Media Magazine Notes & Quotes

1. There’s a riot going on

In the first of a series of regular discussion features, David Buckingham from Loughborough University looks at the role of the media in this summer’s riots. To help focus on his detailed analysis, we've included some bullet-point questions to think about and discuss during reading.

In August of this year, a wave of civil disturbances spread across Britain’s inner cities. Following a peaceful demonstration against the death of a black man, Mark Duggan, at the hands of the police in Tottenham in North London, police officers beat a teenage protester on the street. The disorder that ensued subsequently spread to other areas of the capital and thence to several of England’s major cities. Newspapers, TV screens and the internet were flooded with reports and images of crowds rampaging through the streets, setting buildings and vehicles alight, fighting with police and smashing and looting from shops. 

2. Representing young people: language, race, class and selection

This was reinforced by the selection of images – and perhaps especially by the iconic image of one black, hooded young man which appeared on at least five front pages following the first day of the disturbances, and in many reports since then (see www.frontpagestoday.co.uk/2011/08/09/archive.cfm). 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’. 

3. A tradition of fear

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. 

4. Another genre, another teen movie

I was challenged recently to name the film I thought was the ultimate Teen movie. That is the one movie that sums up a genre that I’ve been studying with groups of A Level students (you know who you are!) over the past year. Naturally, being a teacher, it wasn’t possible simply to name one film. That would be far too straightforward. No, I would have to spend at least a week making up my mind and then write at least 2000 words explaining why I couldn’t decide on just one and maybe after that perhaps I would identify one anyway just to be awkward.

5. The media in the riots

As I’ve implied, the role of the media here isn’t straightforward. However, when we look at how media commentators themselves talked about this, we find a much simpler story. In the tabloid press, much of the initial blame for the violence was put on popular culture: it was rap music, violent computer games or reality TV that was somehow provoking young people to go out and start rioting.

The Daily Mirror, for example, blamed

the pernicious culture of hatred around rap music, which glorifies violence and loathing of authority (especially the police but including parents), exalts trashy materialism and raves about drugs.

6. The role of technology: social networking

In this case, however, there was a new dimension in the form of social networking. Despite being depicted by tabloids as mindless thugs and morons, the rioters were also seen as somehow skilful enough to co-ordinate their actions by using Facebook, Blackberry and Twitter. The Sun, for example, reported that ‘THUGS used social network Twitter to orchestrate the Tottenham violence and incite others to join in as they sent messages urging: ‘Roll up and loot’.

According to The Telegraph:

technology fuelled Britain’s first 21st century riot. The Tottenham riots were orchestrated by teenage gang members, who used the latest mobile phone technology to incite and film the looting and violence. Gang members used Blackberry smartphones designed as a communications tool for high-flying executives to organise the mayhem.

7. The rise of the ‘commentariat’: framing the issues

Of course, there are many possible interpretations and explanations of these events; but there are some further questions to be asked about the media’s role in promoting debate and circulating opinion.

Many media researchers have looked at how social issues are ‘framed’. By putting a frame around a particular issue, the media draw it to our attention; but while the frame includes some things, it always excludes others. In framing issues, the media define them in particular ways; and in the process, they may or may not help us to understand what is going on. 

8. The loss of discipline – parents, schools and law and order

For some right-wing commentators, it is parents who are principally to blame for this situation; while others, such as Katharine Birbalsingh, blame schools for failing to instil discipline and respect for authority – especially, according to her, in black children. For some, this failure even extends to the police – as for one Daily Telegraph letter writer, who argued that the riots were ‘a result of the police caring more for community relations than for the rule of law’.

Framing the issue in this way, as a failure of discipline, thus inevitably leads to a call for disciplinary responses. During the disturbances themselves, such commentators were calling for the use of water cannon and plastic bullets (or in some cases, real ones). Subsequently, there have been many calls for punitive sentences, some of which are still being fought through in the courts. These include the case of the person jailed for six months for stealing a bottle of water, or the two jailed for four years for inciting a riot via Facebook – a riot which never actually took place.

9. Making sense of ‘riots’

The death of Mark Duggan and the subsequent treatment of his family by the police clearly did spark the disturbances in Tottenham – especially coming on top of hundreds of earlier deaths in police custody (330 since 1998, disproportionately of black people). But it doesn’t explain what happened over the ensuing days in places much further afield – or indeed why rioting did not happen in places where it might have been predicted.

We need to explain why people suddenly seem to want to step beyond the boundaries of the law – why they choose to act in this way. Accusing them simply of ‘brutality’, or of being ‘animals’ or ‘morons’, does not help with this.

Social scientists who have looked at this area know that ‘riots’ – or civil disturbances – are unusual events, with complex causes. What some call a riot, others call an uprising – and often those who are involved have a wide range of different motivations. Riots are sometimes sparked by specific events, but in other cases they appear to be almost arbitrary and spontaneous