Chapter 11: Media Ethics and Criminal Justice

Test Bank

Multiple Choice

1. Numerous studies have shown that most people gain their knowledge of events ______.

a. from the radio

b. from the media

c. in discussion with others

d. by reviewing newspapers online

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media Ethics and Criminal Justice

Difficulty Level: Easy

2. It is suggested that the worldwide media, in an age of globalization, constitute ______.

a. a site for the construction of a moral order

b. the primary source of news

c. a responsible path for discussion of moral issues

d. a monopoly so that news is consistent

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media Ethics and Criminal Justice

Difficulty Level: Medium

3. The media police the boundaries of what is considered morally and socially acceptable behavior, and identify ______ as news.

a. moral perspectives

b. inadequacies

c. differences

d. transgressions

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media Ethics and Criminal Justice

Difficulty Level: Medium

4. The media decides what is ‘newsworthy,’ and crime ranks ______ on that scale.

a. just below politics

b. just above politics

c. high

d. low

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media Constructions of Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

5. Surette (2011) notes that in modern society the mediated crime event displaces the actual event and ______.

a. makes it seem far worse than it does when it is not displaced

b. allows us to frame our fear of crime differently

c. the vicarious pleasure of seeing crime on television is far preferable to being victimized

d. allows police to make an arrest more easily

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media Constructions of Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

6. Which of the following is not true regarding the media construction of crime?

a. The media construction of crime will define what are thought to be the causes of crime.

b. The media construction of crime will define what acts are regarded as criminal.

c. The media construction of crime will reduce the seriousness of the crime.

d. The media construction of crime will identify what policies of crime control should be adopted.

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Media Constructions of Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

7. What television show promoted the notion that all crimes can be solved using forensic science methods?

a. Law and Order

b. CSI

c. NCIS

d. Elementary

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media Constructions of Crime

Difficulty Level: Easy

8. The legal system is depicted as an obstacle to crime fighting with complex procedures and trials as well as dramatic adversarial contests. In reality, though ______.

a. few accused actually go to trial and unexciting plea bargains are the norm

b. the legal system is far more complex

c. the legal system makes it easier to fight crime because prosecutors know how to talk with the media

d. crime fighting is the complex part of the process

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media Constructions of Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

9. In overall ethical terms, the issue of limited freedom of the media is determined by ______, that media freedom is constrained by the rights of others.

a. the Constitution

b. the US Supreme Court

c. Kant’s categorical imperative

d. competing moral rights

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Crime, Media, and Ethics

Difficulty Level: Medium

10. Klaidman and Beauchamp (1987) hold the view that journalists ______ themselves, instead of believing the courts must first rule on what they want to publish.

a. should write their stories

b. ought to make the necessary ethical decisions

c. should not have absolute freedom

d. all of these

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Crime, Media, and Ethics

Difficulty Level: Medium

11. Although the law is often concerned with ______, it is not the basic repository of our moral standards and values.

a. moral problems

b. law breakers

c. petty crimes

d. all of these

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Crime, Media, and Ethics

Difficulty Level: Medium

12. Which of the following are characteristics of a “virtuous journalist”?

a. avoiding bias

b. serving the public

c. inviting criticism

d. all of these

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Crime, Media, and Ethics

Difficulty Level: Easy

13. The absence of ______ is revealed when a journalist is unable to separate his or her personal beliefs from the subject matter of the reporting.

a. objectivity

b. truth

c. competence

d. cost

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Crime, Media, and Ethics

Difficulty Level: Medium

14. Responsibility and competence are linked together and ______ may be the outcome of a moral failure of responsibility rather than a lack of skill.

a. panic

b. incompetence

c. criticism

d. adversity

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Crime, Media, and Ethics

Difficulty Level: Medium

15. What is perceived to be a desired ethical value and is seen as an end-goal developed by methodological rigor?

a. objectivity

b. truth

c. competence

d. cost

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension

Answer Location: Reporting the Truth

Difficulty Level: Medium

16. Klaidman and Beauchamp (1987) argue that, in covering stories where the public’s right to know is a determining factor, stories should ______.

a. be substantially complete

b. be laden with values

c. be imbalanced

d. encourage subjective understanding

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Characteristics of Stories

Difficulty Level: Medium

17. ______ is also a factor because taking information from apparently credible sources minimizes investigative expense.

a. Objectivity

b. Truth

c. Competence

d. Cost

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension

Answer Location: Characteristics of Stories

Difficulty Level: Medium

18. There is a common perception that most crime is committed by ______.

a. Whites

b. Hispanics

c. Asians

d. Blacks

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Crime and Media Stereotyping of Young Black Males

Difficulty Level: Medium

19. The War on Drugs strengthened the association between blacks and crime. The truth, however, is that ______.

a. Whites never have been engaged in drugs as much as blacks, a fact often reported in the media

b. the War on Drugs focused on heroin, a drug often used by blacks, a fact not usually in the media

c. Whites comprise almost 75% of illegal drug users and blacks 13%, a fact not usually incorporated in media accounts

d. Whites comprise almost 1/3 of illegal drug users and blacks almost 2/3, a fact often reported in the media

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Crime and Media Stereotyping of Young Black Males

Difficulty Level: Medium

20. What assumptions are commonly deployed by the media to characterize women’s experience of crime, especially crimes of violence deemed more newsworthy?

a. feminine

b. victim-based

c. masculine

d. all of these

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Media Stereotyping of Gender and Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

21. The ______ woman assumption assigns the category of Madonna or virgin to marriageable women.

a. good

b. bad

c. feminine

d. masculine

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media Stereotyping of Gender and Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

22. The ______ woman assumption assigns the categories of whores and vamps to women who are sexually available.

a. good

b. bad

c. feminine

d. masculine

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media Stereotyping of Gender and Crime

Difficulty Level: Easy

23. Content analyses of crime stories reveal what Surette (2011) terms the law of ______, because the nature of crime, criminals, and victims portrayed in the media is generally the complete opposite of the pattern shown through official crime statistics or victim surveys.

a. opposites

b. opposites attract

c. evil

d. media perception

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media Distortions of Crime and Victims of Crime

Difficulty Level: Easy

24. Which of the following is not one of Barak’s (1994) aims of “news-making criminology”?

a. demystifying images of crime and punishment

b. allowing criminologists to deploy their knowledge and show themselves to be unreliable voices in public policy

c. call on criminologists to develop the necessary media skills to participate in dialogues on crime and justice

d. strive to affect public attitudes and discourses about crime and bring about public policy based on structural and historical analyses of institutional development

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension | Application

Answer Location: Media Distortions of Crime and Victims of Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

25. Elias (1994) has argued that the media ______ the situation of crime victims by distorting the causes and impact of victimization.

a. denies

b. perpetuates

c. misrepresents

d. allows

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension

Answer Location: Media Distortions of Crime and Victims of Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

26. The media has been accused of perpetuating the image of the ideal victim by ______.

a. focusing attention only on victims who meet that standard of victimhood

b. focusing only on the very young and the very old victims

c. reporting, on the visual media, pictures of victims

d. reporting sympathetic stories of victims who have also been charged with crimes

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension | Application

Answer Location: A Closer Look: Comic Books: Constructions of Crime, Justice, and Punishment

Difficulty Level: Medium

27. Recent studies have shown that girls who are victims of sexting privacy violations ______.

a. are represented as ideal victims by the media

b. regularly encounter victim-blaming and slut-shaming

c. are most often sympathetically portrayed in the media

d. must register as sex offenders after sexting

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension

Answer Location: Case Study 11.1: Blaming the Victim or Privacy Violation? Media Responses to Sexting

Difficulty Level: Easy

28. In a 2016 content analysis of representations of rape in 30 comic books, almost 1/3 of rape scenes reinforced the following rape myth(s) that ______.

a. women can prevent rape by fighting back

b. women who do not fight back are complicit in the rape

c. rape is the result of the offender’s sexual desire

d. all of these

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Constructions of Rape

Difficulty Level: Medium

29. Media accounts that engender moral panics amplify deviance and function as ______.

a. advocacy for greater levels of social control

b. a warning to the public

c. assistance to law enforcement to make an arrest

d. a key profit maker for the media

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media and Moral Panics

Difficulty Level: Medium

30. In 2013, the media actively promoted a moral panic referred to as the ______ that involved alleged random black-on-white assaults for fun.

a. assault game

b. hit game

c. knockout game

d. none of these

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media and Moral Panics

Difficulty Level: Medium

31. ______ of crime and of being victimized by crime are key influences in criminal justice policy making and in the promotion of punitive policies.

a. Fear

b. Justification

c. Causes

d. Factors

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media and Fear of Crime

Difficulty Level: Easy

32. In inner-city areas, it is fair to say that media coverage of crime tends to ______ what people already know and what some have already experiences through having been victimized.

a. diminish

b. reinforce

c. undermine

d. hinder

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media and Fear of Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

33. Many studies have found associations between media consumption patterns and measures of ______.

a. support for a restorative justice policy in the criminal justice system

b. juvenile delinquency

c. crime rates

d. fear of crime

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media and Fear of Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

34. Which of the following is a correct statement in regard to bias?

a. distorted or unfair judgment or disposition

b. always ideological

c. omitted by mistake

d. partisanship is always bias

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Avoiding Bias

Difficulty Level: Medium

35. What is a distorted or unfair judgment or disposition caused by the values of a reporter, editor, or institution?

a. disposition

b. perception

c. inaccuracy

d. bias

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Avoiding Bias

Difficulty Level: Easy

36. Which of the following is an inaccurate comment about what is more “newsworthy” in the media in regard to crime?

a. Homicides are considered more "newsworthy" when the victim is White

b. Victims who are perpetrated against by a stranger are considered more “newsworthy” than a victim who knows the perpetrator.

c. Rape is the most likely crime to be reported.

d. Crimes against children are considered more “newsworthy” than crimes against adults.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Analysis

Answer Location: Newsworthiness: Shaping News

Difficulty Level: Medium

37. An analysis of press reports found that ______% of articles supported explanations that lethal force used by police was justified.

a. 67.5

b. 69.5

c. 72.5

d. 77.5

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension

Answer Location: Media and Police

Difficulty Level: Medium

38. Following the killing of Diallo by NYPD police in 1999, there was a shift in how the media stereotypically constructed police. Previous stereotypes of professionals and vigilantes were replaced by a new framing of police as civil rights ______.

a. protectors

b. oppressors

c. advocates

d. heroes

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Media and Police

Difficulty Level: Medium

39. Hirschfield and Simon (2010) contend that the media stereotypically construct police into various types. Which type “welcomes and is ready to use deadly force against dangerous criminals”?

a. professional

b. vigilante

c. oppressor

d. pessimist

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media and Police

Difficulty Level: Medium

40. Which of Hirschfield and Simon’s (2010) stereotypically constructed media police types is circumscribed by endless rules and regulations?

a. professional

b. vigilante

c. oppressor

d. pessimist

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media and Police

Difficulty Level: Medium

41. Which of Hirschfield and Simon’s (2010) stereotypically constructed media police types is one who uses legal violence to repress minorities?

a. professional

b. vigilante

c. oppressor

d. pessimist

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media and Police

Difficulty Level: Medium

42. In articles about use-of-force by police, Lawrence (2000) found that almost ______% of articles relied on official sources for their reporting.

a. 70

b. 75

c. 80

d. 85

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media and Police

Difficulty Level: Medium

43. Following George Zimmerman’s shooting of unarmed Trayvon Marin 2013, the Black Lives Matter movement emerged. This called for increased investigation of and media attention to ______.

a. the racial dynamics of interactions between police and black males

b. circumstances of police’ differential application of lethal force in interactions with black Americans

c. official police accounts of justified killings

d. all of these

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Media and Police

Difficulty Level: Medium

44. The ______ principle states that a “person’s liberty may justifiably be restricted to prevent harm that that person’s actions would cause to others.”

a. reasonable standard of care

b. moral blame

c. morality

d. do no harm

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Avoiding Harm

Difficulty Level: Easy

45. Using ______ to increase profits by selling more newspapers or to increase the salacious content of a publication are not ethically justifiable acts.

a. Disclosures

b. Crime

c. Bias

d. Lies

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Avoiding Harm

Difficulty Level: Medium

46. Infotainment is defined as ______.

a. using the media to report fictitious events so law enforcement can catch the real criminal

b. the marketing of edited, highly formatted information about the world in entertainment media vehicles

c. the placement of crime stories on television late at night hoping a viewer will be able identify the offender

d. using entertainment to reenact criminal events

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Crime and Infotainment

Difficulty Level: Easy

47. Beginning from the late 1980s, crime related infotainment began to appear on television and ______.

a. other forms of media

b. the boundary between crime and entertainment dissolved

c. crimes were solved at an increased rate

d. the media outlets immediately saw an increase in ratings and revenue

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Crime and Infotainment

Difficulty Level: Easy

48. One of the most urgent moral concerns in journalism is securing and keeping the ______ of the public.

a. confidence

b. trust

c. revenue

d. good ratings

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Maintaining Trust

Difficulty Level: Easy

49. Truthfulness is fundamental to trust and is associated with ______.

a. fidelity and loyalty

b. morals and ethics

c. avoiding harm

d. manipulation

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Maintaining Trust

Difficulty Level: Easy

50. It is easy to see how ______ the public trust in the media would result in the public paying less regard to the media and being less well informed.

a. allowing

b. eroding

c. justifying

d. none of these

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Maintaining Trust

Difficulty Level: Easy

51. Which of the following illustrate that a media review of a new product can make it or break it?

a. Media power allows consumers to recognize politics.

b. Politics and economics are key interests for most of the public.

c. Media power is formidable in political, economic and social fields.

d. Super Bowl commercials cost more per minute of air time than any other time.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension

Answer Location: Manipulation

Difficulty Level: Medium

52. Which of the following is not an unethical manipulation technique that may be used by the media?

a. Using persuasive interviewing techniques to influence others to disclose material they would normally not disclose.

b. When a journalist makes an attempt in hard news to persuade using emotional rhetoric rather than fact.

c. When a journalist relies on an unsubstantiated argument without noting its weaknesses to produce a desired conclusion.

d. Any intentional and successful influence of a person by non-coercively altering the actual choices available to the person or by non-persuasively altering the other’s perceptions of those choices.

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Manipulation

Difficulty Level: Hard

True/False

1. With media assistance, MADD succeeded in characterizing drunk drivers as a new menace to society for whom laws had to be made tougher.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Media Constructions of Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

2. Journalists ought to rely on the courts to make the necessary ethical decisions instead of adopting the approach that they have absolute freedom to publish anything. The press cannot be relied upon to develop procedures that assure the balance of rights and interests can be accomplished effectively.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Crime, Media, and Ethics

Difficulty Level: Hard

3. While it is difficult to identify a specific media effect, it is likely that the media play a part is stoking fear of crime simply because they manipulate crime stories to for the purpose of making us fearful.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Media and Fear of Crime

Difficulty Level: Hard

4. Even after the Black Lives Matters movement gained momentum, news media continued to accept unexamined police accounts as definitive sources of what had occurred. Media also revealed victims’ criminal histories and past conduct they considered relevant to the victims’ death.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Media and Police

Difficulty Level: Medium

5. Victims of police violence are treated more sympathetically by the media than other murder victims because media accounts tend to present such incidents as a double victimization.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media and Police

Difficulty Level: Medium

6. The predator principle says a person’s liberty may justifiably be restricted to prevent harm that that person’s actions would cause to others.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Avoiding Harm

Difficulty Level: Medium

7. Virgins are assigned the label of the bad women.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media Stereotyping of Gender and Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

8. Fear of crime and victimization do not impact criminal justice policy decisions.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Media and Fear of Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

9. In inner-city areas, media coverage of crime tends to reinforce what people already know and what some have actually experienced through having been victimized.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Media and Fear of Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

10. Cooperation between police and the media is now a norm worldwide.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Media and Police

Difficulty Level: Medium

Short Answer

1. Klaidman and Beauchamp suggest that ______ are critical in a profession such as journalism where stories are often produced in haste and under pressure of events.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Crime, Media, and Ethics

Difficulty Level: Medium

2. Identify Hirschfield and Simon’s three media stereotypes of police.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Media and Police

Difficulty Level: Easy

3. Define the do no harm principle.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension | Application

Answer Location: Avoiding Harm

Difficulty Level: Medium

4. A clear distinction must be drawn between a story being in the public interest and a story that ______.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension

Answer Location: Avoiding Harm

Difficulty Level: Medium

5. ______ will be ascribed to those who acted carelessly resulting from failure to discharge a morally imposed duty to take care or behave reasonably toward others.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Avoiding Harm

Difficulty Level: Medium

6. Describe what a historical account of “press freedom” in the U.S. reveals.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Serving the Public

Difficulty Level: Medium

7. Define infotainment.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Crime and Infotainment

Difficulty Level: Medium

8. Beginning from the late 1980s, crime related infotainment began to appear on television and ______ dissolved.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension

Answer Location: Crime and Infotainment

Difficulty Level: Medium

9. Define what constitutes manipulation by the press.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Manipulation

Difficulty Level: Medium

10. Define manipulation.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Manipulation

Difficulty Level: Medium

Essay

1. Klaidman and Beauchamp argue that in covering stories where the public’s right to know is a determining factor, stories should be substantially complete, should encourage an objective understanding, and be balanced and accurate. Describe each of these factors.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Reporting the Truth | A Closer Look: Characteristics of Stories

Difficulty Level: Medium

2. In the popular media treatment of race and crime, why are Whites presumed non-criminal by nature and criminality is assumed in the nature of Blacks?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension | Application | Analysis

Answer Location: Crime and Media Stereotyping of Young Black Males | A Closer Look: Images of Black Criminality

Difficulty Level: Hard

3. Describe news-making criminology.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Media Distortions of Crime and Victims of Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

4. Describe how news is constructed by the media who decide what is newsworthy.

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Newsworthiness: Shaping News

Difficulty Level: Medium

5. How is the do no harm principle linked to the works of John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Avoiding Harm

Difficulty Level: Hard