The London Riots of August of 2011 - Essay Example

? The London Riots of August of Examining media and journalism on the events from the perspectives of two outlets Contents Introduction 3 Background 4 Power in Journalism 5 Comparing News Resources 6 Ethics, Journalism and New Media 9 Blog 13 Culture and Journalism 14 Discussion 16 Conclusion 18 List of Figures 19 Bibliography 20 The London Riots of August of 2011: Examining media and journalism on the events from the perspectives of two outlets Introduction Journalism is a profession in which the truth about world events is revealed to the public through ethical use of information in order to create an informed public. The problem with current trends in journalism is that rumour is often assumed to be true without giving any investigation time to reveal the true nature of incidents in the world. Reports are made through competitive motivations rather than through the ethics of truth in reporting so that the public will choose one outlet over another which provides financial support for media outlets. One of the dangers of the news is that often rumour becomes presented as fact creating a reaction by the public that can turn to undesirable action. While the news provides an important service to the people of a nation, the reports must be accurate and ethical to have the social importance that is needed to create an informed public. Information that has been created to have the highest inflammatory effect in order to create the best possible entertainment for viewers or readers does not provide an accurate service to the public. A recent example of the dissemination of premature information that incited the public to action can be seen through the example of the riots in London during August of 2011. These riots were the result of both police action that people of the area of Tottenham found objectionable and unjust, as well as the reports made by the media that constituted rumours that had yet to be substantiated. Between the erroneous news releases and the reports on various social media outlets by eye witnesses who could refute the news reports, protest was made that was not met with adequate response from authorities, finally leading to riots and looting which resulted in death and destruction. In examining the reports made by the BBC and those made by The Guardian, an understanding of varying perspectives can be achieved as the outlets released news on the events that was based on how the information was that interpreted by the journalists. The following paper will first examine the background as perceived from reading various reports and written from the understanding of how those reports become a story in the mind of the reader. The news reports from the BBC will first be examined for their perspective on the riots, followed by the reports made The Guardian that can be compared to the reports from the BBC. Background During the month of August a series of riots and protested were motivated by the shooting death of a 29 year old man named Mark Duggan as attempts were made to arrest him. The incident occurred on 4 August 2011 at the Ferry Lane Bridge next to the Tottenham Hale station and was associated with Operation Trident, a police investigation into crimes associated with guns within the black community. The IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission) was put in charge of the investigation of the shooting according to policy after a death that occurred through police involvement. Confusion within the media occurred through erroneous statements that seemed to be intended to quell the resulting violence after the incident. In the end it is possible that the false information did nothing more than to incite a larger backlash as the inconsistencies emerged through eye-witness accounts and retractions from the police department. One of the primary problems occurred as the media was lead to believe that Duggan fired on the police where eye witnessed did not see him fire. On 6 August a peaceful protest was planned that was to be a march from the Broadwater farm to the Tottenham police station. The point was to raise awareness for the injustice of the death and to provide the public with a motivation to demand that the police involved are held accountable. Rioting began when a demand was made that a high official in the police department come out to speak to them. When their demands were not met after a longer than planned time period, a group of young people arrived with weapons and violence broke out when a rumour began to spread that a teenage girl had been attacked by police. Once violence began, social dissention turned to acts of looting and rioting that would eventually lead to death, injury, and destruction. Rumours began to fuel the fire of rebellion as the people acted out against injustices both true and untrue, both great and small, through violent expressions of protest. Rioting begin on the evening of 7 August and continued through until 11 August when the energy of the crowd’s anger finally dissipated. The social media through Blackberry Messenger was reported to have been a tool of the rioters creating larger and more intense rumours and provoking organized looting to take place. Power in Journalism Ideological influences on how stories are framed for public consumption provide journalists with a great deal of power in regard to culture. Stories are naturally told from an ideological perspective, creating opinions within society that are based on how the journalist interprets events. Although journalism is supposed to be unbiased reporting, it is not possible for a story to be told without giving it influences from cultural belief systems (Fortner and Fackler 2011). An example of this emerged in the United States after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans and a picture of a black man with a raft floating in the floods as he walked through them was captioned saying he was looting food while a white woman floating a raft behind her with food was captioned with the a title that stated she had found food (Brunsma 2007). The media often reflects ideologies of social stereotypes that perpetuate cultural belief systems. Racism is a potent tool for the media in creating stories and narratives that frame social events through influenced frameworks. Comparing News Resources The BBC and The Guardian are two media outlets that actively reported on the riots in London after the shooting death of Mark Duggen. The Guardian has released hundreds of articles on the riots since they occurred in August examining the problem from almost every angle conceivable. A common concern of the reporting done has centred on worries that the preparations for the Olympics in London would be disrupted (The Guardian 2011). This concern represents one of the social concerns that would affect a broader population than just those involved in the riot. Through this perspective The Guardian has asserted an aspect of its focus on what is important in the aftermath of the events. Another focus for The Guardian was on the social media as reports on Twitter, Facebook, and Blackberry Messenger figured into the events of the riots. A report on 9 August by Josh Halliday discussed the nature of social media outlets in the riot, creating an editorial commentary on their uses with speculations based upon ideas about each of those outlets. Halliday speculates that Blackberry Messenger was used to organize the riot because it is virtually untraceable by authorities. The following message is claimed to have gone out instigating looting among the rioters: "Everyone from all sides of London meet up at the heart of London (central) OXFORD CIRCUS!!, Bare SHOPS are gonna get smashed up so come get some (free stuff!!!) fuck the feds we will send them back with OUR riot! >:O Dead the ends and colour war for now so if you see a brother... SALUT! if you see a fed... SHOOT!"(Halliday 2011). News as it was reported through the BBC seems to be less inflammatory and based upon the facts as they presented themselves to the journalist. The issue of the social media networks was discussed but presented from the perspective of comments made from the police as well as caution about using social media outlets for sources of reliable information (BBC August 2011). None of the opinions in the piece are presented as facts, but are presented as ideas coming from sources. Where the work in The Guardian seems to be the extension of the writer’s opinion on the events, the BBC seems to be giving a report based on external information. Where The Guardian seemed to have a series of reports on how the social media was influential in creating the riot atmosphere, the BBC seems to have reports that take an opposing point of view. On as recently as 8 December 2011the BBC has presented reports created from studies of the Twitter messages sent during the event that show that Twitter was not central to the organization of the rioters. Rather than an internal audit such as was done by The Guardian (fig. 1), the BBC depended on a study done by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), an independent academic research organization. In comparison to the reports by The Guardian on the same matter, the information provided by the BBC appears to be a report rather than created internally to support the reporter’s opinions. According to Reader and Hatcher (2011: 96) “civic/public journalism studies tended to assess the degree to which media professionals listen to community and enable social change, and the degree to which media shape or narrow a community’s agenda, suggesting social control”. Using the examples as provided by the BBC and The Guardian in regard to the position of social networking cites in participating in the spread of information that was intended to organize the riots, two different perspectives seem to emerge. The idea of the social media has become an incendiary topic in which the social changes that have taken place can sometimes be seen as a frightening and sensationalized concept in which the internet has become a force that incites action. The Guardian seems to be exploiting the sensationalized version of events where the social media outlets are concerned, creating a scenario in which the riots were a result of social media practices by the rioters. The BBC seems to have taken a point of view based on the information that has been created by external sources, reporting on the news that it uncovers rather than creating news. In the example of figure 1, The Guardian has created its own report on the events where Twitter was used during the riots where the BBC used the information from the study done by an independent resource. It would appear that The Guardian is trying to narrow the point of view on the social media by creating its own version of what has transpired where the BBC reports what has been discovered by others and supports the social agendas through revealing the truth rather than creating it. Ethics, Journalism and New Media One of the problems that reported to have occurred during the riots was the use of Blackberry Messenger as a tool for disseminating information through unreliable and non-journalistic resources. Twitter was also used to disseminate information leading to one user to tweet “My twitter is 50% Londoners sharing street-by-street riot info and 50% Americans commenting on stock market doom. PLEASE SEND CAT PICTURES” (Bussmann 2011). While this is hoped to be a humorous exaggeration, it is clear that the social media has emerged as a tool through which the dissemination of information can outpace the official journalism outlets and influence the course of history through means that were once the dominion of professional journalists. The use of Twitter during the riots was of high interest to The Guardian who released a graph showing the usage off Twitter during that time period based upon location within London. As shown in Figure 1, the use of Twitter spiked on the seventh of August for members of Tottenham which has led to speculation that Twitter use was involved in the organization of the riots. In creating this piece of news, The Guardian appears to be creating an opinion and expressing it about the use of the social media in modern society. Figure 1Use of Twitter during the Riots by Region (Burn-Murdoch, Lewis, Ball, Oliver, Robninson, and Blight 2011). The idea that the media has the power to influence public opinion did not come into academic awareness until the 1940s. Paul Lazarsfeld and a research team from Columbia University in the United States studied the media in relationship to the presidential election in a Erie County, Ohio. He discovered that radio and newspaper influences changed the perspectives of people in the area on the campaigns being run by the candidates. From this perspective, the two step flow model was created with the first step of influence from the media coming as media relates facts and opinions. The second step occurs when people who have picked up the information from the media act as ‘media leaders’, disseminating that information to others (Turow, 2008). Figure 2 The Daily accuses five men of murder (The Daily Mail 1997) The media often acts to fill the gap between the law and the public good, acting on information that cannot be used in a court in order to serve as a conduit for the truth. When used responsibly, the gap can promote change so that those who would get away with flaunting law for their own purposes can be stopped. An example of this came through the death of Stephen Lawrence who was stabbed to death at a bus stop in 1993 in what is suspected to be a crime of racism. The five men accused of his murder were released and not tried for the murders, but the Daily Mail printed a front page with the faces of the five men and the title “Murderers” across the top and the challenge “The Mail accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong let them sue us” (Figure 2)(The Daily Mail 1997). In this case, since the men were not in the middle of a trial, the paper was not in contempt of court, but would be subject to a liable suit should the accusations be false. Because these accusations were allegedly not false, the men would have been taking a risk asserting their rights against libellous accusations if they could not prove it was libel. They took the risk of being revealed for their crimes. In taking on the system, the journalists involved were challenged the status quo. The result of the public challenge to the system was the Kent inquiry that subjected the police department for scrutiny for its own prejudices where black populations were concerned, concluding that the investigation had not been conducted properly. Through the intermediary of the media, the social right was supported and the public agenda was focused on righting a wrong (Wright 2011). The events of the recent riots in London in August of this year provide for another example of how the media has attempted to fill the gap between the authorities and justice. In disputing the idea that Twitter had something to do with the riots, the BBC was stepping in between Twitter and some opinions that the site should be shut down for inciting a riot (BBC August 2011). At the same time, another article refocused the blame onto the human element, suggesting that the riots occurred over anger at the police. This suggestion helped in reinforcing the true focus of the events rather than sensationalizing the use of the social media (BBC 5 December 2011). Blog The 1996 Broadcasting Act set standards for journalism through the Code on Fairness and Privacy in order to regulate investigative journalism. One of the problems with strict regulations on investigative journalism is that strict regulations make it risky to create investigative journalism pieces (Odugbemi & Jacobson 2008). At the same time, fair notice is required to be given to targets of investigation so that they can give a reply to accusations or representations. These forms of structures on the behaviour of journalists are intended to assert control over an outlet that has a great deal of power. These assertions are meant to help balance the power of the media, but they tie their hands as they are now required to prove all aspects of their report (De Burgh 2000). The facts are an important aspect of creating the narrative. An example of using the facts to support the assertions through a minimal of text provides an example of how the narrative, even when primarily facts, can emerge from within the way facts are presented. As an example, The Guardian ran an article giving the statistics on the arrests made during the riots. In introducing the facts, the one fact that they pointed out was that the youngest arrest was made against an eleven year old child. In addition, the statistic on arrests suggested that there were close to 200 arrests with 98 of those arrested having been born in the 1990s (The Guardian Datablog, 2011). One of the ways that both news outlets are getting away with creating opinions that they assert into the facts is through the creation of news blogs that can have opinions butted up against facts so that the two are virtually indistinguishable. The statistics provided by The Guardian about the arrest rates are written about within their news blog space. Through doing this, the suggestions made through the statistics, that the arrests were targeted against the young. While the truth is within the blog, it is not held to the same standards as investigative journalism. Through creating a space in which the same idea of journalism is held without the standards, the people writing the blog can influence public policy without the fear that they are violating public law. The reader does not differentiate much when comparing the two forms, if a comparison is actually made, but the blog form creates an open door through which the expectations of he public can be flaunted. Culture and Journalism The development of the narrative in relationship with the culture for which the narrative becomes the story becomes intrinsically combined as the people and the history become enmeshed. The narrative of the journalist becomes the history through which the experiences are remembered. Journalism has a core power in society that is often underestimated for its control over how history will be remembered. The past is made up of the memory of the journalist as he or she memorializes the events through their own perspective. The present is represented within the emergence of the opinions and angles from which the news is presented. The news is now and immediate, giving context to what is being experienced by the people of a culture. The news creates an emotional context in which to view the events, using mood and feeling through visual message in order to cue culture in on how to interpret what is being experienced. Figure 3 shows how emotions are used through photographic editorial as the imagery evokes certain responses from Figure 3. Riot police charge past burning buildings on a residential street in Croydon (Taylor, Wainwright, Quinn, Walker, and Syal, 2011). the public. The sight of police in anti-riot gear evokes something other than safety in the public mind, but creates a sense of rebellion as the imagery suggests provoked violence and the denial of the right to exist within the location of the riot. What should represent the police doing their jobs ends up representing oppression to the reader through the emotional context of the photo. The way in which the photo accompanies the headline can make an impact. The headline for Figure 4 is “England riots study: Anti-police anger ‘was factor’” (BBC 5 December 2011) which is made stronger through the use of a photograph that has a strong, aggressive visual impact as the rioter makes posturing gestures towards the police. The anger is obvious not only from the mention in the headline, but through the visual accompaniment of the photo. The two elements create a powerful impact on the reader as to the mindset of those who are involved in the riot. In the photo the rioter is not set on the material gain from looting, but it is clear that a challenge is being made to a law enforcement official. Figure 4 Rioter as he engages the police (BBC 5 December 2011) The headlines of the articles also conveyed something to the readers through the word choices and the way in which they were placed on the pieces. Words such as ‘conflagration’, ‘conflict’, ‘aftermath’, and phrases such as ‘Police tell of their battles’ linguistically frame the events through very specific view points (The Guardian 2011). While he news is suppose to be impartial, a point of professional conduct that the1996 Broadcasting Act encourages, the subtle or sometimes not so subtle opinion on the events comes through by how the writer frames the narrative of the events. Discussion The nature of journalism is intended to be an unbiased telling of the facts of cultural and social significance, but the realities are quite different. It is not possible for a journalist to create a narrative about a story without taking a perspective on how the events impacted those involved and the world around them. The Guardian has articles that are far more emotional than those in the BBC. The Guardian appears to be working towards creating strong emotional responses from readers in order to incite change. Where Twitter and other social media outlets have been charged with inciting a riot, the mainstream media also has a responsibility for how the story was presented. The original released information was flawed as the investigation had not fully discovered the truth about the events. At this point, so many rumours have been reported as news that the truth may never be fully revealed. The BBC appears to have a more even handed style in reporting what has transpired. While The Guardian has an emotional and inflamed style, the BBC is more reserved and allows for more than one interpretation of the events. The BBC has a more journalistic style while The Guardian is a bit more sensationalized. Where one paper tends to report information, the other reports information with the colouring of opinion, asserting a bit of control over the sway of the public towards an interpretation of the events so that the public will follow the paper into battle with the authorities. As shown in the example of The Daily Mail, the use of the news can be used to fill the gap between law and justice when law prevents the emergence of just results. In the case of the riots, the voice of the original victim may be lost, the death of Mark Duggan not clearly defined as it became a confused issue behind violence of the people that was not nearly as focused as it should have been as a whole series of issues clouded the originating cause. Looting became a consumer reaction to injustice as oppression led to criminal anarchy and the problem of the death became lost in a sea of violence. Conclusion The events on 4 August 2011 that led to the death of a young man were never fully revealed throughout the course of the reporting on the following events as written in the media. The riots began as a reaction to the inefficiency of the authorities to answer to the people on why Mark Duggan died. The narrative shifted from the death of this man to the use of the social networks to organize dissent. The perspectives from which the two news outlets, The Guardian and the BBC, related the events were shown to be very different with the impact on the reader intending to have a variety of results. Through ethical behaviour, the news an provide information without a bias, but this is a difficult if not often impossible goal to meet. As shown in the use of images and certain linguistic patterns, the development of opinion when reporting the facts is almost inevitable. Even though the law has asserted structures over the power that the media has to sway opinion, the narratives that are developed will always reflect something of the opinion and perspective of the writers. List of Figures Figure 1 Use of Twitter during the Riots by Region (Burn-Murdoch, Lewis, Ball, Oliver, Robninson, and Blight 2011). Figure 2 The Daily accuses five men of murder (The Daily Mail 1997) Figure 3. Riot police charge past burning buildings on a residential street in Croydon (Taylor, Wainwright, Quinn, Walker, and Syal, 2011). Figure 4 Rioter as he engages the police (BBC 5 December 2011) Bibliography BBC. (7 August 2011). London riots: Dozens injured after Tottenham violence. BBC. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14435251 BBC (5 December 2011). England riots study: Anti-police anger ‘was factor’. BBC. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16018215 BBC (8 December 2011). England riots: Twitter ‘did not incite riot’. BBC. 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