Welcome Back

Hi guys,

I've decided that I'm going to start blogging again soon so watch this space! I have lots of things to tell and lots of things planned so my blog should be at least semi-interesting again.

Best wishes,
Jodie

Advertising Rant

Yesterday evening at around 6pm I was doing what the majority of the nation do at that time on a Saturday evening, I was watching ITV. I absolutely love watching “The Chase” but what I hate is advert breaks that are longer than the snippets of the show in between them. Yesterday evening was slightly different as I don’t recall there being a break in “The Chase” at all, I have no idea why … perhaps ITV want to me more like BBC? perhaps the pre-recorded show was longer than intended so they cut breaks so the schedule ran smoothly? I don’t really care to be honest, I just want to rant about advertising in general. 

It’s rather sad to think of how much of your life you have spent watching adverts, probably hours on end where you could have been doing something much more productive with your time such as reading a book or taking your four legged fury friend for a walk. Instead we just sit there watching a series of clips of “sexy” people advertising toasters (and other products) which they probably really don’t own. The level of celebrity influence is beyond despicable these days. X Factor rejects One Direction advertise Nintendo products, children then want said Nintendo products because One Direction apparently like to use such Nintendo products. Surprisingly  this effect isn’t just apparent in the young and naive, we’ve all bought something because of celebrity influence at some point, whether that’s perfume, football boots or food from Iceland, their slogan is “Party like a Celeb” after all. It’s rather stereotypical to say “oh, well sex sells and that’s what sells products best” … this is actually my point, a negative point. All people who feature in adverts are stereotypically attractive, the kind of people who “normal” people would like to be similar to. We’re all more foolish than we thought as we then go out and buy these products in order to gain a similar life style.

You’re probably all sitting there thinking that I’m a bit nuts. You probably think that I’ve just demonstrated that the whole point of advertising is to sell a product and these are the best methods to use. Yes, I’ve researched the history of advertising and know quite a bit about media influence. If you know anything about advertising at all then you’ll know about a man called Walter Dil Scott who experimented with subliminal advertising in the 1950s. This is when advertising started to change into the type of advertising today, this is where advertising became based on influencing behaviour. Before Walter Dil Scott’s experimentation advertising was merely just posters with a picture of a product and a bit of information explaining what its purpose was, where you could get it from and how much it would cost. After subliminal advertising on TV and in cinemas was made illegal the advertising industry had to think of other ways to influence people and remain powerful in order to keep capitalism the way it had boomed. This sadly was celebrity influence and the “sex sells” approach. 

I think it’s about time that I gave some examples of ways in which companies manage to influence, perhaps stories where changes have been made in order to make a product seem more appealing. A perfect example would be the recent Marks & Spencer Christmas advert. The advert features this years X Factor finalists singing “When you Wish upon A Star”, each time a contestant leaves the show (weekly) the advert is updated by removing the reject out of the video. What’s even worse is that I think this was sparked off by bad boy Frankie Cocozza being thrown out of the show for partying hard and taking cocaine. As you can imagine, Frankie got bad press and many newspapers reported that Cocozza spent the £3,000 that Marks & Spencer paid him to feature in their Christmas advert. Shortly after the bad press Marks & Spencer removed Cocozza from their advert, obviously because they didn’t want someone who got bad press to be advertising their wonderful Christmas food, keeping Cocozza in the advert would mean that partying cocaine addicts adopt the Marks & Spencer lifestyle and that would be completely the wrong image for Marks wouldn’t it?

So what happens when attractive or famous people aren’t ideal for advertising a certain product or service? for example beauty products that make you look ten years younger, or medications and vitamin supplements. Well, this is where “research” and mathematical explanations come into play. I’m not going to rant on about this too much, a chap called Ben Goldacre wrote a book called “Bad Science” that has various chapters about how the media use and report research, I do recommend reading it but this is completely beyond my point. What I’m trying to say here is that companies try to make their adverts seem sciency by reporting findings from their research which was actually badly run and it’s even a known fact that skin cream companies have invented chemical names to make it look like their cream has different active ingredients to all other creams out there. If you have more than two brain cells you will realise that active ingredients in all skin moisturisers are the same and if you moisturised everyday for 10 years you would look younger than people who didn’t anyway. You can also get the gist of how bad the research is by actually reading the small print at the bottom of the screen, it will say something like “when comparing all of our nationwide stores to a very small corner shop in Grimbsy” or “50.2% of participants agreed, n=2”. It seems that a sciency type presentation influences people to buy products where health is concerned. As I said, I could write about this particular topic all day but I’ll spare you the detail, it’s merely a rant about advertising not a lesson in scientific method.

This rant has only sparked up because advertising breaks on TV and radio are becoming a lot more frequent, the recent product placement update really doesn’t help either. Free software such as Spotify bombard users with 3 adverts after listening to one or two songs. Companies use social networking websites as a means of advertising when we’re using media that is supposedly alternative. Webpages are plastered with adverts. It just seems difficult to escape corporate advertising. I challenge you to live a normal day but avoid advertisement of any kind … I bet that isn’t even possible.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s rather sad that we live in a society where the majority of us buy products without looking into its actual purpose, quality and features. We assume that products are of good quality because the company’s advertising strategy is powerful, i.e. they get someone who is really attractive and/or famous to advertise them and broadcast their advertisements where people are most likely to see them frequently. I’m the type of person who sees product packaging as an advertisement too, so just remember that it’s what’s inside the packaging that counts. 

Media Ethics and Standards

If you know me pretty well then you probably realise how much I rant on about media standards and how much they seem to mean to me. I figure that this would be an easy rant to start with. I could probably write for hours about this issue, meaning that I’ll probably be annoyed with this attempt of explaining my views and I’ll most likely write about this issue a number of times as the enquiry goes by. 

For starters, those of you who say “oh no not this again” every time the hacking scandal or recent standards panic is mentioned are simply ignorant, if you could be bothered doing your research into the topic you would realise how poor media standards currently are and how the media are essentially taking basic human rights away from people. 

In my opinion the most fundamental of ethical standards are basic human rights, all human ethical guidelines are based on the human rights act. I think most of us are forgetting that privacy is part of the human rights act and that celebrities are human too (I know it’s hard to believe sometimes). To start off simple, think of it this way: you set out to have a peaceful day but your phone has been bugged by journalists, your friend leaves you a voicemail telling you that they can’t make the coffee meeting today but the journalist listens to your message, transcribes it and then deletes it. You get out of your car in town and some camera men start following you. You go to the coffee shop where you meet a friend of the opposite sex who is merely just a friend, you both wonder why the other person’s partner hasn’t turned up to the coffee meeting. A few days later you’re browsing the internet and find an article that claims your friend who couldn’t make it to the coffee shop had an argument with you via voicemail because their partner had cheated with you, the article then provides snaps of you and the person of the opposite sex sitting close to each other in the coffee bar and then claims that shortly after the photos were taken you passionately kissed. This isn’t the first time an article has been published that told lies about you. Take time to reflect, how would you feel if you were in this situation? I’d feel as though I’d had my privacy taken away from me and I’d also feel deceived and awfully upset. 

If you would react similar then we’re finally on the same page. What I’m trying to get across is that celebrities are human too, so surely they have human rights! privacy and not being deceived are the most basic of human rights and needs. I find it kind of funny how the majority of the public weren’t bothered about the phone hacking scandal when it just effected celebrities such as David Beckham but as soon as it involved Milly Dowler the world were really disgusted. Part of me thinks that this could be because of the tragedy but a bigger part of me thinks that this is because the Dowler’s are a normal family, i.e. not celebrities. People tend to dehumanise celebrities, I’m not saying that you should pretty much worship them, but you should consider them as being human beings. 

So, why does the media (journalism in particular) allow such poor standards? This is where having a degree in psychology would help me to explain. You’re probably expecting a behavioural explanation of what’s going on but in fact my explanation comes from an ethical perspective. Last year I wrote an essay that was partly about the media and ethical standards, at the time I was actually interested and appalled by the phone hacking scandal and doing the research for the essay helped me to build up a clear overview of media ethical standards in general. I’m not sure whether you’re aware of this but every profession that involves working with people (and animals) has its own set of ethical standards based on the human (or animal) rights act. This is to ensure that people and animals are treated fairly. The standards are based on the same set of principles but applied to the particular profession (for example: psychology, sociology, health, biological, political and general research). These professions have governing bodies which all people of the profession must be members of in order to practice. By signing up to the governing body you are agreeing to follow the compulsory ethical guidelines, failure to do so could lead to losing your job and no longer being able to practice your profession. 

What I found odd was that when I was researching journalism ethical standards (in order to compare them to psychology ones) I found that journalists do not have a compulsory professional governing body. What I found was that in the UK there is a governing body for journalism (called the National Union of Journalists, [NUJ]) but it’s completely optional to join the professional body. What’s worst still is that they do have ethical standards but they are so ambiguous, it’s basically a list of excuses that could be used if someone said that you weren’t practicing journalism ethically. I’m not going to give any example here, if you’re really interested then go to the NUJ website and read the guidelines for yourself, they’ll either disgust you or make you laugh, or maybe both! I blame the lack of a compulsory governing body for the shaky standards and practice in journalism. 

I think that the core solution to the problem is to actually create a compulsory governing body for media standards. I’m not saying that the ethical standards should be as strict as social sciences and health (for example never revealing a name to protect confidentiality), what I’m saying is that the standards should be more structured and objective. For example, with the issue of consent, if a journalist is merely observing an event and then writing an article on it, it is ok to just ahead and write without permission, however if the journalist talks to anyone then they should sign a consent form and be provided with contact details incase they want to be withdrew from being mentioned in the article. Confidentiality should be respected, if people want to remain anonymous they have every right to. With the issue of deception, all forms of deception should be prohibited, this includes misrepresentation of the truth in the media and also deception by means of hacking or other forms of spying. 

The idea behind membership of the professional body is that it will be compulsory in order to practice any form of journalism. It should take the same format as the British Psychological Society (BPS) where members pay membership fees but get monthly magazines about how to improve standards and recent news in the field, this will help to encourage journalists to engage in ethical practice, keep up to date with the field of journalism and also feel a sense of community. If journalists break any of the ethical standards the serious precautions will be taken and this may result in the journalist never being able to practice again depending on the seriousness of the offence. 

This may seem like it’s taking the fun out of the media and their celebrity gossip rumours and photographs of them looking at their worst (I forgot to mention that consent forms are required for photograph publication also), but you should think back to the paragraph where I asked you to imagine if it were you. I do realise that some celebrities are determined to be all over the media, no matter why, where and when but not all celebrities are the same … as not all human beings are the same. Technically my fictitious ethical standards are giving celebrities (and the public I guess) the option to have bad press if they want to and also protecting celebrities and the public from having bad press if they don’t want it. 

Remember that this is just my idea, nothing is set in place and nothing will probably come of it but I just felt like getting my opinions across. I hope you enjoyed the read, please contribute if you have any further ideas of an opinion of your own on the issue.

Thanks

- Jodie 

Insomnia, Robot Unicorns, Yearly Thank-Yous and Maybe Some Other Stuff

So, here I am at almost 1am writing a blog entry that probably won't be commented or even read by anyone that I actually know. I don't sleep too well, I guess I've never slept too well so it's nothing to cry about. But here I am anyway, I'm going to write a master piece or a half decent blog entry!

When it gets late and I can't sleep/have nobody to chat to I find myself playing Robot Unicorn attack repeatedly until I get bored or my overall score starts getting much lower than it should be. It's an awesome game, but I should find an alternative game or something else to do (writing seems like a good idea). My high score is so high that I feel that my Facebook friends fear playing the game because their score is always compared to mine ... I'm not being big-headed here by the way ;-).

As I've demonstrated already, blog entries that I write at stupid o' clock are nothing but whiny, unstructured and about the most random topics. I'm the type of person who just goes off on one with my train of thought when I have nothing else to occupy me. I should really use this blog to rant about things that are worth while or talk about what I've been up to during the day. As I feel quite content today and have nothing sensible to rant about, I've decided that I'm going to tell you about my day. 

So, today I've been Christmas shopping again and failed to finish buying gifts for family and friends, instead I've treated myself. I treated myself to Mark Watson's DVD (which I'm hoping to save until Christmas), a fancy bar of soap that I don't really want to open as the packaging is so pretty and present like, and more body butter that I've already started using. I've also been to Starbucks today and had an eggnog latte and a cinnamon swirl. I do actually feel quite festive now, despite still having a few gifts to buy and then wrapping!

After shopping I pretty much spent time in my bedroom feeling a bit sorry for myself as I do have a very sore throat and a cold. Instead of whining on Facebook I decided to watch a film. I watched "A Scanner Darkly", it was a really interesting film but sadly I couldn't watch the last 20 minutes of it as I watched it for free online and the website wouldn't allow me to watch the last part! What do you expect for free huh? Overrunning the tale, I really like the concept of the suites which change your appearance every second or so (I forgot what they're called). I'd love to own a suit like that, just for a day. Can you imagine the sort of things you could get away with, being anonymous and all that =P.

I realised today that 2012 is approaching us. 2011 was a pretty strange year for me. I guess I had a tough time at university (but not where grades are concerned), I also graduated from university and realised how hard it can actually be to reach your goals. I went through a period of depression and other problems. It wasn't easy, but I'm getting there now. I really hope that 2012 will be a better year for me, rather than just hoping, I'm going to make 2012 a better year. However, I do have a few people that I'd like to thank for things they did for me in 2011. so here in no particular order are a list of names and a short message/explanation for each of them. 

James Watson

We've been friends for a long time but in 2011 I realised that we actually have similar problems and insecurities. This made our friendship much closer and I feel that we trust and understand each other a lot more now than we used to. He's managed to keep me happy by meeting me regularly for shopping and meals. Thanks for your support James. 

Alexandria Meacham

It's been a hard year for Alex too, we've both had major problems this year and I do agree that at times we've just clashed and not seen eye-to-eye but this is because we've both had our own problems to suffer with and attempt to sort out. I would like to thank Alex for being so patient with me and listening to what I have to say, I really appreciate it. 

Dr Chris Fullwood

This is possibly going to be the hardest message to write, especially publicly. I realise that from time to time over the past year I have been a complete cow and I've really not considered his feelings at all. I've treated him with a certain amount of disrespect but this is largely due to problems that I've had which I've not explained inside out and kind of exhausted. I would just like to thank Chris for being so understanding of me over the past year or so, I really appreciate it. 

I probably have a lot more people to thank for things that they've done in 2011, for example my mom, various members of academic staff from university and a few friends from university who didn't believe the childish rumours and literally fought my corner until the end. I'll probably write another blog entry soon to thank others, but sadly that's it now as I'm starting to feel tired. It seems that writing helps me to sleep.

Take care,

Jodie

Today is The Day

That I'm trying Starbucks Eggnog Latte ^_^. 

Happy Jodie...

Top 10 Hottest Male Celebs

You've probably gathered that I'm not big on mainstream celebs. I always find that polls for sexiest male celebs hosted my magazine don't reflect my opinion, I usually stare at the results and think to myself "who the hell are these men" or "Oh no not Johnny Depp and Beckham again". So, for this reason I've decided to do a top 10 count down of the most attractive male celebs in my opinion. Here goes:

10. Matt Johnson:

09. Joshua Wilkinson:

08. Brandon Flowers:

07. Ed Sheeran:

06. Tom Lister:

05. Johhny Flynn:

04. Chris Fountain:

03. Charlie Clements:

02. Gary Barlow:

01. Rufus Hound:

Hello to One and All

I realise that I haven't blogged here for absolutely ages, in fact my last post on here was simply copied and pasted from my Tumblr account. At the moment I feel the need to just write and write so I've opted to do this here. To be frank, people on Tumblr would moan if I wrote a long blog entry whereas people on here either enjoy reading or never actually come across my blog anyway. 

It's been a strange few months adapting to my after-uni life but I'm finally getting into the swing of things! I still remain unemployed but I am getting used to the applying for jobs malarky and have also started to volunteer as a helpline support worker for a mental health charity. I'm quite enjoying the voluntary work I do, not only am I helping those in need but it also breaks my own week up and gives me something to do and new people to talk to. I'm starting to feel more and more content with unemployment, I know I'll get to where I want to someday soon. The job market is pretty lame at the moment and I do realise that I'm not the only person who doesn't have a job. It was so depressing at first but now I feel ok with it all and I suppose my new positive attitude helps when applying for jobs anyway, I'm the kind of person who reflects my mood through my writing!

So, apart from job hunting and volunteering I haven't been up to a fat lot. I guess I've been cooking and baking quite a bit more. Earlier on I made a pizza with marmite-mushrooms, 3 types of peppers and cheese on it, it tasted pretty lush, so I'll be making it again soon. 

Today is the 1st of December which means the run up to Christmas! This year I actually feel excited about Christmas and I have no idea why because I have less money than I had last year. I think it's just the idea of spending time with family & friends and good food. I remember being spoilt as a child, Christmas was pretty much about presents, now I really appreciate the company, the food and the thoughtful gifts. I started to feel proper Christmassy this afternoon when I went into town with my mom to get some frozen food ready for Christmas and just have a general browse around the shops. I bought two Christmas CDs, one with songs by Frank Sinatra on it and one with classical Christmas music on it. I now have a wide range on Christmas music, I made a playlist on iTunes earlier and I have over 100 Christmas songs which is great at the moment but I have the feeling that I'll get annoyed when Christmas tunes are selected on iTunes shuffle in May!

I've decided that I am going to update this blog more regularly from now on, so watch this space!

- Jodie

And The Moral of The Story is ... Gary Barlow

Yesterday I read a very interesting article via the Guardian online, if you’re assuming that it was a science article or an article written by the fascinating Ben Goldacre you’re assuming wrong. This article kind of made me see the light at the end of the tunnel and also inspired me a little. The article was about none other than Gary Barlow (Take That vocalist). 

Growing up I was never really a Take That fan, I think I just missed out on the craze. I grew up in the era of a1, Westlife and Steps, just missing out on Boyzone and Take That. The Take That comeback didn’t really bother me either. So, why am I writing about Gary Barlow now? Why do I look up to him so much?

My appreciation for Gary Barlow started a few months ago when he became a judge on the current series of X Factor. I pretty much instantly felt admiration for Gary with his mannerisms, facial expressions and one-liners. I saw Gary as a guy who was honest yet cheeky. I do have to add that Gary is quite handsome and presentable too, but I won’t drag this story out too much. 

Over-running the tale, yesterday I came across an interview with Gary Barlow on The Guardian Online. I expected the interview to be largely based on the X Factor, trying to get the latest gossip from him about which acts would be most likely to win. As I was bored I decided to give the interview-based article a read anyway. The article was such an eye-opener and talked about the days in which Gary was no longer with Take That. The now sexy X Factor judge suffered a bout of depression and over-ate to the point where he put on 5 stone in weight. Gary reported often catching the train in disguise so that people wouldn’t recognise him, he was ashamed to be who he was, lost all sense of self and hated the life that he was leading. The negative comments in the media from Robbie Williams didn’t help either. The star was depressed and really saw no way out of it. At the age of 24 had Gary’s musical career really ended? Well, he thought so. 

As you all know, Take That made a comeback in 2005 and this was the highlight of Gary’s career never mind the highlight of his day when the ball started rolling. Music professionals constantly told Gary and fellow Take That members that Take That just wouldn’t work without the presence of Robbie Williams. Barlow started to worry that the Take That comeback would be a failure. The night before the comeback gig tickets went on sale, the almost tea-total Gary Barlow went out with a friend and got very drunk. He then got the phone call that told him that the tour was a complete sell out, Gary was amazed. 

Towards the end of the article Gary explained that whilst the initial split up of Take That made him feel quite depressed the whole experience makes him who he is today. Having suffered such a loss in his music career he now has experience to reflect on. Barlow feels that if Take That hadn’t of split when they did he would be a completely different person. 

The moral of this post is that you can always turn a negative into a positive, just as Gary Barlow did. I do understand that we’re not all professional singers or Take That fans for that matter but surely we can all take a little bit of inspiration from Gary Barlow. Just because you have problems when you’re young this doesn’t mean that your life is over, there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. Negative experiences often make you a stronger person and you gain a higher level of self-awareness. What I’m trying to say is never give up, if you have a dream or ambition then chase it, ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again’. To my knowledge you only have one life, so don’t waste it by thinking it’s come to an end early on in adulthood. Always take time to reflect on negative experience, turn them into positives and make room for self-improvement. As human beings we’re ever developing, never forget that. 

Today is World Mental Health Day, so I would like you all to spend a fraction of your time to think about people who suffer with mental health disorders. Whether it’s occupational stress, mild depression, OCD or schizophrenia. The more awareness of mental illness that there is, the less stigmatisation is attached to them. A little understanding could make the world a much happier place. Mental illness is often negatively wrote about in the media, for example Gary Barlow’s depression and weight gain, “psychos” committing crimes and so on (there are many examples). A stop should be made to this and the media should focus on the more positive approach to looking at mental illness, for example the article about Barlow in the Guardian. I’m going to stop writing now, I could probably write forever. But, please do take a short moment to reflect on mental illness and your attitudes towards it.

Original Guardian Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/oct/08/gary-barlow-interview-x-factor

Thanks

- Jodie

Slowly Sinking

So yesterday I posted just to say that I hadn't posted a proper blog entry in such a long time. The reason being that I've simply forgot to post here for a while. I figure that it's time to give you all an update of what's going on in my life (well maybe not everything!!!). I really want to get back into the routine of maintaining a blog but it seems to be more difficult than assumed. 

I feel that since leaving university I haven't posted much, yet a lot has happened and I've certainly changed a bit as a person. Gone are the days when I could act a bit childish and use the excuse that I'm still a student. I'm now in the real world and seeking employment. I started looking for jobs a bit later than my classmates as I assumed that I was going to do my masters degree, however I assumed wrong. I applied for a careers and professional development loan from Barclays bank, the application process didn't run as smoothly as planned. Even though I sent all of the evidence required to them, they kept sending me letters asking for even more evidence, which I'd send and then be asked for even more. This cycle kept continuing until one day when I got a letter of confirmation. By this time I'd decided that a masters degree wasn't really financially worth it as I'd already got a first class degree. I feel that a masters degree in research methods is designed for people who got a 2:1 classification but want to proceed to PhD level, that's when the degree would come in useful. If you have a first class degree you are eligible to apply for PhD studentships, so why should I borrow money that isn't needed? I see the masters degree as a second option, to improve my skills if I have no success in getting a desirable job over the next year or so. 

So far on the job front I haven't actually been invited to an interview. I do admit that a few of my applications were rushed, maybe that's why. I've recently picked up new skills and pushed myself to the limit when applying for a PhD studentship, I still haven't heard any feedback from the particular university but there is still time. I have a few more applications lined up, so hopefully something good will come of all of this time that I'm spending applying for jobs. I'll let you know when and if I'm invited to an interview. Meanwhile I'm stuck visiting the job centre I'm afraid. 

I feel down sometimes because I haven't got the job that I want. There's nothing more that I want than to have a job. Sometimes I think that any job would be better than no job. The harder I work on an application the more heartbroken I actually feel when I don't hear anything from the employers. I'm fast loosing my sense of self. Surely something must give soon? I just feel as though I'm going nowhere, the road has ended here, I'm going to unemployed for the rest of my life. This is the last thing that I want, I'm so determined that I'll find a job soon. 

Apart from applying for jobs I haven't been doing much else. This might be due to the lack of money that I have at the moment. I've been hanging around with friends, going shopping and the usual things that I like doing, just not as much as I used to. Yet I have more time on my hands, this doesn't make much sense to me. I might seem a bit gloomy at the moment and there's probably a lot more stuff that I want to air but I best leave this for now!

I'll write soon

- Jodie

A long time ago ...

The thought occured to me earlier that I haven't posted a proper blog entry in such a long time. I'm not quite sure why, I guess it's simply that I keep forgetting to post an update.

Right now I have so much that I could be writing about but I feel very tired at the same time. So, I've decided that I'm going to write a lengthy post when I feel alert.

Speak soon
-Jodie

There's Panic on The Streets of London, Panic on The Streets of Birmingham

If you haven't heard about the UK "riots" by now you must be living under a rock in the sea or something. I say "riots" rather than riots because the majority of criminal behaviour taking place is just looting and not rioting. The majority of rioters are in their teens, some still at school, what do they really have to riot about? I find that this question is being circled around the internet but nobody has a clear answer but there are educated theories, sociological guesses and complete mindless explanations. As usual I have my own opinion of why such things are going on. I'll warn you now that this is only an opinion and I'm not discrediting anyones opinion as such. It's a theory that can be constructively criticised, the reason being that nobody has actually asked the rioters WHY they went looting. 

Taking a bit of a detour here, but yesterday morning I foolishly travelled into Birmingham to go shopping for a friend's birthday, I agreed to the trip on the say so of the news, apparently town was open up for business and everything was safe. Shops were open alright, but police were just everywhere and the town seemed pretty dead. Shops started closing up at around 2:30pm so we started to head back home so that we were safe. On the bus home I started to think about WHY the riots were taking place, this was just something to take my mind off what my friends were saying and other bad news. I soon saw a possible relationship with the media and also moral disengagement. 

There are many theories stating that the riots happened because job centres closed or a Marxist explanation can be given, i.e. political battle of the social classes. I kind of discredit this as the majority of the looters have been described as being in their teens, young teens at that, even children have been looting in their own towns this week. We also know that the majority of looters were also from working and lower class backgrounds, meaning that they're likely to have low IQ scores (this might sound harsh of me, but would someone with a decent IQ go out looting? probably not). Taking this into consideration to what extent do these people have political knowledge? and do politics really matter to them? Also, most of the looters are school age, so why loot / riot because of the closure of job centres? This makes no clear sense.

Back to my media-based theory! I think that the riots in London were real riots for real reasons (but with that said I've still heard no explanations as to why the first riot took place). I think that once the first few riots hit the news, that was it, World War III. The media portrayed the riots in the light that the police's behaviour was wrong and there wasn't much that police could do, not many arrests were made. The media also gave a host of uninformed explanations as to why the riots happened in the first place, and made these reasons seem very rational (to teenagers at least). This is where moral disengagement pops into my explanation: because the media portrayed rioting and looting as an acceptable thing to do youngsters took advantage of this and decided that it was morally justifiable to go out and cause trouble on the streets. They could easily shift the blame and also blame the victims (the victims being business owners, home owners and the police .... they get the blame because they're middle / upper class and most probably tory [which is an ill informed opinion held by teenagers by the way]). The act could be seen as dehumanised as everyone was doing the same, dressed in similar clothes, they're no longer individuals when they're in the large mob. I suppose taking each mechanism in term and even applying group theory I could go on forever with my explanation, but this is just the theory that popped to my head during in the thinking time I had yesterday. But what I'm trying to say is that teenagers heard about the trouble happening elsewhere and decided to take advantage and take the opportunity to cause trouble while it seems morally acceptable and justifiable. 

A lot of people are saying that social media is to blame for these riots. As a cyberpsychologist you would probably expect me to have an opinion on this ... and I do. I'm probably saying this for the 1,000th time but you can't blame social networking websites for bad things that go on. Take for example, teenagers self-harming or even committing suicide because of cyberbullying. You can't blame the particular social networking site being use here for the suicide attempt. The social networking website is just being used as a platform for communication, hence the teenager could have been bullied via text message or in a face-to-face situation with the same psychological effect. What I'm trying to say here is that social networking websites are nothing but platforms for communication, riots could have been organised through other means of communication such as text messaging, phone calls and even email if you want to add an online platform to this. I suppose one advantage of informing people about planned riots in a public domain is that there is increased anonymity online, but even then you could stick posters around wearing a hood and a face mask, or even do a bit a graffiti, hence you could do that using an offline platform too. The majority of the riots were planned using Blackberry Messenger, which is private and pretty much like texting using an internet connection rather than a mobile phone signal. So, you can't really blame social media.

However, I'd argue that social media did help in enhancing public moral panic. The media alone wouldn't have caused so much moral panic, Facebook statuses and Tweets about the events possibly made people feel more worried than they would have been otherwise. Also, individuals circling rumours probably didn't help. This could have also happened via other communication channels but it's the fact that the internet connects the world!.

It's really bad what has happened in the UK over the past week and I have deep sympathy for those who have had their businesses or homes trashed. I advise you to "Keep Calm and Carry On", be careful but don't let the threat of violence ruin your plans. 

Most of all: Stay Safe

- Jodie x