Social Media Discussion and application activity.

How far were the responses of the rioters themselves given space in the media?

During the course of my investigation of the media's reporting on the London riots it became immediately apparent that it was only very rarely that one of the rioters themselves got an opinion across through the media. In fact in all four of my pieces there is not a single one that has a piece from the rioters viewpoint, or indeed any viewpoint other than that of the media. Instead of this there is a lot of scapegoating and making youth's into 'folk devils', then, despite this heavy concentration on the youths themselves; there is little or no reporting including the opinion of a 'youth' or a rioter.

If you type 'London Riots' into Google images, this is the second image to appear on the list, I believe this is fairy representative of how the media chose 'young people' or 'hooded people', focused in upon them and made the public believed that it was entirely this particular subculture that was responsible for the riots.



In fact the only time in which any of this really was included was post-riot, when people were interested in what the viewpoints were, meaning that the media had to report this. This example of mass media 'ignorance' is a great example of why the mass media can be unfair in how it reports a story.
Considering the fact that the media focused so heavily on youths, it is quite surprising the little amount of reporting done on their behalf/from their viewpoint, I believe this is representative of a scapegoat, and the fact that it was easier to simply blame youths, than to report from their viewpoint and perhaps find out the motives. This is obviously because sensationalising within the media means more money.

An example of a report stating that 'two hundred youths' committed an act of violence, however it then states that a thirty five year old man was arrested, meaning that the word 'youths' was simply used as a buzzword in order to help the article sell.

A little after it the entire event was basically blamed entirely upon the youth subculture, a lot of younger people struck back, campaigns such as the 'not in my name' campaign asserted that this stereotyping was unfair, there were a lot of youths trying to make a positive contribution to the riots, and trying to clean up after them. Hashtags like 'cleanuplondon' were formed and hundreds of these so called 'folk devils' took to the streets in order to clean up the mess other people had created.
This shows the power of the media, it can sway a group of people, or turn an entire society against them. Whilst it is true that having immediate communication and the ability to create massive awareness of something incredibly quickly, it also comes with the risk that someone may abuse the power, or that the power is used in order to scapegoat a subculture, it is unfair of the media to suggest that a group of two hundred people comprised only of youths, how old is a 'youth'? Considering an article that suggested this then stated a man of thirty five was arrested, does the media class a a youth as someone that is actually young, or somebody that is committing a crime?

 A good example of the media bias is the following Sky Interview with the rioters:
Despite this being one of the rare forays by the media into the rioters viewpoint, I believe that it is completely unfair and biased. It does not give a fair portrayal of the protest started and chooses four completely stereotypical people to give the young audience a voice, and a reason as to why they 'rioted'. These youths state that the reason they rioted was in order to gain material possessions. This is terrible, and the person who is interviewing these people probably knew this, and wanted to show the world what 'rioters' are, however this is an unfair representation, the media know that these people are frankly quite stupid and would say anything in order to appear 'tough' or fit to a stereotype. This is shown by how the camerawork keeps zooming into the tracksuits or the trainers or their bandannas, showing that the cameraman knows that these people fit a negative stereotype and he is trying to increase that. The interviewer did not then go on to interview a university student, or any other different 'youth' subliminally portraying to the audience that all rioters are just like these ones here, and frankly I feel it is unfair that the media take advantage of a situation by scapegoating a subculture in order to gain more money; because this is essentially what they have done. This report is completely biased from the start, despite the caring overtones.