How did the Social Media Affect The London Riots

The London Roits started after the death of Mark Duggan, who was shot near his home in London by a police office. 

Newspapers reported that Mark Duggan had been armed and also being a drug dealer. This information was all wrong and his family pointed out that Mark had no criminal record.

The riots happened all over the country and there are a lot of articles on the internet commenting on the role of social media and the riots. Facebook, twitter and BBM are tools which we all use in order to have our say. They did not create the riots as such but are just a real time apps which keep us all updated.

Throughout the riots, journalists relied on the police to give them information however they gave the wrong information. The London riots really helped to show how journalism is moving forward and we no longer have to rely on ‘valuable’ sources such as the police, and the fire services as they can be wrong, but in fact we need to listen to our people and rely on each other for the correct information.

This brings in citizen journalism, which I feel was vital during the riots. People posted about the riots with pictures/ videos and showed us what was really happening. It proved to be more informative than the newspapers and the police. 

Difference between hometown newspaper and publication

I am comparing Kent Online : http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kentish_express/news.aspx to the Daily Telegraph.

Considering Kent Online provides news for the Kent region, the website is quite impressive. I would have guessed that it wouldn’t include such things as video clips, or tabs at the top of the page but it looks quite informative.

Both have the date whether that be in the top left or right but the Telegraph has when it was last updated, the KM doesn’t have this feature.

They both have their news in its different sections, but the Telegraph has a lot more pictures whereas the KM includes a lot of advertising whether it is a competition to win something with a local company or who has sponsored the paper for a specific feature for example ‘Fremlin walk have sponsored the video feature’ and they have a ‘review of thew week which is a video.’

Daily Telegraph has bullet point news at the top beneath the tabs, these are important headlines and can be clicked and you can then have access to the full story this is not a feature on the local paper because it has to be updated at least every hour for this feature to work.

 

Terms and Conditions

The terms and conditions of the Telegraph are all pretty straight forward, they state that nobody should be using a false name which is normal.

Another interesting point is that the Telegraph state that ‘

In submitting material to us, you warrant that any material you submit:

(5) is your own original work and that you own the copyright and any other relevant rights;’

This means that if anything is false in what you have said or could be libel then the blame is on you as the writer not the owner of the news site. 

The terms and conditions in some way restrict freedom of speech as what you write will not always be allowed on the site as it is picked and selected by the team. 

The Telegraph has git a paywall on the website and works on the metered model, this allows a certain amount of access free of charge.

New choice of publication

I have decided to change my publication as the Lady wasn’t ‘newsy’ enough, it was mainly just filled with classified advertisements and i feel didn’t fit the brief.

The Daily Telegraph was founded in 1855, and is currently owned by the Barclay Brothers. It is the sister paper to the Sunday Telegraph and is a conservative paper.

The Barclay Brothers also own the Scotsman, Edinburgh Evening News, Scotland on Sunday and The Business.

The Lady

The Lady is a magazine which can be accessed online via subscription or just to browse at with no fee but you cannot access everything. It is Britain’s oldest weekly women’s magazine and has been in continuous publication since 1885.

The Lady is particularly notable for its classified advertisements for domestic service and childcare. The readership is generally for the older ladies which is well suited to its strap line ‘for elegant women with elegant minds.’

It is a family owned magazine and Ben Budsworth is the publisher of the magazine, he was appointed this role in 2008 and wanted to modernise the magazine so he employed Rachel Johnson in 2009 who was the 9th editor of the magazine. Channel 4 aired a programme called ‘The Lady and The Revamp’ and this aired in 2010 and it showed Johnson’s quest in raising awareness for the magazine and increasing the circulation.

After 3 years of being the editor, Johnson has stepped down and Matt Warren, is now the editor – he was a former features editor for the Daily Mail.