'Cease and desist?' The persistence of Marlboro brand imagery in racing video games

Since 1972, Philip Morris (PM) has sponsored motorsports. Racing video games are a popular genre among youth and often emulate the branding of their real-life counterparts, potentially exposing youth to tobacco imagery. We examined racing video games for the presence of Marlboro imagery and explored the history of efforts to remove or regulate such imagery.We searched the Truth Tobacco Industry documents for relevant documents and used information from video game-related websites and game play videos to identify racing video games that contained Marlboro trademarks and imagery. We also collected information on the Entertainment Software Ratings Board's (ESRB) tobacco-specific and overall game ratings.In 1989, negative publicity surrounding the presence of Marlboro logos in racing games led PM to threaten legal action against two game makers for copyright infringement. PM also launched a media campaign promoting this intervention as evidence of its commitment to youth smoking prevention. Nonetheless, we identified 219 video games from 1979 to 2018 that contained Marlboro trademarks and/or Marlboro-sponsored drivers and livery. Among the games in our sample with an ESRB game rating, all but one received an 'E,' indicating appropriateness for everyone, and all but three lacked tobacco content descriptors.Racing video games have been and continue to be a vehicle for exposing adolescents to the Marlboro brand. Because voluntary efforts by PM and the video game industry to prevent youth exposure to tobacco brands in video games have been ineffective, USA and international policy-makers should prohibit tobacco content in video games

Intergenerational transfers, social solidarity, and social policy: unanswered questions and policy challenges

Journal ArticleLe transfert intergenerationnel constitue l'essence de la continuite societale et pourtant, il demeure mal conceptualise et analyse. Il se situe Egalement au centre du concept de l'etat sur le bien-etre quant a la redistribution des ressources et partant, des changements/defis actuels quant aux mesures sociales. Tout en ayant un effet sur le choix des politiques et en creant un lien entre celles-ci et la recherche, l'attention portee sur le transfert intergenerationnel se concentre sur les questions fondamentales des syst6mes de croyance, sur les transferts familiaux (ou prives) opposes aux transferts publics entre les generations et sur la question de l'equite intergenerationnelle et entre les cohortes, A court et A long termes. Cet article comporte quatre objectifs: (1) Situer les transferts intergenerationnels dans leurs contextes socio-historiques, internationaux et en fonction des politiques sociales actuelles. (2) Etablir une typologie des transferts intergenerationnels qui pourrait constituer une base de reponses aux questions cles demeurees irresolues jusqu'A maintenant, a savoir par exemple si la situation des aines des generations A venir sera semblable a celle d'aujourd'hui. (3) Favoriser la collecte de donnees completes et int6grees sur les transferts intergenerationnels au Canada, ce qui permettrait des choix plus avises en matiere de politiques. (4) Faire ressortir les questions de politiques qui n'auront pas ete resolues par la recherche. A partir de l'analyse des facteurs de transferts intergenerationnels connus et de ceux qui restent A decouvrir, on a etabli un agenda de systeme d'information et de recherche eventuelle sur les questions de politiques

Explaining Canadian fertility: some remaining challenges

Journal ArticleCanada is in an advantageous position to study the social context of human reproduction and childbearing. Canadian contributions to the fertility literature have thus far been impressive. In spite of the obvious solid base of fertility research in Canada, some challenges remain. Among these are capitalizing on Canada's unique cultural and economic situation, focussing on the problematic areas of Canadian fertility, developing a distinctive Canadian theoretical perspective, promoting stronger linkages with family sociology, not being driven by methodology, becoming more aware of the theoretical underpinnings of fertility research, and moving into the area of explanation of fertility behaviours

Women's roles and reproduction: the changing picture in Canada in the 1980's

Journal ArticleThe social roles of women have always been affected by their reproductive roles. Recently in Canada, as well as elsewhere, several challenges to traditional thinking about women's roles and reproduction have emerged. These challenges have called into question the models typically used to analyze women's roles as well as the very ways women are defined. Four of these challenges are discussed here including the shift in control over reproduction, childbearing as work, the changing traditional family and the appearance of new reproductive technologies. In each area, the traditional sociological approach is contrasted with the feminist perspective

Information and communications technologies: bugs in the generational ointment?

Journal ArticleThe uses and impacts of information and communications technologies IICTsl. are not smooth, linear or fairy-tale like in dusting society with benefits. In development, adoption, uses and impacts. technologies shape. and are shaped by social relations and social structures. Generational relations are part of the processes by which ICTs become products, symbols, social glue, and social schism. A generational system of relations shapes how technologies shape us, our identities and social structures. The intricate relation of technologies to generation has yet to be explored sociologically

Women's Roles and Reproduction: The Changing Picture in Canada in the 1980's

The social roles of women have always been affected by their reproductive roles. Recently in Canada, as well as elsewhere, several challenges to traditional thinking about women's roles and reproduction have emerged. These challenges have called into question the models typically used to analyze women's roles as well as the very ways women are defined. Four of these challenges are discussed here including the shift in control over reproduction, childbearingas work, the changing traditional family and the appearance of new reproductive technologies. In each area, the traditional sociological approach is contrasted with the feminist perspective.Toujours les rôles social de la femme aétéaf-fectépar leur rèlesde reproduction. Récemment au Canada, tout coml me ailleurs, plusiers défis à la pensée traditionnelle concernant les rôles de la femme et celui de la reproduction on émergés. Ces défis ont remis en question les modèles typiquemet utilisés pour analyser les rôles de la femme aussi bien que les diffrentes faons dont la femme est déterminée. Ici quatre de ces défis sont discuté incluant le changment dans le contrle de la reproduction, la grossesse corne travail, la famille traditionnelle en transformation, et l’apparition de nouvelles techniques de reproduction. Dans chaque domaine, l’approach sociologique traditionnelle fait contraste avec la perspective féiniste

Challenges to health promotion among older working women

Journal ArticleThe work site, has, been a place of successful health promotion among; certain groups, most notably men in management. The potential of work site health promotion among women, particularly among' older working women, remains unexplored.. Given women's greater longevity and women's likelihood of spending more years disabled, work site health promotion among older women workers' could by a good means of reducing health risks in later years and thus reducing health care costs

Feminist scholarship in sociology: transformation from within?

Journal ArticleFew revolutions, epistemological or otherwise, begin in academia. And yet, knowledge producers always play some role in revolutions of any kind, including epistemological revolutions. This paper is in the spirit of recent debates in the Canadian Journal of Sociology about the end of modern sociology (Cheal,1990), the "twilight of positivism" (Baldus, 1990), "intellectual terrorism" of social thought which refuses reference to the material world (Brym, 1990:331), and the crisis in sociology manifested by rewards to data manipulators while ignoring world events and trends (Fox, 1990

Work, retirement and women in later life

Journal ArticleResearch on the labour market experiences of mid-life and older women is increasing, revealing new knowledge, but also showing us how much is not yet known. Retirement remains, for the most part, a presumed life transition for men, but not necessarily for women. Despite the growing, but still small number of studies that focus on women's retirement, most studies of retirement include only men, although some do include women, and others focus on women specifically. At the same time that interest is growing in women's retirement, changes are occurring which impact on the context of retirement and women. Demographic shifts have meant that the labour force is aging, that the baby boom generation is entering mid-life, and that the life course of women (and men too) has been altered substantially. Also, economic change in Canada (and throughout the industrial world) has meant that employment, unemployment, and retirement may no longer mean what they were taken to mean in the past. Guillemard and Rein suggest that "The social meaning of retirement is coming undone". And labour force withdrawals may not be as linked to chronological age as they were once presumed to be. The concept of material and family security has shifted, too, with family changes, increased labour force participation of women, cutbacks to and abandonment of social programs by provinces and the federal government, and changes in family income. This chapter focuses on changes in work and retirement among mid-life Canadians, with particular attention to women. Specifically, the interest here is in situating the experiences of a sample of recently non-working mid-life Canadians in the context of the profound macrolevel changes occurring in work and in the Canadian economy

Where the contradictions meet: women and family security in Canada in the 1990s

Journal ArticleFamily and security are both contested ground in Canada in the 1990s. The family and family values are lauded sentimentally on both sides of the 49th parallel. Yet, more and more families, Canadian and American - families with children, aging couples and the working poor - are lining up at food banks. Security is also hotly debated. Politicians and accountants become passionate about debt, responsibility and competitiveness, particularly global competitiveness. At times, the contradictions between these views emerge vividly, as when politicians, every now and again, actually meet the poor and chant mantras about the goodness of life in Canada (according to the United Nations) and poverty as an unfortunate cost of global competitiveness, while the faces of hungry babies and children reveal hopelessness