35:50-38.00
Charlie Brooker looks at many events but the one I’ll be focusing on is the London riots.
All the teenagers in the clips of the riots were wearing stereotypical costumes like hoodies, jackets, trainers, bandannas, baseball caps and most of them were masking their face to hide their identity. Them hiding their identity show that they know what they’re doing is wrong however they still carry on, but this sort of irrational behaviour is typical of the connotations of the youth in London today. At 35.52 Charlie broker is in a serious scene where he’s parodying a news style report. We can see this from the backdrop; window out looking the London eye and from what he’s wearing, a smart suit. His posture and tone of his voice is very formal which is the style of a new report.
The lighting is a mixture of high key and low key because the different clips from the riots are filmed in different times of the day. But in terms of the studio lighting, that’s kept bright (35:52) to keep the mood bright as the story being told is depressing so in order to keep the viewers watching and not get depressed the setting is kept bright. But at 36:09 the lighting change to a low lighting and makes it look like all the lighting is coming from one lamp in the background. This gives a more one to one feeling so it engages more with the audiences as we’ll feel like he’s only telling us, uses and gratification- Blumler and Katz.
The diegetic sounds of the shouting and the bashing of the riots displays the dangerous atmosphere giving the audience a message of a menacing environment. Also the voice overs’ narrating is a typical style of a news report even though it’s not an actual news channel we can tell from the tone and the voice of god that it is a news report.
Social order completely collapsed as the riots broke out and instead another sub culture was formed, from the use of social media like twitter, facebook and BBM deviants were able to meet up and cause havoc.
Historically this sort of thing has happened before, for example ‘The Mods and Rockers’ but it still isn’t normal which is why it was reported and focused on so much.
Economically the damage the riots caused cost over £200 million worth of property damage.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots)
Looking at this from a political perspective they say that the hooliganism and ‘gang culture’ didn’t represent the culture as a whole. Political members such as the London mayor Borris Johnson and Prime Minister David Cameron were appalled and the police are working on catching the criminals and are slowly making progress.
Changing technologies in the 21st century made it easy for people to connect and find out what was happening. Because of the progression of technology like being able to access social media on your phone made it even more convenient for rioters to organise and assemble to target different areas which are the effect of globalisation in the media.
Because of the over representation and the amplification of the story it caused masses of moral panic. The riots were such a hot topic everyone knew about it and were constantly urged to stay indoors and to also keep their kids at home and since they were constantly being reminded they were scared for their own safety which shouldn’t be an issue in the comfort of their own home. This really demonstrated what an impact the riots had on the local community.
Furthermore due to globalisation the news of the London riots travelled fast as it was shown on American news.
Text 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNeYnWL3D9A
This is an extract from CNN news, an American news station. This shows a different representation of youths, in the previous text it showed a negative representation but in this one it shows a more positive image for teenagers/young adults
The costume the young black man was wearing showed a completely different image to what you would expect. He wore a smart shirt and tie putting the message that he was serious and wanted to make a difference, instead of the previous costume of hoodies and tracksuits.
The lighting is kept high key, there isn’t much editing of lighting changed to how it would look in real life, so that it looks realistic and that it’s something you can trust.
The sound is edited so we can hear the young man talking louder than all the background noises like the shouting and cameras so that we can concentrate and hear what he’s saying rather than get distracted with things that aren’t relevant. Also his body language shows that he knows how to carry himself to get the message across, again not the typical stereotype.
The setting is out on the street with a massive crowd including journalists and the paparazzi, which shows that the story is a hot topic and should be known about.
American news- globalisation, showing the full effect of the digital revolution. More developed countries like the us and the uk are more open and are not closed to only their country. They report news globally and let countries know what’s going on around the world making them more conscious
Stuart Hall’s reception theory would explain the preferred reading to be the young black male not conforming to stereotypes but in fact is the opposite. He’s well educated with what’s happening with the world around us, for example EMA, universities, Libya. But on the other hand the oppositional reading would be that the young male is being disrespectful towards the Mayor, arguing with someone older than him and being loud and obnoxious.
