LONDON RIOTS – TIMELINE OF EVENTS

4TH AUGUST -

• Mark Duggan is shot by police in Tottenham in an attempt to arrest him.

• The pubic heard about this and began public demonstrations and

protests against his shooting. The protests started off peaceful.

However is soon escalated to attacks on police vehicles, and eventually

mass riots and looting across London

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YNrq2wVcBQ

6TH AUGUST -

• A series of disturbances by people in Tottenham followed the peaceful

march

• The rioting occurred shortly after with around 120 people now involved

in the protest. Some who had no link to the initial cause.

7th August –

• Around 100 hooded youths gather outside Enfield Police Station

Initially the media didn’t ‘blame’ the young people and didn’t paint them as the main

cause for the riots. However when the media interviewed local people effected by the

riots it seemed they felt that it was young people causing the problem

8TH AUGUST -

• Rioting is now taking place in Ealing, where shop windows where being

put trough and cars where set on fire.

• A fire was also started opposite Ealing Broadway Tube Station. About

40 vehicles were damaged in a night .

10TH AUGUST -• Prime Miniser David Cameron makes a statement paying tribute to the

emergency services. He warns more people will be arrested and

charged.

• Greater Manchester Police release a batch of CCTV images of suspects

wanted in connection with the rioting and looting.

12TH AUGUST -• Police stations across the UK announce the amount of arrests made

throughout the riots

MEDIA COVERAGE

• Initially the media covered the riots by saying it was disturbance, however soon after started calling them mass riots.

• Many news programs interviewed some of the young people involved in the riots and they showed that a lot of the people involved struggled to articulate sentences and describe why they were causing so much distress.

• A lot of the media wanted to put the blame on young people making them the ‘Folk Devils’ however there were many people who began to stick up for them and show that it wasn’t all ‘hoodies.’

• Even though some of the ‘blame’ was put onto young people many felt it was because they had no choice. With funding for young people being cut by the government they were running out options. They felt they were excluded from their own community

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNeYnWL3D9A&feature=related

• However there were some people felt that there was no excuse and the riots were ‘ Criminality pure and Simple’

MEDIA HEADLINES

The Sun

The Times

Sky News

MEDIA HEADLINES

The Telegraph

Metro News

MEDIA COVERAGE

• A lot of the media focused on the negatives during the riots, they

carried on making the public out to be ‘folk devils.’ Painting young

people especially as the ones in the wrong and blamed a lot of the riots

on gang culture and ‘hoodies’

• There was a lot less coverage given to the thousands of people who

went out of their way to volunteer in the clean up.

• This shows that the media is very bias in in its portrayals of young

people. There are a lot of instances where young people do positive

things but they just don’t get the same press.

• The riots are a prime example of this the ‘riot clean up’ programme did

not get a lot of coverage, it was down to social networking such as

Facebook and Twitter to publicize the campaign. Many celebrities got

behind the campaign however predominantly the focus was on the riots

themselves.