Looking Good on Whose Terms? Ambiguity in Two Kellogg's Special K ® Print Advertisements

The present paper examines the current trend by advertisers who construct ambiguity within advertisements to gain a double profit with consumers. As advertisers pre-empt their critics by acknowledging and even foregrounding the political incorrectness of their own industries, they also subversively promote the same damaging messages that were always present within the advertisements. This strategy is becoming more and more prevalent with several industry sectors that need to fight backlash by cultural critics. In the present paper, I focus intensely on the way one popular advertising campaign by Kellogg Canada fosters an ethos of liberation for women from gender stereotyping, manipulation of perceived body image and ageism. I argue that this style of advertising lifts feelings of guilt and bolsters a mock cultural capital for consumers who believe they are helping to free society from gender shackles, while they are in fact unknowingly contributing to this situation by not challenging these advertisements. I use the visual semiotic framework of Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen to reveal this act of manipulation.     

Networks and nonprofits: Opportunities and challenges in an era of federal devolution

Abstract

Community development corporations and other nonprofit organizations are increasingly responsible for producing and managing low‐income housing in urban America. This article examines the network of governmental, philanthropic, educational, and other institutions that channel financial, technical, and political support to nonprofit housing sponsors. We analyze the relationships among these institutions and propose an explanation for their success. We then consider challenges the network must confront if the reinvention of federal housing policy is to succeed.

Block grants and rental vouchers, the dominant emphases of federal policy, present opportunities and constraints for nonprofit housing groups and their institutional networks. While states and municipalities are likely to continue to use block grants for nonprofit housing, the viability of this housing will be severely tested as project‐based operating subsidies are replaced by tenant‐based vouchers. We recommend ways that the federal, state, and local governments should help the institutional support network respond to this challenge.     

Thinking Critically About Rural Gender Relations: Toward a Rural Masculinity Crisis/Male Peer Support Model of Separation/Divorce Sexual Assault

After decades of neglect, a growing number of scholars have turned their attention to issues of crime and criminal justice in the rural context. Despite this improvement, rural crime research is underdeveloped theoretically, and is little informed by critical criminological perspectives. In this article, we introduce the broad tenets of a multi-level theory that links social and economic change to the reinforcement of rural patriarchy and male peer support, and in turn, how they are linked to separation/divorce sexual assault. We begin by addressing a series of misconceptions about what is rural, rural homogeneity and commonly held presumptions about the relationship of rurality, collective efficacy (and related concepts) and crime. We conclude by recommending more focused research, both qualitative and quantitative, to uncover specific link between the rural transformation and violence against women. This paper was presented at the 2006 annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Los Angeles, California. Some of the research reported here was supported by National Institute of Justice Grant 2002-WG-BX-0004 and financial assistance provided by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Office of the Vice President for Research at Ohio University. Arguments and findings included in this article are those of the authors and do not represent the official position of the US Department of Justice or Ohio University. Please send all correspondence to Walter S. DeKeseredy, e-mail: walter.dekeseredy@uoit.ca. All of the names of the women who participated in DeKeseredy and colleagues’ rural Ohio study and who are quoted have been changed to maintain confidentiality.

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For richer or for poorer: Marriage as an antipoverty strategy

This study examines the effects of changes in family structure on children's economic well‐being. An initial shift‐share analysis indicates that, had the proportion of children living in female‐headed families remained constant since 1970, the 1998 child poverty rate would have been 4.4 percentage points lower than its actual 1998 level of 18.3 percent. The March 1999 Current Population Survey is then used to conduct a second analysis in which marriages are simulated between single mothers and demographically similar, unrelated males. The microsimulation analysis addresses some of the shortcomings of the shift‐share approach by making it possible to account for the possibility of a shortage of marriageable men, to control for unobservable differences between married men and women and their unmarried counterparts, and to measure directly the effects of increases in marriage on the economic well‐being of children. Results from the microsimulation analysis suggest that, had the proportion of children living in female‐headed families remained constant since 1970, the child poverty rate would have been 3.4 percentage points lower than its actual 1998 level. Among children whose mother participated in a simulated marriage, the poverty rate would have fallen by almost two‐thirds. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Housing Choice Voucher Location Patterns a Decade Later

In 2003, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) prepared a study of the location patterns of the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. This study became an important baseline for the evaluation of the HCV program and its ability to serve the goal of poverty deconcentration. The study examined the ability of HCV households in the 50 largest metropolitan areas to make entry to a broad array of neighborhoods and to locate in high-opportunity neighborhoods with low levels of poverty.

New data from HUD and the American Community Survey permit the study to be replicated. We find that vouchers continue to consume only a small portion of the housing stock, with relatively small amounts of spatial concentration. Unfortunately, only about one in five voucher households locate in low-poverty neighborhoods, and this share is rising only very slowly. If the nation wants to pursue poverty deconcentration through the HCV program, we cannot rely on the program, as it is now structured, to accomplish this goal. Additional incentives and constraints will be needed, similar to those that were part of the Gautreaux and Moving to Opportunity programs.