Premium
Youth, Racism, and Place in the Tony Martin Affair
Author(s) -
Vanderbeck Robert M
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8330.00327
Subject(s) - underclass , racism , conviction , sociology , criminology , politics , relation (database) , social exclusion , inequality , gender studies , media studies , law , political science , anthropology , database , computer science , mathematical analysis , mathematics
This paper provides an analysis of media discourse surrounding the arrest, trial, and conviction of Norfolk farmer Tony Martin for the murder of 16‐year old Fred Barras, a Traveller from Newark, Nottinghamshire. The paper argues that discourses about Travellers (re)constructed in the media during the Martin affair showed evidence of both older, stereotypical representations of Travellers and newer ways of locating them in relation to contemporary societal anxieties about “dangerous youth”, the “underclass”, and “social exclusion”. The coverage was often emblematic of political discourses in Britain, which too often emphasise the moral failings of the “excluded” without any significant discussion of the sources of inequalities.