The images used of young people are very demonizing as the pictures portray the youth coming out of the flames, a common convention that is associated with hell and demons. Furthermore, the youth's clothing is a full, hooded tracksuit which is the typical clothing that young people in gangs wear when they are on the street. He is also shown wearing a mask which connotes criminality as he maybe wanting to hide his identity from the police. With such an outfit, this leads society, especially the upper class elite, to believe that these young people have no aspirations or goals for the future, which leads them to be an easy target for stereotyping and being subjected to criticism. Furthermore, the words used such as "madness" "anarchy" and "crisis" may lead to a moral panic and cause society to fear this negative image of the youth that the media has portrayed.
Stanley Cohen's work on moral panic is highly relevant to the coverage of the riots as institutions often intensified the situation of the riots to create a bigger fear within society as well as portray the youth in a way that subjects them to contempt and makes them out to be the primary cause for society's current issue of the riots. Furthermore, Cohen argues that the media play a role in deviance amplification, which means that they express the fear and outrage of society in a way that audiences have a growing attraction towards the problem.
It can be considered that social media acts as a hub for rioters to meet and scheme riots on a large scale. An example of this was when thugs had conversed on Twitter and used the social networking site to orchestrate the Tottenham riots. Smartphones that were designed for communication were also used to make the riots happen much easier. The Arab Springs was a similar case where revolters made great use of social media.
The two step flow theory can greatly be related to the coverage of the riots as big journalists or pundits who offer their opinions and ideologies will significantly sway the publics opinions on the situation, similarly to these influential opinion leaders. An example where the two step flow theory was clearly seen was when ex teacher, Katherine Birbalsingh, who is now a popular blogger and newspaper columnist, claimed that Mark Duggan had fired a gun at the police. Although this statement had no evidence, this sparked the interest from many audience members to believe that the story was true.
Media scholars such as Henry Jenkins may have viewed this enormous number of forums, blogs and social media comments to be a very positive influence on society. As media was once ruled by the hierarchical big institutions, a new flood of opinions and ideologies are beginning to be expressed, also displaying the new kind of democratisation that this country now has.
I think that such ways in which the normal public can involve in the media empowers the once powerless society as there are several perspectives and point of views that can be seen with citizen journalism. To some extent, it can be considered that citizen journalism can disempower audiences as the internet may be more prone to having an extensive amount of baseless theories, however, ultimately, if one knows how to filter the news with evidence as opposed to vice versa, blogs, forums and social media comments are very beneficial to society.
Right wing responses often include animalistic and demonising descriptions of the youth, trying to convince the public that the youth have no discipline and lack fear from the authority and law. They argue that the youth have no sense of moral compass and they simply only exist in the world. Some responses even go as far as saying animals are better trained and mannered than some of the youth on the street.
Left wing responses often argue that inequality and poverty have led these young people to take desperate measures in order for their opinions to be heard and with the uncompromising elite, they have no choice but to engage in such criminality in order to survive. More specifically, left wing responses point out the cuts in youth services that have led young people to begin heinous crimes.
In my opinion, the main cause of the riots is the highly materialistic society in which we live in. As the most significant places that were looted were places that sold products that weren't considered necessities, this shows that people often looted to get new materialistic items for their pleasure as opposed to necessities from supermarkets. possibly, another less significant cause would be that the youth were unsatisfied with the way they were portrayed in the media and decided that they needed to something drastic.
Capitalism can be considered to be the blame for the riots as the greedy elite may have influenced the youth to act immorally as they themselves are often partaking in various immoral actions such as lying and cheating in order to gain power and wealth. Young people may have taken this way to generate money and caused the riots to occur.An important theory that can be linked o this can be hegemony as those upperclass in society often construct, control and dominate the ideologies to make society see these ideologies as a norm. however the youth began to fight back against the hegemonic society.
The people who were involved in the riots were not given an opportunity at all to explain their participation in the events, however, 3rd parties, such as historians were given the opportunity to explain the riots. Although this would given a certain amount of information, this would not have given the information that society wanted to hear. A reason as to why the people involved were not given an opportunity to speak as mediators may not have wanted alternative ideologies to be spread into society and if they have given the rioters a chance to explain themselves, the footage would be displayed in a way to make the audience further show dismay and contempt towards the rioters despite them having possible valid reasons for rioting.
Some of the causes outlines in the guardian article were ~
- Materialistic desires
- unemployment
- political grievances
I personally believe that the rioters should not be sympathized with as they chose an ineffective way to deal with there situation of poverty. To a certain extent, the rioters can be sympathized with as their desperateness was revealed, however, despite being in desperate situations, do not think that their action were justified. I think the riots actually worsened the image that youth have in society as such a major incident would not be easily forgotten. I think stronger prison sentences are not the right approach to prevent such events as it could possibly aggravate the youth further. I do think that the current punishment that is already instated by the law should not change. By doing this, it may become apparent to the rioters that rioting will have no affect on things and should not be a way to get what they desire in society. If the punishment was lessened for rioters and those in power did exactly what the rioters wanted, it would be highly ineffective as people will use the same method to change anything which they are unsatisfied with, which can be very bad for the society and its growth.
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