Young south London rapper Boya Dee gave an eye witness account of the Woolwich attack on twitter.
With so few young people in newsrooms, and 79 per cent of the young people surveyed by the Youth Media Agency expressing their frustration at their poor depiction in the media, many are turning to social media to get their voices heard. Mesha McNeil explores how Twitter coverage of the tragic murder of Drummer Lee Rigby by a young south London based rapper is a sign of how the mainstream media is being forced to take notice of diverse youth narratives online.
Social media is dramatically changing the way we report on the world. Various online platforms are allowing young people to create their own content and report on news in their own voices, from their own perspective.
While social media provides the tools for young people to promote their own narratives, smartphones are enabling those narratives to be produced instantaneously, from almost any location. Estimates for 2013 suggest that 81 per cent of mobile phone users are aged 12 to 17 while 84 per cent of mobile phone users aged 18 to 24 own a smartphone.
During the tragic murder of Lee Rigby in Woolwich on Wednesday 22 May this year, one of the most recognisable sources of commentary on the horrific attack came from young rapper Boya Dee’s (@boyadee) live Twitter feed. With a maximum of 140 characters per tweet, Dee gave a startling eye witness account to his followers.
Oh my God!!!! I just see a man with his head chopped off right in front of my eyes!
— Boya Dee (@BOYADEE) May 22, 2013
Dee’s commentary was unedited. He did not compromise on his casual voice which provided a raw authentic bystander account, which is often absent from the highly regulated and formal voice used by the mainstream media. Dee’s live tweets covering the Woolwich murder were retweeted by his followers, leading him to pick up over 10,000 followers.
Dee also attracted the attention of the mainstream media. The young south London rapper turned down a total of £75,000 from various media companies. Instead Dee wrote an article for the Guardian and produced a short video for Channel 4 about the Woolwich attack.
The mainstream press relied heavily on social media accounts and smartphone-generated content to create their own coverage of the Woolwich murder. A passer-by recorded the scene on his mobile phone. One of the suspected murders spoke directly into a smartphone camera, describing his motives. This chilling footage, along with photographs, also taken on smartphones and Dee’s Twitter feed, dominated the reports of the large news publications and television stations.
Many commentators draw attention to the downside of the greater reliance on social media and user generated content used in mainstream journalism. Young journalist Nathalie Olah wrote on the international blogging network VICE that Dee belonged to a growing trend of “Tragedy Jesters”.
Although Olah admits that Dee didn’t plan on being the primary source of the news in the Woolwich attack, she argues that many of those who read Dee’s Twitter feed made light of a tragic situation by focusing on Dee’s colloquial writing style and sensationalist tone.
Olah claims that mainstream media doesn’t focus on the diverse accounts of individuals such as Dee’s to add rich layers to their stories but to “[make] comedians of anyone with a smartphone and some steez [style with ease]”.
With the increasing rise in social media’s consumption among young people, it may be that eye witness reports like the one on Dee’s Twitter feed will play a more dominant role in how print and television report the news in the future. While many readers may not welcome a more diverse youth-centred narrative, it will provide young people with more opportunities to have a direct target audience for their voices.
Mesha McNeil is Words of Colour’s youth engagement lead.