CHAPTER 9 Popular Culture and Intercultural Communication
CHAPTER 9
POPULAR CULTURE AND INTERCULTURAL
COMMUNICATION
MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
1. Which of the following is true about people’s responses to popular culture?
a. In general, people cannot resist popular culture.
b. The study of popular culture is considered by most people to be worthy of serious attention.
c. People are often unaware of the complex nature of popular culture.
d. The United States imports much of its popular culture from other countries.
2. Those systems or artifacts that most people share and that most people know about are known
as _____.
a. popular culture
b. media culture
c. high culture
d. low culture
3. What initially motivated the exportation of U.S. popular culture?
a. the desire to share new information and technological advances
b. requests from countries that did not have high-quality entertainment
c. a need to help people from other cultures understand the benefits of democracy
d. the decision to use it to advertise U.S. products
4. In the study of white and black job applicants, how did interviewers who were influenced by
negative stereotypes of blacks differ in their behavior?
a. They spent more time interviewing some applicants.
b. They showed more immediacy behaviors.
c. Their speech deteriorated.
d. They were more outgoing.
5. What does cultural imperialism refer to?
a. the idea that many white people have superiority over people of color
b. the technological advancement of the United States in media forms
c. the resistance of people in the United States to popular culture forms from other countries
d. the dominance of U.S. popular cultural forms throughout the world
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12. African American female characters who often appear as background scenery in television
shows serve to perpetuate _____.
a. cultural imperialism
b. media imperialism
c. social roles
d. stereotypes
13. Which of the following is true about how people resist cultural texts?
a. A person’s preference for popular culture is based more on media sensitivity than on cultural
values.
b. Refusal to participate in popular culture is one form of showing resistance.
c. Motivation to participate in popular culture is unrelated to a person’s social role.
d. Resistance may be motivated by displeasure over media representation of certain social issues.
14. Manusov and Hegda found that having some cultural information and positive expectations:
a. motivates migrants to be overconfident about their knowledge of a culture.
b. leads to more rigid stereotyping than having no information.
c. leads to greater levels of disappointment and frustration for migrants.
d. may lead to more in–depth conversations than having no information.
15. Who tends to be most influenced by popular culture portrayals of another cultural group?
a. people who have been extensively exposed to the other group
b. people who have a tendency toward ethnocentric attitudes
c. people who have visited the culture of the other group
d. people who have limited experience with the other group
16. The impact that U.S. and Western media have had on the rest of the world is known as
_____.
a. electronic colonialism
b. media imperialism
c. cultural imperialism
d. consumerism
17. _____ has been reconceptualized as popular culture.
a. Low culture
b. High culture
c. Cultural identity
d. Colonialism
18. Electronic colonialism is:
CHAPTER 9 Popular Culture and Intercultural Communication
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a. domination by one country through political, economic, and cultural exploitation.
b. domination through the spread of cultural products.
c. domination or exploitation using technological forms.
d. domination or control through media.
19. Popular Mexican American music in Los Angeles illustrates:
a. the ways in which folk culture becomes popular culture.
b. the subtleties of cultural imperialism.
c. the ways in which cultural industries manipulate various media.
d. the ways in which marginalized cultural groups are able to express themselves in innovative,
alternative ways.
20. The fact that we are bombarded with popular culture every day and everywhere illustrates
that it is _____, a characteristic of popular culture.
a. folk culture
b. stereotypical
c. ambiguous
d. ubiquitous
21. Which of the following is NOT true about the consumption of popular culture?
a. Public texts do not have to win over the majority of the people in order to be popular.
b. Unpredictability in advertising has been removed through consumer profiling.
c. We participate in those texts which address issues that are relevant to our cultural groups.
d. We actively seek out and choose texts that serve our needs.
22. Which of the following is NOT true about resisting popular culture?
a. Some people refuse to engage in particular forms of popular culture.
b. Some forms of resistance may be role related.
c. It is not really possible to resist exposure to popular media.
d. Cultural politics are rarely a factor in choosing to resist a form of popular culture.
23. The power relations of using media to market U.S. goods through movies on foreign screens
is referred to as _____.
a. cultural imperialism
b. high culture
c. cultural Identity
d. colonialism
24. Portrayals of readership that give the average age, gender, and household incomes are known
as _____.
CHAPTER 9 Popular Culture and Intercultural Communication
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a. cultural imperialism
b. reader profiles
c. cultural identities
d. stereotypes
25. Domination or exploitation of other cultures utilizing technology is known as _____.
a. cultural imperialism
b. electronic colonialism
c. media imperialism
d. prejudice
26. Which of the following is a characteristic of popular culture?
a. It is not ubiquitous.
b. It is often the domain of the elite.
c. It is produced by culture industries.
d. It is the same as folk culture.
27. Traditional and nonmainstream cultural activities that are not financially driven are referred
to as:
a. popular culture.
b. low culture.
c. high culture.
d. folk culture.
28. Identify a true statement about popular culture.
a. Popular culture is used to learn about other cultures.
b. Resistance to popular culture is unrelated to social roles.
c. People negotiate their ways through popular culture in similar ways.
d. All popular culture serve to open forums for public deliberation.
29. The study by Sarah Jackson and Brooke Foucault Welles on the early tweets after Michael
Brown was shot and killed by officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, revealed how:
a. marginalized social groups expressed themselves in innovative and alternative ways.
b. people resisted popular culture and the complexity involved in such resistance.
c. popular culture reduced the arena of contemporary democratic deliberation.
d. Twitter and the hashtag shaped a discussion on race, policing, and social justice.
30. Which of the following best defines the term cultural text?
a. It is a new name for high culture that refers to those systems or artifacts that most people share
and that most people know about.
CHAPTER 9 Popular Culture and Intercultural Communication
b. It refers to popular culture messages such as television shows, movies, advertisements, or
other widely disseminated messages.
c. It is the process of creating and interpreting a message for others to understand.
d. It is the portrayal of readership demographics prepared by magazines.
31. Identify a true statement about low culture activities.
a. The cultural values embedded in these activities were considered transcendent.
b. These activities have been traditionally seen as unworthy of serious study.
c. University courses and programs have been devoted to study its various aspects.
d. To protect these cultural treasures, social groups built museums and theaters.
TRUE/FALSE QUESTIONS
32. There is a great deal of research on why U.S. television programs are so successful in other
cultures.
33. People resist the use of popular culture as a forum when dealing with social issues.
34. Cultural groups are generally depicted accurately in popular culture.
35. The U.S. film industry makes more money on their films outside the United States than they
do inside.
36. Generally, a large number of people have to be interested in something for it to be considered
as popular culture.
37. White Americans are so often portrayed in popular culture that it is difficult to stereotype
them.
38. When non–Americans watch television shows for entertainment (such as CSI or Desperate
Housewives), they don’t consider the story a reflection of American reality.
39. Most language teachers encourage the use of popular culture, not only to improve language
skills but also to learn many of the nuances of another culture.
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40. American television programs that cross cultural and linguistic frontiers are successful
because they appeal to basic human values.
41. Academicians Horace Newcomb and Paul Hirsch (1987) suggest that television serves as a
cultural forum for discussing and working out ideas on a variety of topics.
42. Resistance to popular culture tends to express a concern about how others are going to be
impacted by the popular culture representations.
43. The process of interpreting a message is referred to as encoding.
44. The decoding of the kufiyya, a scarf made of checkered material, was influenced by whether
it was seen as a statement on Palestinian pride or a fashion statement.
ESSAY QUESTIONS
45. Identify and discuss four characteristics of popular culture.
46. Compare and contrast folk culture and popular culture.
47. Identify and provide examples of the ways in which someone might resist popular culture.
48. Identify and discuss four of the five ways of thinking about cultural imperialism. What are
the ramifications for intercultural communication from each of these perspectives?
49. What are the effects of under representation of various groups in popular culture?
50. How do cultural texts influence cultural identities?