The Oxygen of Publicity

morstar

Quite simply, if the press stopped reporting the rioting, it wouldn't spread!

I know this won't happen but I have a strong conviction that the above statement is true. I am taken back to so called joy-riding in the late 80's. Joy-riding was something isolated to a council estate somewhere or other. It then appeared in all the press that these kids were doing this and suffering no consequences, very quickly it became a nationwide epidemic.

pipipi

Initially I was thinking along the same lines BUT

in the 80s there weren't mobile phones. Even if the 'media' don't report it someone will sen a text 'meet here for riot' and off they go. They'll send photos to each other of what they are up to and again off they go.


Now if you mean shutting down mobile phone networks then that will also make a lot of ordinary law abiding people quite angry. Personally I'd be supportive if the govt said that for the next 24hrs there would be no mobile messages. But what if they said no internet? Then it begins to sound like some of those Eastern European countries..

P_Tucker

Yeah, all things considered I'd prefer a free press thanks.

Jez mon

You would have to shut down the mobile networks, twitter, facebook, other social networks infact probably the whole internet. Which would cause an amazing amount of confusion and worry. i.e. the only way i can get intouch with my mother who lives in London is by phoning her, and she doesn't have a landline. I know there are riots have happened very close to her flat, and suddenly I can't get hold of her? Likewise for millions of other families around the UK.

Not to mention it would grind the economy to a halt.

Frank the tank

Social networking sites, mobile phones, the genie is out of the bottle.

mrushton

It's a network and you don't have to close down all the masts, just those in the area. The numpties smart phones won't work. I'm sorry the ordinary people will be inconvenienced but they are in the hotspot anyway. People like Apple are actually able to turn their phones off automatically (they have a patent on it). So in Mcr, surely the thing to do is shut the masts down around the city centre - or will human rights be infringed?

GiantMike

Frank the tank wrote:

Social networking sites, mobile phones, the genie is out of the bottle.

If social networking sites and mobile comms become a mainstay of criminal activity there is likely to be a backlash banning encrypted systems and forcing an open availability of the content of text messages between certain phones. If you could also include the GPS location of the phone (or get an idea from which mast it was using) it will be easy to work out who was where and when and who they were communicating with.

morstar

I don't just think this is about the mechanism to communicate though.
Sure, mobile technology aids the orchestration but, isn't a big part of the motivation seeing everybody get their knickers in a twist (understandably so). If they didn't get the coverage, wouldn't some of it all just fizzle out a bit quicker.

CrackFox

Maybe the media should replace the oxygen of publicity with the helium of ridicule. Show footage of coppers chasing rioters to the sound of the Benny Hill theme. Would that work, do you think?

+1 for a free press though tbh. You take the rough with the smooth. The issue here isn't press freedom but what can be done to give these people some sort of a stake in society.

mark63

back in 2001 I was involved in a little protesting over the FMD, the press that was covering the goings on had what they called a section D put on them which meant the reports were basically censored, to prevent support from outside. These were national papers & TV. Our mobile phones were tapped as were our landlines, computers kept crashing & getting infected with virus's. Our media coverage was minimal, so much so that the town 15 miles away didn't know what was going on. we still kept it up for months. until Brussels listened to us or at least FMD disappeared on 9/11 strange that

morstar

mark63 wrote:

back in 2001 I was involved in a little protesting over the FMD, the press that was covering the goings on had what they called a section D put on them which meant the reports were basically censored, to prevent support from outside. These were national papers & TV. Our mobile phones were tapped as were our landlines, computers kept crashing & getting infected with virus's. Our media coverage was minimal, so much so that the town 15 miles away didn't know what was going on. we still kept it up for months. until Brussels listened to us or at least FMD disappeared on 9/11 strange that

I think there is a difference in that you had a cause and a conviction. Such protests quite often carry on with little outside interest. (not passing comment on the cause btw way as I can't recall what FMD was / is).
I suppose you could argue that you prove the point. Word didn't spread to the masses and the protest remained restricted to a contained group.
It's a moot point though as I don't expect a news blackout and I am not an advocate of censorship. It's so much like the naughty child syndrome, stop giving them attention and fuelling them with ideas and it would calm down.
I suppose my preference would be that all the news organisations collectively agreed to keep schtum but clearly that's cloud cuckoo land. Although no more so than the hang 'em high brigade.