London Riots Newspaper Article - Daily Mail

This article from the 9th August 2011 uses the header  ''We ran for our lives as thugs ambushed bus: Chaos across the capital as orgy of violence rages on''. Just from the storyline the mass media have used context which creates a moral panic to the public and makes the story sound like folk devils are becoming a threat to the public of London from what they are doing. By using words such as thugs, ambushed, chaos, violence and rages gives the impression that whats going on is serious and out of control. These choice of words are very emotive as they express just how severe the actions going on are. They could have used words such as teens instead of thugs, trouble instead of chaos and continues instead of rages but these words are fairly simple and dont get a strong enough point across. When you hear the word thugs you tend to think of people who are a threat to anyone, robs people and cause fights and trouble. This makes youths have a negative identity. When you think of rages you tend to think of something which is out of control and can't be dealt with easily. This relates to the riots well as there was very little control from anyone of high authority such as the police, the youths rioting had more control over them because of how violent they are. The headline from this article is fairly biased as by using the word thugs to describe youths doesn't give a fair example of what the entire population of teenagers and youth culture are like, not all young people follow the same route.

Just a few sentences into the article is a paragraph on the trouble happening in Hackney, where the article read ''Masked rioters on BMX bicycles armed with batons attacked a crowded London bus during the evening rush-hour last night, chasing terrified commuters as they tried to escape.

The thugs, some as young as eight, forced the driver to stop the double-decker by pelting it with champagne bottles stolen from a nearby Tesco.

About 40 passengers – some carrying screaming toddlers – burst out of the exits and sprinted away.''

These few sentences present a bad image of youths, not just teenagers though, even children as one section says 'some as young as eight'. From this we can see that all the havoc going on is inspiring children in some form of way to copy what they are doing, mainly because young children an vulnerable and will copy almost anything they see. This also gives the area of Hackney seem rough seeing as children are getting involved here. Describing the rioters as being masked and on BMX bikes gives some of the typical points you expect to see from youths. Like mentioned before, with the rioters being masked the impression of them could be that they are ashamed of their identities themselves but continue to do what they are doing to keep up what they think is their real identity although they know that they would be found out much quicker if their facial appearance was visible. Describing their actions on the attack of the bus as them being armed with battons and having stolen champagne bottles from a nearby Tesco to threaten and force the driver to stop the bus, even though there were commuters with young children on board  gives an even worse image of youths. One of the main reasons from this is because of their actions and what they wanted to achieve while small children were at risk! Nobody in the right mind would want to put an innocent persons life at risk but especially not a young child! This goes to show that from this part of the article the youths have no respect for themselves or anyone else and their actions have gone way out of control. With the time of day being the evening rush hour this makes the youths out as to not care about how busy the area is or how many people witness it because firstly, they are masked so their identity cannot be easily recognised, and secondly they know they have more power over the public from the trouble they have caused in the past during the riots.

The images used from this part of the article is a bunch of youths with their faces covered, stealing a TV from a shop which is obviously closed. This image can show the public a brief insight to what the youths were like on the bus and have an idea of how terrified those on the bus must have been. The other image includes a youth with a champagne bottle which seems to have been involved with the riot on the bus. Behind him are other youths smiling as if they are proud of what they have done.

From this article youths are not given a fair voice as all the pictures show them rioting and there is no interview with any of them asking why they are doing what they are so we dont get to hear their side of the story, just the impression the press and the media want to give them.

You can see the full official article here