Riots in the UK: Morality, Social Imaginaries, and Conditions of Possibility

Abstract

In August 2011, rioting in UK cities captivated an international audience. This article combines empirical and theoretical work in order to examine the conditions of possibility for the riots and for the print media's response to them. First a content analysis of fourteen British newspapers is provided to frame and criticize how the riots were portrayed. The article then turns to the conceptual framework provided by Charles Taylor's work on social imaginaries and the modern moral order. The author argues that the media enacted the kind of moralizing impulse that Taylor helps us to understand. Conversely, that same media response is indicative of the inadequacies of Taylor's account of morality and our imaginaries. Important features of our dominant imaginaries are neglected, such as how we identify moral fouls, along with power relations and the material conditions in which people live. Drawing on second-hand interviews with riot participants and on work by Stuart Hall, a more critical understanding of the riots is offered by viewing them in three distinct yet non-exclusive valences, specifically the transgression, culmination, and continuation of our moral order.