Why I chose to do the concept of moral panic represented through social media.
I have chosen to focus my research on the topic of UK Drill music and the negative connotations that surround the genre. As I've been heavily into UK Drill music for some time and noticed a neverending negative backlash from this form of music, I was inspired to choose this topic for my digital artifact. Diving into the reasoning behind these connotations and exploring a range of unique perspectives on the issue, I have studied how audience perception is swayed by the portrayal of these artists in the media and some of the reasoning behind these perceptions from an artist's point of view. Keeping in mind my BCM110 Pitch feedback, I've decided to focus on using more case studies to help identify the outcome of UK Drill's moral panic, as well as aimed to be descriptive as possible to help portray my points.
This research fits under the broader topic of moral panic through media, as audiences are able to develop strong opinions and stereotype these artists based on what they have seen online, often without developing an understanding of the bigger picture. What interested me the most about this topic was the power of social media in influencing consumer perception, often only portraying one side of a story and flooding newsfeeds with the juiciest headlines, rather than the most accurate ones.
With this in mind, I knew I had to get research from both sides of the case and develop a sound understanding of the issue from all perspectives. Looking into Grime: Criminal subculture or public counterculture? A critical investigation into the criminalization of Black musical subcultures in the UK, this article gave me insight into reintroducing urban music cultures as a form of creativity and expression of public, with the attempt of resisting and or exposing their ‘criminalisation’ by the Metropolitan Police Force in the United Kingdom. This text creates a view on the artist's perspective, what they face, how their issues have been dealt with from a criminologist's point of view.
Numerous sources I used demonstrate the reasoning behind these overpoliced artists, indicating that robberies, stabbings, and gang violence all played a part and leveled out the reasoning for the moral crime.
To create an in-depth analysis, I added the perspective of the Australian Drill music group, One Four, as they provide an Australian aspect to the case and helped me to draw a stronger conclusion on the moral panic caused by Drill Music. Overall, I think developing a comprehensive approach towards youth violence, helps people understand the silent sufferers of overcoming trauma, helps allocate equality in a way that affects young people's self-image and invests in personal involvement in a more represented society. With the mainstream media exhibited through these platforms, higher interest is shown towards violence than truth, the positivity shown through Drills aspects are debated whether they are being dealt with fairly.
Providing further insight, I also explored the perspective of Ciaran Harper and his first-hand experiences of gang-related violence on the UK streets
References
Anthony Downes, 2018, Should Young People Who Want to Express Themselves Through Drill Music Be Treated as Terror Suspects? Available at :https://www.edgehill.ac.uk/law/should-young-people-article/ [Accessed 3 June 2021].
Thapar, C., 2021. UK Drill & Youth Violence: The Final Word. [online] Trenchtrenchtrench.com. Available at: <https://trenchtrenchtrench.com/features/uk-drill-and-youth-violence-the-final-word> [Accessed 9 May 2021].
Kleinberg, B., 2021. Examining UK drill music through sentiment trajectory analysis. [online] Arxiv.org. Available at: <https://arxiv.org/pdf/1911.01324.pdf> [Accessed 9 May 2021].
Fatsis, L., 2021. Policing the beats: The criminalisation of UK drill and grime music by the London Metropolitan Police - Lambros Fatsis, 2019. [online] SAGE Journals. Available at: <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0038026119842480> [Accessed 9 May 2021].
Fatsis, L., 2021. Grime: Criminal subculture or public counterculture? A critical investigation into the criminalization of Black musical subcultures in the UK. [online] Endrapontrial.org. Available at: <http://endrapontrial.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Fatsis-Crime-Media-Culture-2018-1.pdf> [Accessed 9 May 2021].
Osman Faruqi, 2019, Inside the battle between Australian drill rappers OneFour and the police, available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-13/australian-drill-rappers-onefour-battle-police/11779746?nw=0 (Accessed 2 June 2021)
Ciaran Thapar, 2008, The Moral Panic Against UK Drill Is Deeply Misguided, Available at:
https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/the-moral-panic-against-uk-drill-is-deeply-misguided/
> [Accessed 1 June 2021].
Image references