Critical Cultural Trend Emerges Chapter 6 Exam Questions

Chapter 6 The Emergence of The Critical Cultural Trend in North America

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 6, Question 1

1) Harold Innis’ idea that communication technology makes the centralization of power inevitable is called ________.

Feedback: Innis argued that written word-based empires expanded to the limits imposed by communication technology.

Page reference: Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message and the Massage

a. the superstructure

b. commodification of power

c. the bias of communication

d. neo-production

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 6, Question 2

2) McLuhan said that media were “extensions of man” because they literally extend ___________.

Feedback: He believed that electronic media would open up new vistas for average people and enable them to be everywhere instantaneously.

Page reference: Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message and the Massage

a. patriarchy

b. experiences

c. our senses

d. our knowledge

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 6, Question 3

3) The view of the media that sees them as central to the construction and maintenance of the culture, something of a forum where we negotiate our shared meanings, is the ____________ Perspective.

Feedback: The ritual perspective links communication to sharing, participation, association, fellowship, and the possession of a common faith.

Page reference: Cultural Studies: Transmissional versus Ritual Perspectives

a. Ritual

b. Oligarchical

c. Libertarian

d. Transmissional

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 6, Question 4

4) The critical cultural studies perspective argues that social elites work to maintain the status quo by

Feedback: Elites encourage people to actively consent to and support belief systems and structures of power relations that do not necessarily serve—indeed may work against—their interests.

Page reference: The Critical Cultural Theory Trend

a. staging national and regional rituals

b. spreading a political ideology

c. propagating a hegemonic culture

d. encouraging conservative social movements

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 6, Question 5

5) One of the key differences between cultural analysis and critical cultural studies is that

Feedback: Critical cultural studies advocates argue that a person cannot be a good social theorist unless he or she is personally committed to bringing about change.

Page reference: The Critical Cultural Theory Trend

a. cultural analysis is more concerned about macroscopic processes.

b. cultural analysis has a more explicit commitment to values.

c. critical cultural studies is more supportive of the status quo.

d. critical cultural studies is often directly linked to social movements.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 6, Question 6

6) Cultural analysis researchers and critical, cultural studies scholars tend to favor

Feedback: Using qualitative methods, they hope to highlight essential differences (distinctive qualities) in phenomena.

Page reference: The Critical Cultural Theory Trend

a. qualitative research methods.

b. quantitative research methods.

c. empirical research methods.

d. communication science methods.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 6, Question 7

7) Stuart Hall sees media as ___________ where various forces struggle to shape popular notions about social reality.

Feedback: Here is where various forces struggle to shape popular notions about social existence; new concepts of social reality are negotiated.

Page reference: The Rise of Cultural Theories in Europe

a. a ritual base

b. an ideological court

c. a public forum

d. the base

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 6, Question 8

8) The Frankfurt School was known for its _________.

Feedback: Most Frankfurt School theorists were trained in humanistic disciplines but adopted Marxist theories as a basis for analyzing culture and society.

Page reference: The Rise of Cultural Theories in Europe

a. early support for the Nazis

b. savage criticism of mass media as a vehicle for higher forms of culture

c. development of empirical social research methods in Germany

d. optimism about radio as a means of "civilizing the masses"

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 6, Question 9

9) Stuart Hall views mass media in Western, pluralistic democracies as a "public forum" in which _____.

Feedback: Elites did not maintain complete control over this forum, nor did they need it to advance their interests, but they do retain many advantages in the struggle to define social reality. Counterelite groups must work hard to overcome them.

Page reference: The Rise of Cultural Theories in Europe

a. elites and counterelites struggle to define the social world

Correct/Incorrect

b. social elites stage rituals to win public support for the status quo

Correct/Incorrect

c. a hegemonic ideology is promoted to the exclusion of all else

Correct/Incorrect

d. counterelites enjoy important advantages over elites

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 6, Question 10

10) Culture is __________.

Feedback: Culture is created and maintained by people and the systems of meaning-making of which they are an integral part.

Page reference: Overview

a. what television says it is

b. the rules and regulations promulgated by a society’s official power

c. the art of theatre and symphony

d. the learned behavior of a given social group

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 6, Question 11

11) Culture imposed from above or outside that serves the interests of those in power is called _________ culture.

Feedback: Hegemonic culture subordinates groups to actively consent to and support belief systems and structures of power relations that do not necessarily serve, and often work against, those interests.

Page reference: The Critical Cultural Theory Trend

a. elite-dominated

b. qualitative

c. grand

d. hegemonic

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 6, Question 12

12) Horace Newcomb argues that ________.

Feedback: Some people make interpretations at one level of meaning, whereas others make their interpretations at other levels. Some interpretations will be highly idiosyncratic, and some will be very conventional.

Page reference: Cultural Studies: Transmissional versus Ritual Perspectives

a. media have significant power over individuals’ construction of their realities

b. audience members’ interpretations of media content are quite diverse

c. media texts tend to be read as their creators intended

d. media are really unimportant because they are just pop culture

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 6, Question 13

13) Highly ambitious, macroscopic, speculative theories that attempt to understand and predict important trends in society are called ________.

Feedback: In Europe, the development of grand social theory remained a central concern in the social sciences and humanities after World War II, but fell out of favor in the U.S.

Page reference: The Rise of Cultural Theories in Europe

a. hegemonic theories

b. Frankfort School theories

c. elite-dominated theories

d. grand social theories

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 6, Question 14

14) Harold Innis argued that as communication media become more powerful and able to more effectively span time and space _____.

Feedback: The changing technology of communication acts to reduce the cost and increase the speed and distance of communication, and thus extends the geographic size of empires.

Page reference: Marshall Mcluhan: The Medium Is the Message and the Massage

a. political power will become more enlarged and centralized

b. global social movements will arise

c. society will become increasingly democratic

d. a global village will be created

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 6, Question 15

15) As mass communication theory embraced the critical cultural trend, researchers were willing to turn their attention from _____ to focus on how media are related to changes in culture, on how shared understandings and social norms change.

Feedback: Instead of trying to locate hundreds of small effects and add them up, researchers could ask whether the development of mass media has profound implications for the way people create, share, learn, and apply culture.

Page reference: Overview

a. advertising research

b. issues of media violence

c. specific, measurable effects on individuals

d. political economy theory

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 6, Question 16

16) With the coming of mass media, many forms of folk culture fell into sharp decline.

Feedback: Storytelling, game playing, and music making ceased to be important for extended families. Instead, nuclear families gathered in front of an enthralling electronic storyteller, watching others play games and make music.

Page reference: Changing Times

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 6, Question 17

17) Microscopic interpretive theories focus on how media institutions are structured within capitalist economies.

Feedback: This describes macroscopic structural theories. Microscopic interpretive theories focus on how individuals and social groups use media to create and foster forms of culture that structure everyday life.

Page reference: The Critical Cultural Theory Trend

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 6, Question 18

18) Political economy theory places priority on understanding how economic power provides a basis for ideological and political power.

Feedback: These theories directly challenge the status quo by exposing elite manipulation of media and criticizing both hegemonic culture and cultural commodities.

Page reference: The Critical Cultural Theory Trend

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 6, Question 19

19) Cultural studies theories are more concerned with the long-term consequences of media for the social order and less concerned with looking at how media affect the lives of groups of people who share a culture.

Feedback: The precise opposite is the case.

Page reference: The Critical Cultural Theory Trend

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 6, Question 20

20) Political economy theory is macroscopic theory, interested in how the social order, as a whole, is affected by mass communication.

Feedback: It views media as industries that turn culture into a commodity and sell it for a profit.

Page reference: The Critical Cultural Theory Trend

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 6, Question 21

21) Some cultural studies and political economy theories are critical theories because their axiology openly espouses specific values and uses them to evaluate and criticize the status quo.

Feedback: Researchers who develop critical theories seek social change that will implement their values.

Page reference: The Critical Cultural Theory Trend

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 6, Question 22

22) Marxism sees elite power residing it control of the superstructure; Neo-Marxists see power residing in control of the base.

Feedback: The precise opposite is true.

Page reference: The Rise of Cultural Theories in Europe

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 6, Question 23

23) Given their Neo-Marxist orientation, Frankfurt School scholars welcomed popular culture’s challenge to elite control of the media.

Feedback: In actuality, they criticized mass media as culture industries that turned high culture and folk culture into commodities sold for profit.

Page reference: The Rise of Cultural Theories in Europe

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 6, Question 24

24) Political economy theorists study elite control of economic institutions, and then show how this control affects many other social institutions, including the mass media.

Feedback: They investigate the means of production by looking at economic institutions, expecting to find that these institutions shape media to suit their interests and purposes.

Page reference: Political Economy Theory

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 6, Question 25

25) Critical scholar Sut Jhally argues that the use-value of a cultural commodity stems from the meaning it generates.

Feedback: All commodities have exchange-value—they are worth something and can be exchanged in the marketplace—and they have use-value—they do something that makes them useful to people.

Page reference: Political Economy Theory

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 6, Question 26

26) Cultural theorist James Carey applauded limited-effects researchers’ ongoing commitment to the transmissional perspective—the idea that mass communication is the process of transmitting messages at a distance for the purpose of control.

Feedback: Rather, Carey called for greater attention to the ritual perspective which viewed communication as central to the maintenance of society in time.

Page reference: Cultural Studies: Transmissional versus Ritual Perspectives

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 6, Question 27

27) Popular culture researchers believe that audience interpretations of content are likely to be quite diverse as some people make interpretations at one level of meaning, whereas others make their interpretations at other levels. This is referred to as multiple points of access.

Feedback: Some interpretations will be highly idiosyncratic, and some will be very conventional. Sometimes groups of fans will develop a common interpretation, and sometimes individuals are content to find their own meaning without sharing it.

Page reference: Cultural Studies: Transmissional versus Ritual Perspectives

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 6, Question 28

28) News production researchers have discovered that journalists, by virtue of the nature of their profession, work to remove as much drama from their reporting as possible.

Feedback: Like all media commodities, news must be attractively packaged, and a primary means of doing this involves dramatization.

Page reference: Cultural Studies: Transmissional versus Ritual Perspectives

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 6, Question 29

29) The recovery and reappraisal approach to feminist critical scholarship asks, among other things, “How have women managed to express themselves in a male-dominated culture?”

Feedback: It also investigates why women’s creativity is overlooked, undervalued, or ignored; how do women and men’s creativity differ; and, what are women’s myths and stories.

Page reference: Cultural Studies: Transmissional versus Ritual Perspectives

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 6, Question 30

30) Marshall McLuhan used the expression “the medium is the message” to refer to the new forms of social organization that would inevitably emerge electronic media tied the entire world into one great social, political, and cultural system.

Feedback: He coined “the global village” to describe this state of affairs. “The medium is the message” referred to his idea that forms of media transform people’s experience of themselves and their society, and this influence is more important than the content that is transmitted in its specific messages.

Page reference: Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message and the Massage

a. True

b. False