Test Bank Chapter 14 Media, Culture, Commodification

Chapter 14 Media and Culture Theories: Commodification of Culture and Mediatization

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 14, Question 1

1) Which of the following IS NOT an example of a communication commodity?

Feedback: Media are industries specializing in the production and distribution of cultural commodities.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. a movie

b. a television program

c. a conversation between two friends

d. a newspaper story

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 14, Question 2

2) According to Jeremy Tunstall, American mass media have been so successful in selling their cultural commodities worldwide because ______.

Feedback: Elites take bits and pieces of folk culture, weave them together to create attractive mass culture content, and then market the result as a substitute for everyday forms of folk culture.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. it is part of a U. S. elite effort to subvert world culture

b. U.S. political power backs them up

c. they are based on simple formulas derived from folk culture

d. new technology makes them so attractive

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 14, Question 3

3) _________ is the study of what happens when culture is mass-produced and distributed in direct competition with locally based cultures.

Feedback: It sees media as industries specializing in the production and distribution of cultural commodities.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. Commodification of culture

b. Critical theory

c. Hermeneutics

d. Neo-Marxism

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 14, Question 4

4) Commodification-of-culture theorists argue that media’s disruption of everyday culture has been especially successful in the United States because ____.

Feedback: People constantly revise their goals and make highly subjective determinations about their potential for success or failure.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. the people are relatively uneducated

b. deduced

c. audiences lack basic media literacy skills

d. Americans never had a universal everyday culture in the first place

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 14, Question 5

5) Feminist researchers who rely on commodification-of-culture arguments argue that consumption of this culture by women legitimizes a status quo dominated by men and _______.

Feedback: Women’s consumption of commodified culture permits the continuation of existing inequalities and power structures.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. blurs the distinction between the genders

b. reinforces gender differences

c. also leads to economic inequality

d. makes women active participants in the continuation of patriarchal society

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 14, Question 6

6) Social media companies create computer algorithms to filter content posted to their platforms that are designed to _______.

Feedback: One important consequence is the prioritization of controversial content that attracts and holds user attention.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. filter selectively in ways that serve their specific interests

b. bring as wide a variety of information to users as possible

c. reinforce the filter bubble

d. shatter the filter bubble

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 14, Question 7

7) Feminist scholar Jessica Megarry argues that male control over social media has resulted in _____.

Feedback: She argues that feminists are being disadvantaged in the online struggle between feminism and misogyny.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. greater advertising income for male content posters than for their female counterparts

b. problematic surveillance of feminist activism on social media

c. the commodification of digital culture

d. the creation of gender-based filter bubbles

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 14, Question 8

8) Commodification-of-culture theorists see ___________ as the ultimate cultural commodity.

Feedback: This type of theory is based on empirical observation guided by the scientific method, but it recognizes that humans and human behavior are not as constant as elements of the physical world.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. social media

b. advertising

c. televised sports

d. traditional network television

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 14, Question 9

9) Mediatization theory, a dominant theory for cultural studies researchers in Europe, shares many ideas with American mass communication theories, but unlike its U.S. counterparts it_____.

Feedback: Even fairly ambitious U.S. theories make no claims about the ability of media to transform the social order in profound way.

Page reference: Mediatization Theory

a. is a grand theory

Correct/Incorrect

b. is based in postpositivism

Correct/Incorrect

c. relies on interpretive theory

Correct/Incorrect

d. Its research is heavily subsidized by various governments

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 14, Question 10

10) ________ asserts that media have become so central and essential for all modern social orders that those social orders are continually changing in important ways to accommodate ever changing media.

Feedback: Mediatization theorists believe that all modern societies are now locked into a process of change centered around media.

Page reference: Mediatization Theory

a. Symbolic interactionism

b. Commodification of culture theory

c. Social constructionism

d. Mediatization Theory

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 14, Question 11

11) Mediatization theorists believe that at the microscopic level of modern society ________.

Feedback: Media provide the dominant way that most people come to understand themselves and their place in the social world.

Page reference: Mediatization Theory

a. media are altering the functioning of large social structures

b. people can protect themselves from media influence through close interpersonal networks

c. people can protect themselves from media’s power by becoming media literate

d. the everyday life of individuals has come to center around the use of media—especially Internet-based, mobile media

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 14, Question 12

12) Some mediatization theorists argue that we have entered a phase of ______, where the changes in social institutions already caused by media are beginning to create ever more profound changes.

Feedback: They see a a cascading process of change that is potentially out of control.

Page reference: Mediatization Theory

a. mass society

b. deep mediatization

c. cascading activation

d. circular cultivation

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 14, Question 13

13) One common criticism of Mediatization Theory is that _______.

Feedback: For example, government policies regulate the actions of media, and this means that media can’t exercise independent causal power.

Page reference: Mediatization Theory

a. it is too Euro-centric

b. it does not allow for audience influence

c. the research on which it is based relies on studies with too few participants

d. it fails to specify the causal processes that underlie media power

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 14, Question 14

14) The online movement attacking female video game players and frminist critics of gaming’s male-dominated culture is called _________.

Feedback: Women were sent rape and death threats, had their personal social media pages hacked, and their private information distributed.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. Gamergate

b. NoGurlzAllowed

c. OurGamesOurSpace

d. VidCon

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 14, Question 15

15) There exists an online the ______, a set of blogs, podcasts, and forums that targets and harasses feminist media critics and activists.

Feedback: It relies on misandry—an extreme framing of feminist views as anti-male.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. GamerGate

b. misogoswamp

c. manosphere

d. Dark Web

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 14, Question 16

16) According to commodification-of-culture theorists, elites who operate the cultural industries are quite aware of the consequences of their work.

Feedback: They maintain ignorance partly through strategic avoidance of or denial of evidence about consequences.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 14, Question 17

17) Unlike content producers on more traditional media, people who post content to social media aren’t bound by the legal and ethical restraints that those older forms of media must follow.

Feedback: Users seeking to earn money from social media produce content that promises the greatest audience, not the greatest good.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 14, Question 18

18) Social media have helped break elite control over content production and commodification of culture.

Feedback: Social media companies, much like their more traditional predecessors, have in fact come to exercise considerable control over content production and distribution.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 14, Question 19

19) Mediatization Theory attempts to explain both microscopic and macroscopic mass communication processes.

Feedback: It is at home with theories such as uses and gratifications, agenda setting, spiral of silence, cultivation analysis, and framing.

Page reference: Mediatization Theory

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 14, Question 20

20) Mediatization theory has a long tradition among American mass communication scholars.

Feedback: Because of their strong commitment to postpositivism, U.S. scholars have only recently taken to mediatization theory.

Page reference: Mediatization Theory

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 14, Question 21

21) Mediatization theory has become a dominant theory for cultural studies researchers in Europe.

Feedback: Developed by German researchers, it shares many ideas with American mass communication theories, but unlike its U.S. counterparts, it is grand and all-encompassing.

Page reference: Mediatization Theory

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 14, Question 22

22) Other than writing, virtually every advance in communication throughout history has been attacked by existing elites.

Feedback: Even Greek philosopher Plato attacked writing as a passive, impersonal product, something inhuman, a thing, a technological product.

Page reference: Overview

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 14, Question 23

23) Postpositivist mass communication theories tend to view media as relatively benign social agents.

Feedback: At worst they are blundering giants that inadvertently cause problems when profits are given priority over public service.

Page reference: Overview

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 14, Question 24

24) According to commodification of culture theorists, when elements of everyday culture are selected for repackaging by media, a broad range of elements is chosen for presentation.

Feedback: In fact, important elements are overlooked or consciously ignored as elements of culture important for structuring the experience of small minority groups are likely to be ignored.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 14, Question 25

25) According to commodification of culture theorists, the elites who operate the cultural industries are quite aware of the consequences of their products.

Feedback: They maintain ignorance partly through strategic avoidance of or denial of evidence about consequences in much the same way the tobacco industry long concealed and lied about research documenting the negative effects of smoking.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 14, Question 26

26) Commodification of culture theorists argue that media have disrupted the traditional relationship between sports and their fans.

Feedback: They believe that the commodification of sport has hollowed out its moral and ethical base, challenging its traditional value in enhancing the human condition.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 14, Question 27

27) Like content producers for more traditional media, those who make content for advertising-based social media are bound by the same legal and ethical restraints that encourage responsibility.

Feedback: Large-scale social media content is virtually unregulated. As a result, highly objectionable content that promotes extreme views has become widespread.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 14, Question 28

28) Misandry is the extreme framing of feminist views as anti-male.

Feedback: It fuels the manosphere, a misogynist set of blogs, podcasts, and online forums.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 14, Question 29

29) According to commodification of culture theorists, advertising packages promotional messages so they will be attended to and acted on by people who, as a result of that packaging, can make reasonably well-informed consumer decisions.

Feedback: In fact, marketers routinely portray consumption of specific products as the best way to construct a worthwhile personal identity, have fun, make friends and influence people, or solve problems for people who often have little interest in and often no real need for most of the advertised products or services.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. True

b. False

Type: True or False

Title: Chapter 14, Question 30

30) Most social media companies, mirroring the ideals of early libertarian theorists, embrace free speech, arguing that they are serving the public interest by allowing whatever content the public wants to circulate.

Feedback: They assume that in the new marketplace of ideas created by social media, good ideas will eventually win out over bad ideas.

Page reference: Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture

a. True

b. False