Hardened north London gangster and drug dealer, or loving family man who would never seek confrontation? Two different portraits were painted of Mark Duggan, the 29-year-old Tottenham man whose death sparked the weekend's London riots. The riots were just a simple protest outside a police station in North London about the sudden death, but escalated into a full scale outbreak across many parts of London. The youths that escalated the riots weren't given a fair voice as the moral panic and the press stereotyping ruined any chance of remorse towards them, no forgiveness or excuse. David Gauntlet's theory of 'identities are not given but are constructed and negotiated' apply's to the rioting in London effectively as the press and media have constructed this panic and fear into the nation that all youths are responsible for this and not taking there side into account.
Using the youtube videos and the newspaper headlines i have gathered on a whole its against the youths and showing them in a negative light. The headlines such as The Daily Telegraph's "Rule of the mob" The Independent's "Mob rule" and The Times's "Mobs rule as police surrender the streets' , all of these are using the word mob to there advantage and stereotyping youths as the creator. So all in all the families are unaware of the good side of this social deviance and moral panic as the youths are just trying to get a voice as they don't have one through the media, even though it a democracy shaped country. Even the youtube videos are using the negativity as an advantage and not on the positive side actually given youths a fair voice through the rioting, only one positive image was from the young boy arguing against the press to Boris Johnson the London mayor, giving the youths a fair voice through him.
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