Toxic Toxteth: understanding press stigmatization of Toxteth during the 1981 uprising.

Butler, Alice

Abstract

This article investigates how the press stigmatized Toxteth during, and immediately following, the disturbances in 1981. It builds upon a body of literature on territorial stigmatization where there is a gap in understanding surrounding the production and formation of stigma. Drawing on the acceptance in literature that the media is a key contributor to territorial stigma, the author delves further to understand some of the techniques that the media uses to stigmatize place. The author engages in a combined quantitative and qualitative analysis of 496 newspaper articles from five British newspapers to examine how the press reports on Toxteth, and who constructs Toxteth’s identity. The author shows that the name of ‘Toxteth’ was largely defined by the media and that the residents of Toxteth were denied a voice in the press coverage in 1981 with fewer than 10 per cent of all articles quoting a resident. The author refers to this process as ‘stranger-making’, and it underscores the way that the media denied residents an ability to construct their own identity and the identity of their area. While stranger-making involves obfuscating the unique contours of Toxteth and silencing voices, the press simultaneously impose aspects of identity from a position of power through the techniques of naming, negativity, and oppositionality.

Citation

BUTLER, A. 2020. Toxic Toxteth: understanding press stigmatization of Toxteth during the 1981 uprising. Journalism [online], 21(4), pages 541-556. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884918822666

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 5, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Feb 6, 2019
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2020
• Deposit Date: Jan 7, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 7, 2019
• Journal: Journalism
• Print ISSN: 1464-8849
• Electronic ISSN: 1741-3001
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 21
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 541-556
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884918822666
• Keywords: Marginality; Liverpool; Print media; Stigma; Territorial stigma; The press; Toxteth
• Public URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/3248