LONDON RIOTS HEADLINE ANALYSIS

The London Riots covered newspaper headlines all over Britain. The headline I have chosen to analyse comes from the Daily Mirror, a middle-class newspaper that focuses on problems all over the UK, informing its readers of the issues that we are facing. To me, that is the issue, headlines inform readers of what is happening, headlines do not create a two sided argument, in this case the headline are not giving youths the opportunity to defend themselves.

The first thing that readers will see on this headline is the emotive image of a stereotypical youth casually strolling past a burning car. This sets a stereotype of youths to the readers, showing bias from the perspective of the government, who are part of the hegemonic monarchy alongside Media and the Law.

This image is titled 'YOB RULE', automatically labelling the youth  who can be seen in the image and basically any other youths of a similar stereotype as a 'Yob' which is defined as an aggressive youth. There is nowhere in this headline that provides a fair voice for youths who are targeted and effected by this headline. By not giving the accused a fair voice it allows a moral panic to spread as the readers are only hearing this from one point of view, this point of view being the media.

Shown at the bottom of this headline is a minor heading reading "Cops in running battle with thugs". Yet again the headline is demonising youths by labelling them as thugs. Catagorising them, according to the theory of Stan Cohen, as Folk Devils.