Search results

Every few years we have analysed trends in prosecutions under the Food and Drugs Act, 1955 and the various regulations, chiefly for the purpose of ascertaining the principal causes for which proceedings are instituted and to detect changes, if any, from one survey to the next. The period covered in each survey has been three months, but not the same months of the year, and the material, the reports of proceedings received at the offices of the Journal from all parts of the country. In the present survey the method of classification has been the same as formerly, viz., to record prosecutions under similar headings to those under which cases are reported in the Journal with those where foreign material in the food constituted the offence separately identified. As it has appeared obvious for some time now that prosecutions for mouldy food were increasing, these too have been separately recorded.

The brand management literature argues that the standardization of branding strategy across global markets leads to consistent and well‐defined brand meaning. The paper aims to challenge this thesis by empirically examining whether and how global brands travel with consumers. The paper studies how consumers create brand meanings at home and abroad as well as the impact of context (e.g. place) on the meaning of global brands for the same consumers.

The paper takes a qualitative approach to examine brand meanings for two prototypical global brands, McDonald's and Starbucks, at home and abroad. Data were collected through photo‐elicited interviews, personal diaries, and essays with 29 middle‐class American consumers before, during, and after a short‐term trip to China. Interviews lasted from 30 to 90 minutes and the data were analyzed using a hermeneutic approach.

Taking a cultural branding approach, the paper demonstrates that despite perceived standardized global brand platforms, consumers develop divergent brand meanings abroad. While at home, global brands have come to symbolize corporate excess, predatory intentions, and cultural homogenizations; abroad they evoke meanings of comfort, predictability, safety, and national pride. In foreign contexts, global brands become dwelling resources that enable travelers to sustain daily consumption rituals, evoke sensory experiences of home, as well as provide a comfortable and welcoming space.

The paper challenges the brand management literature assumption of a consistent brand image for standardized global brands. It shows that the cultural context (e.g. place) impacts consumer‐derived brand meanings even among the same group of consumers. Further, it argues that standardization offered by global brands provides an important symbolic value to mobile consumers of serving as an anchor to the home left behind.

In this chapter I employ a hybrid critical framework that draws on feminist media studies, feminist critiques of post-feminism, theories of intersectionality, and genre theory to consider a range of domestic violence stories on screen. The chapter begins with a summary of prototypical patterns of narrative and character in contemporary Hollywood films about abuse and subsequently explores two recent media representations that, while conforming to certain of these patterns, also introduce alternative perspectives: the 2017/2019 Home Box Office miniseries Big Little Lies and French director Xavier Legrand's 2018 film Custody (Jusqu’à la garde). I argue that both of these media texts draw on familiar genres that engage audiences not simply to generate sympathy for the abused woman-turned-heroine, but to challenge persistent myths about domestic violence such as that abusers are monsters who never show love towards their partners; that abused women are weak, passive, and the victims of their own bad judgment; that the effects and repercussions of abuse end with the departure of the abuser; that, ultimately, the problem of abuse must be “solved” by the individual; that the “solution” is as simple as leaving; and that there is little as a community or a society that we can do. I conclude that, in different ways and to different degrees, each of these media texts succeeds in making small but significant interventions into the predictable formulas of mainstream Hollywood domestic violence films through narratives that foreground the complexities, contradictions, and dilemmas of abuse.

The purpose of this paper is to present findings from face-to-face interviews undertaken with 16 care and nursing home managers employed in homes situated in two English local authorities. The research sought to explore managers’ perceptions of the role of contract monitoring in the prevention of abuse.

Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 16 care and nursing home managers.

Though personnel employed by the local authority who conducted contract monitoring were generally thought of positively by care home managers on a personal level, their effectiveness was perceived to be limited as a result of their lack of experience and knowledge of providing care, and the methods that they were required to use.

Though the research draws upon the experiences of only 16 care and nursing home managers in two local authorities, data suggest that current contract monitoring activity is of limited utility in determining the true nature of care and the presence of abuse.

Unusually, the paper explores care and nursing home managers’ perceptions of contract monitoring processes in terms of how they perceive their effectiveness in preventing abuse.

The purpose of this paper is to present findings from an empirical research project designed to enhance knowledge of the current extent and nature of abuse in contemporary care homes for older people.

A self-completion, postal questionnaire was used to elicit both numerical and textual data that was subsequently subjected to both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The questionnaire was distributed to newly appointed care staff in six participating care homes providing care to older people to determine the nature of any abuse they may have witnessed in the homes in which they had previously worked.

A significant proportion of respondents described instances of predominantly psychological and physical abuse and neglect.

Though the research draws upon the experiences of only 194 anonymous questionnaire respondents, of whom 140 had witnessed abuse; data suggest that abuse continues to occur in some care homes for older people.

The research has revealed staffs’ recent experiences of a range of abusive acts and practices. Findings suggest that changes are required to current methods of external scrutiny and investigation of practices in care homes.