London Riots Newspaper Analysis 2

BBC News Article on the London Riots

What Sensationalist language is used?


"Disgusting and Shocking"


The Deputy Mayor of London said this about the London Riots, by using someone of a higher profession makes the events of the riots appear more serious. These words describe two nights of London rioting and this makes the people reading the article think the events were really bad and would make them think the youths involved were of a bad nature. Although the youths may not be only to blame articles such as this make people believe that it is only the fault of the youths. He also explains that the police did a good job, however this can be debatable as on lookers described the police as being unorganized allowing rioters to destroy shops and vehicles, using objects violently an shouting abuse which they reacted by not displaying any kind of authority. We would expect the police to display their authority to stop events like these occurring or at least get out of hand.

"Outrageous level of violence"


A MET police officer expressed the view of the police by being shocked at the severity of the violence that was used during the riots and how badly behaved they were to parts of their hometown. The article suggests that because there was so many people taking part in the riots its difficult for a small group of police officers to deal with it. This allowed the youths to start attacking more knowing they had a larger amount of people on their side, so with this there's a lower chance to be arrested. This all started when a policeman killed Mark Duggan so it is sort of understandable why the youths are angry and would want to attack the police force, however, not all of them were involved so its slightly pointless injury wise and its why language such as "outrageous" is used. Using words like this links to serious events as you would not expect to here words like this usually and it implies the riots are more serious than some people may have thought.

What images are used?


There is only one image used in the article, a medium shot of two masked youths rioting with one throwing an object, there is a group of people behind them also, presumably rioters too. The rioters have their faces covered to avoid being caught by the police and one is throwing an object although we don't know what he is throwing it at, we assume its either a building because during the riots buildings were the main target of attacks or the police because the relationship between the police force and the youths had been lost during this period due to the differences between them, as the youths believed they weren't in the wrong and believe they are being victimized.

How does this article construct representation of youth identity?
Is the article biased?
Are youths given a fair voice?


Th youths are the height of each topic that is discussed in the article and they are represented in a bad light throughout, the article focuses on youths looting, being arrested for burglary of frozen goods and attack on the shop Curry's. Throughout the article each separate event has been aimed at the youths as it appears it was mostly their fault. However, I don't believe the article is biased because its talking about events that actually happened where youths are seen committing crimes such as stealing and vandalism. Its basically a review of the events over the three days that they happened. The youths in this article don't have a fair voice, so they are unable to explain why they are doing what they are doing, we are unable to see their side of the story so it makes people who read this article automatically assume that all youths are evil or criminals, which is unfair in my opinion.