Test Bank

Chapter 12: Mass media and cultural change

Multiple choice questions

1. In our information society, the boundary between interpersonal and mediated communication is becoming more and more blurred. Which of the following is NOT a contributor to this phenomenon?

a. interconnectivity brought about by globalization

b. economic and political forces beyond people’s own communities

c. development of blogging as alternative media to the mainstream media

d. marginalization of traditional communities and their products

2. Which of the following reflects the view that ‘mass media become a debating ground for our system of values and beliefs’?

a. People interpret media messages in similar ways.

b. Mass media have an effect at the social level.

c. All mass media effects are directly influential.

d. The audience are passive receivers of mass media products.

3. There is an assumption that ‘the more a person is exposed to a media construction of reality, the more it is believed’. What does this assumption best illustrate?

a. the relationship between mass media and cultural learning

b. the relationship between media technology and audience

c. the relationship between ethnic majorities and ethnic minorities

d. the relationship between newspaper industry and television industry

4. Mass media call attention to what is salient. Agenda setting occurs because ______.

a. the public is not aware of what is going on around the world

b. technological innovation fractures the mass audience

c. mass media must be selective in reporting the news

d. mass media is a support system for one culture to dominate another

5. Which of the following is true about the social media?

a. Social media have given rise to new forms of monitoring, mining and aggregating data.

b. Social media facilitate development of relationships offline.

c. Social media enhances boundaries between ingroups and outgroups.

d. Social media offers and range of media intelligence and reputation management services by using same analytical methods.

6. Which of the following questions is asked by the uses and gratifications theory?

a. what do people do with the mass media

b. what do media do to people

c. where people watch television

d. why do media have effects

7. Which of the following topic area are cultural studies scholars interested in?

a. the media effects of television on women

b. the role (popular) culture plays in both preserving and transforming social relations

c. how the news are reported and represented in the media

d. media agenda setting

8. What theory would most readily be associated with the debate over whether or not television violence makes viewers, particularly children, more violent?

a. two-step flow

b. pseudo environment

c. cultivation theory

d. culture industry theories

9. Which of the following terms refer to the convergence of cultures via media to produce new cultural forms?

a. cultural hybridization

b. cultural assimilation

c. cultural diversification

d. cultural homogenization

10. Agenda-setting theory has been widely used by scholars to study media effects on audience. Which of the following best describes the agenda-setting theory?

a. The media agenda influences what the public thinks about.

b. The media accurately reflects reality.

c. The media is powerless over the public agenda.

d. CNN is solely responsible for the public agenda.

11. Many media scholars argue that media do not operate in a vacuum. This means that ______.

a. media are always tied to political and economic systems

b. media are never a part of society, they are isolated from it

c. media produce the same content all over the world, regardless of different cultures

d. children make different meanings about media shows they watch

Short answer questions

1. Provide an example to illustrate how mass media can accelerate change in society.

2. In what ways have social media changed the way we communicate around the world? Provide an example to support your argument.

3. Why is it important to know who owns and controls the mass media?

4. What is the basic assumptions of cultivation theory?

5. Provide examples to illustrate in what ways the mass media can promote stereotypes.