A negative representation is better than no representation at all.

A negative representation is better than no representation at all. Discuss this statement with reference to the group or place you have studied (500 words)

London is situated with many businesses that give of the best representation of Britain but in August 2011 normally known as the ‘silly season’, London was attacked by many teenagers due to many topics stirred by the media of what teenagers actually want. Giving people ideas of teenagers started to spin making a negative representation of teenagers better than no representation as teenagers wanted to be heard.

The media is controlled by hegemony of politicians as newspapers are either right wing (conservative) or left wing (labour) leading to the reader/audiences feeling that they MUST believe what the media say as it is the ‘common sense’. This is shown by the front page news allowing the reader to believe in the preferred reading (Hall’s) which is not taking teenagers seriously over the issues they want to discuss leading them to riot.

The images shown of the teenagers are shown either holding a weapon, which constructs and makes black people fall in to Alvarado’s theory of black representation, as Alvarado believed that black fall under four categories of dangerous, exotic, humorous and pitied; this leads into the London riots as they are dangerous because they are rioting, exotic because they are black, humorous because some of them don’t know why they are rioting and pitied by the audience intercepting the media.

Positive representation of other teenagers especially whites challenges Edward Saeed’s theory portraying white to be the other as they are counting to do the right thing, this is shown in the times newspaper to make the white youths look like they are the dominate ones and the helpful ones as the media in the UK is made up of representation of white upper class educated people.

Conflict between the police and urban youth had increased throughout the riots in London as police in Tottenham who are blacks are wearing white masks as they turned white as they have forgot about culture and where they have come from linking to Franz Fanon theory of wearing white masks.

                          

I believe in that a negative representation gives a person, meaning to be heard as action can be critical. Throughout the riots in London if the teenagers had no representation they would have mean allowed to riot and not stop by the police. Overall the teenagers in the media especially in newspapers were represented to be negative as they were shown to be the main cause of the riots.