7. Representing youth
IPSOS MORI Survey 2005:
40% of articles focus on violence, crime, anti-social
behaviour; 71% are negative
Brunel University 2007:
TV news: violent crime or celebrities; young people are
only 1% of sources
Women in Journalism 2008:
72% of articles were negative; 3.4% positive
75% about crime, drugs, police
Boys: yobs, thugs, sick, feral, hoodies, louts, scum
Only positive stories are about boys who died young
8. Folk devils and misrepresentations?
[In a moral panic] a condition, episode, person or group of
persons emerges to become defined as a threat to
societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a
stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the
moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops,
politicians and other right-thinking people; socially
accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and
solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often)
resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or
deteriorates and becomes more visible.
Are moral panics just irrational?
Do the media simply misrepresent
young people?
Do the media make people more
fearful?
12. Rioting 2.0?
Turning off the internet!
Do media cause riots or revolutions?
Technology and surveillance: mobile
phones, CCTV, 24-hour news….
13. Opinions and explanations
How are issues ‘framed’?
Who claims ‘ownership’ of an issue?
Who’s an expert?
Is this democratic media – or just instant opinions?
14. Broken Britain
Max Hastings: Daily Mail
Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of
amoral, uneducated, unparented, welfare dependent,
brutalised youngsters.
They are essentially wild beasts. I use that phrase
advisedly, because it seems appropriate to young
people bereft of the discipline that might make them
employable; of the conscience that distinguishes
between right and wrong. 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.
15. Unequal Britain
Cuts, youth unemployment, EMA,
youth service…
Bankers, politicians expenses,
Cameron and Boris
Peter Oborne: Daily Telegraph:
The rioting cannot be dissociated from the
moral disintegration in the highest ranks of
modern British society… It has become
acceptable for our politicians to lie and to
cheat… the sad young men and women,
without hope or aspiration, who have caused
such mayhem and chaos over the past few
days… have this defence: they are just
following the example set by senior and
respected figures in society.
