apartheid still takes place to this date.

How South Africa was thought not to be capable of hosting the world cup in 2010]

There is a lot of Gang and criminal activity still going on

MM35 "Strictly Cultural"

Gives a review of the cultural expectations of the british television

how studies of British popular television have responded to changing ideas about ‘culture’.

Culture or Culchure? Who Decides What’s Best? Low v High culture

Culture and the Burka aka Why I Hate Sex and the City 2
MM42 Kony 2012

Power, Politics and the #Generation