representation: sky news

Sky News has chosen the Police's perspective to focus the protest reports on. This is very bias towards the police because they are made out to be the hero's in the report and the protesters are represented as being the villains even though the police triggered the protests. The young people are presented as all being masked and hooded villains trying to cause trouble although more adults were arrested in the protest than the younger population. The images and videos are of the hooded protesters causing havoc and throwing petrol bombs at the police. Also there was a live video of a fire in Tottenham of a few shops, next to the buildings were the fire fighters putting out the flames. Sky News presenter calls the protesters a disturbance suggesting that what they are doing is pointless meaning that the report is biased towards the police. The most important aspect of the report was that 8 policeman were being hospitalised for injuries including petrol bombs. The presenter engages the audience by suggesting they or people they know could be in danger of losing homes and business to looting and fires. Todorov's equilibrium theory is used in this coverage as the first equilibrium is when everything was fine in Tottenham then the disequilibrium is when the riots start and buildings are set alight, finally the equilibrium is restored when the fire fighters put out the blazing flames. In Propp's theory the heroes of the report is the Police and the villains are the rioters. Citizen Journalism could have been used against the police to show that the police shot an unarmed man. This could potentially make Sky News slightly more biased towards the protesters and rioters.