Concluding Remarks
The "1981 and 2011 Riots Redefined: Digitally Deconstructing "Criminal" Narratives" project seeks to challenge the narratives surrounding the riots in the UK in 1981 and 2011. I utilize digital tools to more critically and transparently analyze and re-narrate the histories of these historical events, uncover the motivations behind the riots, and shed light on the perspectives of rioters, which have been marginalized in more dominant and official data sources - those of the government and the British media.
One of the main problems the project addresses is the UK Government's "criminal" narrative in data constructions and visualizations of the data on riots, which views the rioters as violent and criminal without examining more complex social and historical contexts, which led to these social uprisings. Thus, the project proposes several multi-level solutions regarding how to effectively transform data sources, build interactive visualizations and maps, and enhance them with critical discourse analysis of textual data on riots. By using Python, Google's Data Studio, and other digital tools, the project's deliverable enforces a more complex and critical analysis of the data sources, which can help identify and test different historical arguments for the research surrounding the riots of 1981 and 2011.
The framework behind the project emphasizes ethical and evidence-based practices for journalism projects utilizing data on riots and their participants. I offer a valuable contribution to the study of the 1981 and 2011 riots in the United Kingdom by using digital tools to critically analyze and re-narrate the histories of the riots, outlining a practical approach for data journalists and digital historians seeking to digitally critique and represent data sources on similar events of social uprisings.