Historically this sort of thing has happened before, for example ‘The Mods and Rockers’ but it still isn’t normal which is why it was reported and focused on so much.
Economically the damage the riots caused cost over £200 million worth of property damage.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots)
Looking at this from a political perspective they say that the hooliganism and ‘gang culture’ didn’t represent the culture as a whole. Political members such as the London mayor Borris Johnson and Prime Minister David Cameron were appalled and the police are working on catching the criminals and are slowly making progress.
Changing technologies in the 21st century made it easy for people to connect and find out what was happening. Because of the progression of technology like being able to access social media on your phone made it even more convenient for rioters to organise and assemble to target different areas which are the effect of globalisation in the media.
Because of the over representation and the amplification of the story it caused masses of moral panic. The riots were such a hot topic everyone knew about it and were constantly urged to stay indoors and to also keep their kids at home and since they were constantly being reminded they were scared for their own safety which shouldn’t be an issue in the comfort of their own home. This really demonstrated what an impact the riots had on the local community.
Furthermore due to globalisation the news of the London riots travelled fast as it was shown on American news.
Text 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNeYnWL3D9A
This is an extract from CNN news, an American news station. This shows a different representation of youths, in the previous text it showed a negative representation but in this one it shows a more positive image for teenagers/young adults
The costume the young black man was wearing showed a completely different image to what you would expect. He wore a smart shirt and tie putting the message that he was serious and wanted to make a difference, instead of the previous costume of hoodies and tracksuits.
The lighting is kept high key, there isn’t much editing of lighting changed to how it would look in real life, so that it looks realistic and that it’s something you can trust.
The sound is edited so we can hear the young man talking louder than all the background noises like the shouting and cameras so that we can concentrate and hear what he’s saying rather than get distracted with things that aren’t relevant. Also his body language shows that he knows how to carry himself to get the message across, again not the typical stereotype.
"Teenage victims are not often afforded the same resources as adult victims of physical abuse and sexual violence, and even when they are, the resources are designed to assist adult victims and are not tailored to the unique psychology of teens, who are often marginalized in our society.” The Psychology of Teen Violence and Victimization-Volume 1- Michele A. Paludi 2011.
The mind of a teen is very different to the mind of an adult, for example adults can be more mature about decisions made and also can resolve things better, so to have resources for abuse only tailored to adult victims is just strengthening that gap between teenagers and adults. Furthermore the abuse to teenagers isn’t emphasized as much as teenagers abusing others to reinforce that negative stereotype, the media stories go through a gatekeeper who determines what’s shown and what’s kept from the public eye. So the image the media institutions are trying to portray can be an example of the ‘Hypodermic needle theory’ which is the idea of the media injecting messages straight into the ‘passive audience’ who then instantly gets influenced and cannot break away. Youth Cultures: Texts, Images, and Identities-Kerry Mallan, Sharyn Pearce – 2003. “Theoretical stories are situated within the writers’ own personal predilections and disciplinary traditions”perspectives provide us in ways to think about issues that may be contradicting, like for example teenagers and these principles or ideas on teenagers cannot be 100% accurate because emotions, morals and beliefs get in the way and because each person holds different views, theories cant scientifically be proven true. Positivists believe that none of these values should ever get in the way when obtaining data to create a scientific theory; but this way of thinking is often criticised by interpretivist because no matter what, humans feelings will get in the way.
Youth Media By Bill Osgerby- “they are shopping for themselves, spending for all they are worth… Some of us may wonder how they get the energy, other how do they get the money.” Because of the media stereotyping the readers would already know the answer to which the author, Bill Osgerby is implying because of the stereotypes given to the youth. “Spending for all they’re worth” so teens don’t think ahead about their future, only interested in immediate gratification. For that reason this suggests they spend without thinking and act irrational. Also indicating how immature and irresponsible they can be by living and spending for today, living fatalistically. Since the media has an impact on the public minds and influences our view, the institution can manipulate and gate-keep the information given to us “Positive media representation of youth did not disappear, but there was a palpable resurgence of more negative coverage” (Youth Media By Bill Osgerby). The media over- represents the negative stories so that it over shadows any positive coverage, creating a corrupt, damaged generation.
“Young people could be judged on ‘what they might do’ rather than what they actually do”-Parents, Children, Young people and the state by Sandra Shaw. This approach to young people is unfair to the ones being accused and to others. For innocent teenagers who behave and have no immoral motivations are automatically being feared on the basis of what their stereotype might do or say. Because of these people being feared and are anticipated to do bad might just fulfil this prophecy and commit crime anyway because its expected from them. Other people who are older than them or fear them would be influenced because of the label of youths and would change their everyday lives; for instance not going down a certain road because there are a group of teens or not going inside a shop because a group of youths went in. These groups of teenagers may not have the intention to cause any disruptions and yet people will still go out their way just not to encounter them. But on the other hand if we judged everyone on what they ‘might do’ rather than what they actually do then where would we all stand? In fear of everyone.
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