WE PREDICT A RIOT?: Public Order Policing, New Media Environments and the Rise of the Citizen Journalist

This article explores the rise of 'citizen journalism' and considers its implications for the policing and news media reporting of public protests in the twenty-first century. Our research focuses on the use and impact of multi-media technologies during the 2009 G20 Summit Protests in Lond...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:British journal of criminology 2010-11, Vol.50 (6), p.1041-1059
Main Authors: Greer, Chris, McLaughlin, Eugene
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Citizen journalism
Citizens
CITIZENSHIP
Citizenship in journalism
Demonstrations & protests
Economic summit conferences
G-20
Group of Twenty
Impact analysis
Internet
JOURNALISM
Journalists
MEDIA
Methodology (Data Collection)
News content
News media
POLICE
Police Community Relations
Police services
Policing
Political protests
Protest marches
Riots
Social control
Tomlinson, Ian
Twenty First Century
Violence
Violence against
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Summary:This article explores the rise of 'citizen journalism' and considers its implications for the policing and news media reporting of public protests in the twenty-first century. Our research focuses on the use and impact of multi-media technologies during the 2009 G20 Summit Protests in London and evaluates their role in shaping the subsequent representation of 'protest as news'. The classic concepts of 'inferential structure' (Lang and Lang 1955) and 'hierarchy of credibility' (Becker 1967) are re-situated within the context of the 24-7 news mediasphere to analyse the transition in news media focus at G20 from 'protester violence' to 'police violence'. This transition is understood in terms of three key issues: the capacity of technobgically empowered citizen journalists to produce information that challenges the 'official' version of events; the inclination of professional and citizen journalists to actively seek out and use that information; and the existence of an information-communications marketplace that sustains the commodification and mass consumption of adversarial, anti-establishment news.
ISSN:0007-0955
1464-3529
DOI:10.1093/bjc/azq039