Fuck No Bristol!

Dr Reilly has made a study of the role new media played in the Stokes Croft riots in Bristol in April this year, when local opposition against the opening of a new supermarket chain in Stokes Croft was said to have contributed towards rioting in the area. Both police and protestors accused each other of being responsible for the violence. People on the streets in Stokes Croft took short videos with their mobile phones to show the actions of the police. These videos were later put on YouTube, often contradicting the media’s interpretation of events. Dr Reilly examined 70 YouTube videos and commentaries, piecing together the different angles like a jigsaw, and building up a picture of what actually happened at Stokes Croft. In a paper, entitled ‘Every Little Helps’, given at the British Sociological Association Media Studies Group Conference, Dr Reilly argued that the people who made these videos did it to project some of the police actions at Stokes Croft and to show that, contrary to the stories that appeared in the press, what happened there was not an anti-store demonstration that turned violent but rather a peaceful event gate-crashed by rioters.