Last night on Newsnight Ken Livingstone made a point about the riots in London and other parts of Britain being linked to the current economic and social climate. Today’s Daily Mail branded his comment as at best, poor judgement or at worst a way of excusing the behaviour of those involved in the disturbances in London and other parts of Britain.
The Telegraph has also implored David Cameron to intervene in the riots and aim his powers at those involved in rioting and looting “with extreme prejudice” There continue to be the usual calls from the hang ‘em and shoot ‘em brigade that all the usual suspects (young people, immingrants, beggars, etc) are rounded up as we attempt to disentangle the complicated social, economic and political reasons behind recent disturbances. What is for certain is that disturbances on this scale in major cities and over three nights cannot be orchestrated by children and are not merely wilful acts of violence and criminality. We owe it to ourselves and to those who have been injured, killed or lost property and revenue to have a more considered view of the reasons behind the current unrest.
The death of a Mark Duggan who was shot by police in circumstances that remain unclear is seen as being the catalyst for this wave of unrest. Prior to being shot Duggan updated his status on BlackBerry messenger saying the “feds” were following him. This action has led to a widespread discussion about BBM and new media in general, with Facebook and Twitter being cited as playing a role in organising and orchestrating the events of the past few nights.
BBM is easily portable, cheap and requires little in the way of technical support. Mark Duggan was a working class black man who lived in a deprived area of London. Of course BBM would be his choice of communication device. It makes perfect sense to have a portable pay as you go handheld device for him. It also stands to reason that devices like BBM would be popular among others in who shared his demogrpahic, again for the reasons stated above. Yet there has been considerable attention brought to bear on how new and social media played a role in the riots. And considerable attention has been paid to BBM’s ability to encrypt messages and for these messages to be transferred quickly around user groups.
Twitter has also been heavily discussed. The fact that Twitter is similar to BBM in that the user develops a group of followers with whom they can communicate with quickly has again been seen as playing a role in the unrest. Tweets supporting the rioters and encouraging unrest have been published. Often written in the language of the disenfranchised young person they have been seen like BBM to be an enabler of this rioting as (as the telegraph put it) the “underclass” strike back
Is there then a developing moral panic about the use of mass communication devices and networks? For me this seems to be the case, young people are now seen to be able to spread their disaffection far and wide, and more crucially quickly and secretly. Technology is being used for subversion and increasingly the covert nature and the linguist coding of the language used is placing the police at a disadvantage they are struggling to recover from.
It is easy to paint a picture of technologically savvy, group of disaffected violent youths using the internet to orchestrate violence. The hacking of the Sun’s website by the teenager known as Topiary demonstrates how a generation who have grown up with the technological advances offered by the internet have appropriated this technology for their own ends. Hand in hand with this goes a fear from others, who may not share the same familiarity with technology that these devices and sites are a dangerous aspect of today’s society and that young people’s use of them is often to increase unrest and dissatisfaction. In short our moral panic of today is the shady youngster using the mysterious world of the internet to damage the fabric of society.
Is this fair or reasonable? When there is little unrest there is little examination of how young people communicate. Equally young people are naturally curious; it goes with their age and stage of development. The vast majority of young people are technologically enabled, and the vast majority have ready access to the internet and to devices like BBM. There is little scrutiny of this, it is seen as an area of growth in today’s society, often it is seen as a positive area of growth.
Perhaps somewhere in this moral panic is a fear that young people are beginning to use technology that has long been used to surveille and monitor them to their own ends, the fear may well come from a sense of young people taking ownership of what has always been seen as the newly developed mechanisms for society to watch and monitor itself, and more often that not young people. Technological advancements are no longer the preserve of the powerful. Advancements in technology coupled with high demand has reduced cost and increased ownership. Inevitably young people have appropriated and personalised this technology, often with the enthusiasm of youth causing consternation among those who prefer to watch rather than be watched.
