Introduction

The 1992 L.A. riots were the first riots to be extensively covered live on television. Since then, a considerable number of scholarly studies have been undertaken around the questions of how and why the riots occurred (Abu- Lughod 2007; Baldassare 1994; Davis 2006; Gale 1996; Hunt 1996, 2012). However, most research has exclusively dealt with the discourse about the riots, not the actual violent actions themselves. Therefore, most texts feature what people thought about the riots, not how they acted during the event. It is an open question how to incorporate bodily action into discourse analysis. In this chapter, we scrutinise stills from live television coverage and a video filmed on-site of one prominent attack. Due to the already existing studies on the discursive context, we are able to add further understanding by analysing bodily actions. An approach like this complements discourse analysis and thereby achieves innovative insights. Our hypothesis is that the deciphering of bodily expressions adds a significant layer to the way actions are incorporated in discourse analyses.

We briefly outline the historical context of the events and the setting of the television coverage. A description of the theoretical background connecting rioting and visual body analysis follows. Along our adaptation of the concept of a moral economy of rioting, we concentrate on references to social and cognitive reservoirs and repertoires to show how the violent actions can be seen as media practices. Therefore, the analysis of exemplary body postures in the video material itself forms the main part of the chapter.

Theoretical Background

Rioting always means to act concretely or bodily and at the same time to articulate yourself symbolically and towards a wider social and political public. Even the denial of this political dimension by commentators – for example, politicians through simple criminalisation of this behaviour – underlines this symbolic potential. Without this discursive dimension riot practices seem absurd. Riots are directly connected to already existing, emotionally loaded conflicts and often persist afterwards. Riots address questions of access to and participation in the city and its publics (Harvey 2008; Lefèbvre 2003). To speak of riots means to group very heterogeneous actors and events into one framing macro-narrative.