Media and Society Quiz # 4

Newspapers may make it more difficult for poor people to buy their product because ______.

Poor people are less likely to read the paper

Rich readers don’t want to subscribe to the same paper as poorer readers

Newspapers can improve their demographic profile for advertisers by having more affluent readers

All of these

Researchers assess the significance of media content by linking it to ______.

Producers

Audience effects

Society in general

All of these

The focus on individualism, rather than collective action, in the media leads to the disparagement of labor unions in the media over the years.

True

False

Recent studies show that, while disparaging portrayals of women athletes in sports news have declined, the overall amount of coverage of women’s sports on television has declined.

True

False

In recent decades, most media have begun to include more representations of minorities because ______.

Advertisers are interested in reaching the growing minority market

The media accurately reflects the demographic make-up of the United States

Our society no longer supports discrimination against minorities

None of these

What do the authors say is the link between social inequality and mass media?

Race is the most common form of inequality depicted in the media.

Creators of media content often reproduce the inequalities that exist in society.

Media acts as a mirror, passively reflecting the inequalities of society.

Inequalities in the social world don’t affect the organization of the media industry.

Many Americans are not seeing the growing diversity of mass media because ______.

Fewer people are watching television

Americans are not sensitive to racial issues

The increase in diversity is so small

There is a growing segmentation of media audiences

Content analyses of media products have repeatedly shown them to accurately reflect the realities of the social world.

True

False

Sitcoms that feature working class families on TV often depict the competence and intelligence of working-class men.

True

False

Researchers say that the portrayal of class on television tends to perpetuate what myth?

That class-based inequality is just and functional.

That working-class and poor people are dysfunctional.

That the social world is heavily populated by middle-class professionals.

All of these

The growing presence of homosexuality in the media indicates that society is discarding the ideologies of gender and heteronormativity.

True

False

Gilens’ (1996) study of images in major newsmagazines and networks found what?

The majority of poor people pictured were White.

The majority of poor people pictured were Black.

The majority of working-class people pictured were Black.

Black people were rarely pictured.

The term to describe social settings where audiences generate meanings about media products is ______.

Social structure

Interpretive community

Polysemy

Collaborative community

The encoding–decoding model shows how a specific encoded meaning may not result in a specific decoded interpretation.

True

False

One of Janice Radway’s principle findings in Reading the Romance is ______.

Women focus on the act of reading more than the content of the stories

Romance novels have no inherent value as a media text

Romance novels encourage women to rebel against social roles as wives and mothers

All of these

Which of these is NOT a reason for the growth in “fan studies” in media scholarship?

Fans are eccentric and extremist types of media audience members, whose obsession makes them interesting to scholars.

Fandom is a social activity, and there are many highly active fan communities.

Some fans become activists and participate in collective action.

Many fans become producers of their own media.

Liebes and Katz’s (1993) study of Dallas audiences found that ______.

Audience interpretations are anchored in underlying cultural dynamics

Viewers from around the world talk about connections between the program and real life

The only audience that did not connect at all with the program was the Japanese audience

All of these

The media-related cultural tools that help us decode media, such as the language, concepts, and assumptions associated with a particular subculture or political perspective, are called ______.

Polysemy

Interpretive constraint

Discursive resources

Media texts

David Morley’s Family Television study shows that while men talk about television, women don’t (or don’t admit to it).

True

False

Which of the following would not be an example of Culture Jamming?

Creating an ad for Bank of America about the Travel Rewards MasterCard

Working at South Park Studios

Switching the voice boxes in talking Barbies and Toy Soldiers

Defacing a McDonalds Billboard to show highlight obesity from fast food

The term for the act of reading a media message in a way that opposes its preferred or commonsensical meaning is ______.

Rebellion

Encoding–decoding

Identity politics

Interpretive resistance

The underlying problem of the media effects framework is ______.

It does not consider the quality of different media texts

It strips the audience of any human agency

It does not consider the different effects of different types of media

All of these

The openness of media texts is a highly desirable feature for mass-market media.

True

False

The “pleasures of resistance” hypothesis states that resistance to the media is fun because it empowers those who do not wield power in their daily lives.

True

False

The “pleasures of resistance” hypothesis states that resistance to the media is fun because it empowers those who do not wield power in their daily lives.

True

False

In Joshua Gamson’s study of celebrity watching, he found that most celebrity watchers take celebrities at face value and think they are extremely talented and gifted.

True

False

When John Fiske argued that media texts contain an “excess” of meaning within them, he meant ______.

There are too many media texts out there for us to make sense of them

Media texts have one very distinct interpretation

Media texts are too complex for most people to understand

Media texts contain materials for multiple interpretations

Which of these is not a finding of Andrea Press’ study, Women Watching Television?

Working-class women place a high value on images they believe to be realistic.

Working-class women are more likely to accept the media’s portrayal of the middle-class as realistic.

Middle-class women are more likely to accept the media’s portrayal of the middle-class as realistic.

Middle-class women are more likely to be critical of the media’s depiction of women’s roles.

The four key elements of “social media logic” are ______.

Probability, popularity, communication, and denuclearization

Portability, potability, connectivity, and reification

Programmability, popularity, connectivity, and datafication

Data integrity, communication, connectivity, and timeliness

The 1996 election was the first in which candidates extensively used the Internet as part of their campaigning.

True

False