Riot questions

1.      The selection of images created a stereotypical representation of youths as they were shown in ‘chav’ clothing such as track suits and the background of the images were filled with vandalism e.g. buildings on fire and shops being smashed up.

2.      David Buckingham mentions Owen Jones because he believes youngsters behaving in the way they did during the riots shows a strong perception of the working class which is a perception that is demonising.

3.      The 2005 IPSOS/MORI survey found that 40% of articles involving young people were about crime or violence. Also 71% could be having a negative tone.

4.      Stanley Cohen says that the coverage by the media of the riots talked up a disturbance and an even bigger moral panic.

5.      The elements of media and popular culture that were blamed for the riots were: rap music, violent computer games and reality TV shows.

6.      Social media was blamed as people used sites such as Facebook and Twitter to communicate on whether to riot and to join people to groups. Also by using Blackberry messenger which was popular at the time. During the Arab spring the use of social media was seen as a good thing by the Western media as people were going against the bad in their country.

7.      The two-step flow theory links as the rioters using social media were seen as the opinion leaders, therefore those who wanted to follow took action on what these people had to say.

8.      Henry Jenkins sees this as a decline of power by the media giants as democratisation is now coming into action and I also agree because individuals showed their power in freedom of expression through social media sites.

9.      The right wing response was that the rioters were all uneducated and had not been taught by their parents very much and do not have any sort of respect and do not know what they were doing. They were also compared to being animals.

10.   The left wing response suggested it was to do with poverty and unprivileged youths with horrible backgrounds. Also to do with cuts in youth services and the removal of education maintenance allowance.

11.   I believe the main cause of the riots was that it gave youngsters an excuse to loot and act immorally.

12.   Capitalism can be blamed for the riots as money is the goal for everyone and individuals saw this as an opportunity to loot as many valuables as they could.

13.   People involved in the riots hardly got a chance to explain themselves in the media.

14.   The causes happen to be opportunism, lack of money, unemployment, an increase in student tuition fees and how they felt they were treated compared with others.

15.   I believe that the solution to solving issues is not violence and the rioters caused a lot of damage and were quite unintelligent to take part and I believe that most of their intentions were only to steal and damage for the fun of it and to act ‘cool’. Therefore there should be harsh prison sentences.