From empowering the shameful to shaming the empowered: Shifting depictions of the poor in 'reality TV'

Poor-blaming and poor-shaming have become intrinsic parts of the neoliberal order. For neoliberal discourse to enter and to dominate wider public ‘common sense’, vehicles of ‘populist language’ are required and the mass media has taken a central place in propagandising neoliberalism through their narration of poverty. This article focuses on so-called ‘reality TV’ and its neoliberal framing of the poor, particularly since 2007 and specifically in its generation of support for, and acquiescence in, ‘austerity’. We argue that what these programmes provide is a representation of poverty which is politically expedient but socially divisive. As criminologists, we suggest that this representation symbolises the intensification of what Cohen (2002: xxi) noted as the prominence of ‘“welfare cheats”, “social security frauds” and “dole scroungers” as fairly traditional folk devils. Further, we argue that an intensification in the denigration of the poor and the marginal in these programmes can be traced across three phases, from 2009 onwards, defined by their key features. Whilst not neatly discrete, these phases mirror the neoliberal political shift from welfare to punishment. They manufacture ‘epidemic problems’ that are seen to require urgent remediation. Yet the status and nature of these problems are defined through deception and the forms of intervention required are determined through individualised and moralised neoliberal prescription

Nutritional Immunology: A Multi-Dimensional Approach

Nutrition is critical to immune defence and resistance to pathogens, with consequences that affect the health, welfare, and reproductive success of individual organisms [1], [2], and also has profound ecological and evolutionary implications [3]–[5]. In humans, under-nutrition, notably of protein, is a major contributor to morbidity and mortality due to infectious diseases, particularly in the developing world [1]. Likewise, over-nutrition and its associated metabolic disorders may impair immune function, disrupt the relationship with symbiotic and commensal microbiota, and increase susceptibility to infectious disease [6]. Despite the undoubted importance of nutrition to immune defence, the challenge remains to capture the complexity of this relationship. There are three main aspects to this complexity: (i) nutrition is a complex multi-dimensional problem for hosts, pathogens, and commensals; (ii) host immunity is a complex, multi-dimensional trait; and (iii) nutrition and immunity interact via multiple direct and indirect pathways, including involvement of the host's microbiota

Regulation of histone methylation by demethylimination and demethylation.

Histone methylation has important roles in regulating transcription, genome integrity and epigenetic inheritance. Historically, methylated histone arginine and lysine residues have been considered static modifications because of the low levels of methyl-group turnover in chromatin. The recent identification of enzymes that antagonize or remove histone methylation has changed this view and now the dynamic nature of these modifications is being appreciated. Here, we examine the enzymatic and structural basis for the mechanisms that these enzymes use to counteract histone methylation and provide insights into their substrate specificity and biological function

JmjC-domain-containing proteins and histone demethylation.

Histone methylation has important roles in regulating gene expression and forms part of the epigenetic memory system that regulates cell fate and identity. Enzymes that directly remove methyl marks from histones have recently been identified, revealing a new level of plasticity within this epigenetic modification system. Here we analyse the evolutionary relationship between Jumonji C (JmjC)-domain-containing proteins and discuss their cellular functions in relation to their potential enzymatic activities