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Test Bank for Media of Mass Communication, 11/e
Chapter 10 Public Relations
10.1 Multiple-Choice Questions
1) Which of the following items of clothing, now accepted as appropriate attire for people of all ages
and socioeconomic backgrounds, was once shunned, even banned, because of its unsavory image?
A) Denim jeans
B) Hooded sweatshirts
C) Peg-leg pants
D) T-shirts
2) The undesirable image of denim jeans was fueled by all of the following movies EXCEPT
A) Blackboard Jungle.
B) The Caine Mutiny.
C) Rebel Without a Cause.
D) The Wild One.
3) Starting in 1957, the organizations and venues that began banning blue jeans and refusing entry
to people wearing denim clothes included all of the following EXCEPT
A) major league baseball parks.
B) public and private schools all across the country.
C) theaters from Broadway to local, small towns.
D) upscale, fine-dining restaurants in major cities.
4) A high mark for denim and jeans came in 1961 and their previously negative image was
dramatically turned around by
A) actor James Dean who wore jeans in several of his most popular movie roles.
B) the Denim Council launched a campaign “to put school children back in blue jeans.”
C) news photos of Peace Corps volunteers doing good deeds while wearing jeans.
D) the U.S. Navy’s decision to authorize jeans as an official work uniform.
5) Public relations can be defined as a tool to
A) sell products.
B) establish beneficial relationships.
C) determine employee benefits.
D) create advertising campaigns.
6) Public relations is mostly a tool used by
A) sales.
B) management.
C) accounting.
D) manufacturing.
7 The “public” in public relations refers to
A) the masses reached by the media.
B) people who will access the general information released by an organization.
C) anybody not financially or professionally aligned with an organization.
D) any constituency with which an organization relates.
8) Dialogic theory in public relations is
A) an information monologue delivered to the public in a steady stream.
B) rooted in the belief that the company is always correct.
C) the withholding of information that is negative to the client.
D) a practice in which there is genuine dialogue to negotiate relationships.
9) Among the major characteristics of dialogic theory in practice are all of the following EXCEPT
A) assurance.
B) empathy.
C) mutuality.
D) risk.
10) One of the most important features of the dialogic theory of public relations is
A) certainty.
B) commitment.
C) persistence.
D) self-assurance.
11) The dialogic theory of public relations stresses all of the following EXCEPT
A) awareness that the audience is a means to a desired end.
B) honesty and trust in communication.
C) openness as an ideal of the democratic tradition.
D) positive regard for other people and groups.
12) Public relations practitioners doing their best work contribute to the common good of the
whole society in all of the following ways EXCEPT
A) activating the social conscience of the organization for which they work.
B) communicating the interests of their organization to the public.
C) creating positive public impressions of everything their organization does.
D) seeking mutual adjustments among the institutions within society.
13) A key difference between PR and advertising is that PR
A) always pays for the placement of its messages.
B) controls what the media will do with a message.
C) is an upper-level management activity.
D) is always acting in a purely reactive role.
14) Why is the success of a PR effort difficult to gauge?
A) PR tries to build good will which is intangible and hard to measure in concrete terms.
B) Advertising efforts always receive more attention and are more visible.
C) PR is too long-term a function to be measurable.
D) PR’s efforts are usually rooted in a larger advertising plan.
15) A feature of advertising NOT shared by public relations is that
A) the organization controls the message.
B) messages are always self-serving.
C) messages that reach the audience may have been edited by the media.
D) time and space are purchased.
16) This is a packet provided to news reporters to tell the story in an advantageous way.
A) media kit
B) b-roll
C) video release
D)media package
17) An informational story, whether written words or a fully-produced broadcast piece, given to
the news media in hopes it will be passed on to the media’s audiences is called a
A) media blast.
B) media feed .
C) news bulletin.
D) news release.
18) Which of the following is NOT true about news releases?
A) Studies have shown that 50-80% of all news stories rely on information from news releases.
B) They’re written to look like they originated from a news medium, not a PR person.
C) They’re meant to be ready-to-use so they can be inserted in a publication, posting, or broadcast.
D) Whomever submits the release pays a flat rate for each release given to a news medium.
19) During the 1800s, social Darwinism was used to justify abuses by
A) big businesses.
B) public relations professionals.
C) government officials.
D) corporate advertisers.
20) One problem railroads faced during the late 1800s that was corrected by solid public relations
was
A) secretive policies.
B) excessively high fares.
C) adversarial government relations.
D) poor safety records.
21) Ivy Lee, an early public relations practitioner, encouraged his clients to deal with negative
publicity by
A) spin mastery and releasing counteracting positive stories.
B) aggressively denying the problem.
C) stonewalling and refusing to talk with reporters.
D) telling the truth while putting a human face on their organization and its accomplishments.
22) Ivy Lee’s new ideas about winning public support included all of the following EXCEPT
A) keeping sensitive issues like strike-breaking strategies off the public record.
B) assisting reporters who wanted information or interviews with executives.
C) allowing the public to see the human side of industry leaders.
D) issuing summaries of corporate executive meetings.
23) After a massacre at a Colorado mining camp, this PR professional helped John D. Rockefeller
improve his image.
A) P.T. Barnum
B) George Creel
C) Ivy Lee
D) Edward Bernays
24) What did Ivy Lee advise John D. Rockefeller Jr. to do after the Ludlow Massacre?
A) lay low for three years
B) deny all wrongdoing
C) file libel suits against critics
D) tour the Ludlow area to show his sincere concern
25) What myth-shattering episode occurred following Rockefeller’s address to miners and wives
after the Ludlow massacre?
A) Rockefeller cried publicly and took personal responsibility.
B) Rockefeller danced with almost every miner’s wife.
C) Rockefeller gave every miner and his family $100.
D) Rockefeller announced a scholarship program for miners.
26) Who made puffery promotion a high art?
A) George Creel
B) Elmer Davis
C) Paul Garrett
D) P.T. Barnum
27) Extravagant claims about one’s product or organization are referred to as
A) advertising.
B) public relations.
C) flakking.
D) puffery.
28) The potential for public relations on a massive scale was demonstrated first by
A) Elmer Davis’ Office of War Information.
B) William Henry Vanderbilt’s “The public be damned.”
C) George Baer’s social paternalism.
D) George Creel’s Committee on Public Information.
29) Who was tasked by Woodrow Wilson with turning around widespread sentiment against U.S.
involvement in WWI?
A) George Creel
B) Elmer Davis
C) Ivy Lee
D) Arthur Page
30) During World War II, the Office of War Information was under the direction of
A) George Creel.
B) Elmer Davis.
C) Ivy Lee.
D) Arthur Page.
31) Working for AT&T in 1927, Arthur Page established the role of public relations as a
A) partner of advertising.
B) top management tool.
C) grassroots program.
D) mid level program.
32) Public relations works best when the person in charge of it is a
A) person who simply does what he or she is told.
B) middle-management employee who reports to an executive.
C) person who implements, but is not involved in, company decisions.
D) top-level company executive involved in decision making.
33) The functional areas of responsibility for a public relations department are
A) external, internal, and media relations.
B) inner, outer, and superior relations.
C) customer, community, and government relations.
D) internal, external, and regulatory agency relations.
34) Which of the following is NOT a target audience of internal public relations?
A) Shareholders.
B) Employees.
C) Unions.
D) Customers.
35) What type of functional responsibility is developing optimal relations with employees?
A) inner relations
B) internal relations
C) social relations
D) endo-relations
36) The component of public relations that deals with the press and other media is known as
A) publicity management.
B) media relations.
C) reputation management.
D) marketing.
37) Among the alternate names that were, or still are, used for public relations are all of the
following EXCEPT
A) informatics.
B) institutional communication.
C) public information.
D) strategic communication.
38) One of the newest and hottest trends in renaming and refocusing public relationships to serve
as a “one-stop shop” for communication needs, especially in large corporations, is
A) comprehensive communication.
B) integrated marketing communication.
C) organizational relations.
D) strategic relations.
39) A corporation’s coordination of advertising and PR efforts is referred to as
A) contingency planning.
B) advertorial.
C) external public relations.
D) integrated marketing communication.
40) Who pioneered the enlightened self-interest concept?
A) Paul Garrett
B) Ivy Lee
C) George Baer
D) William Henry Vanderbilt
41) During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Paul Garrett led public relations in new directions
while working at
A) Westinghouse.
B) General Motors.
C) Ford.
D) International Harvester.
42) In a spirit of “enlightened self-interest” the National Association of Manufacturers in 1939
declared that the integral parts of democracy included all of the following EXCEPT
A) free enterprise.
B) free lunch.
C) free religion.
D) free speech.
43) Which of the following is NOT one of the three tactical activities that are incorporated in most
long-term public relations campaigns?
A) Advocacy
B) Image management
C) Positioning
D) Promotion
44) Media relations includes all of the following activities EXCEPT
A) arranging access to information and interviews.
B) being available to answer reporters’ inquiries.
C) reviewing and editing reporters’ stories about your organization.
D) writing and producing news releases in various formats.
45) The function of public relations most concerned with creating, nurturing, enhancing, and, when
necessary, repairing an organization’s “public face” is called
A) image control .
B) image enhancement.
C) image management.
D) Imagineering.
46) What is it called when a company’s image is promoted rather than a product?
A) institutional advertising
B) image management
C) adversarial PR
D) puffery
47) In an elaborate attempt to make-over its image British Petroleum went so far as to drop its
long-time name can henceforth call itself BP, saying that “BP” stood for
A) balanced petroleum.
B) better performance.
C) better petrol.
D) beyond petroleum.
48) John Kenney, who created BP’s unsuccessful campaign to enhance its image ruefully admitted
that the biggest reason it failed was that it was
A) “a false front without substance.”
B) “mere marketing.”
C) “over-shadowed by similar campaigns from other oil companies.”
D) “woefully underfunded for such a massive campaign.”
49) What is crisis management?
A) helping a client or organization through an emergency
B) covering up the mess a predecessor has made
C) protecting the corporate hierarchy from intensive press scrutiny
D) masking the absence of a strategic plan
50) One of the best examples of effectively handling a public relations crisis came from
A) BP’s handling of the Gulf Coast oil spill.
B) British Petroleum’s response to an explosion and fire in a Texas oil refinery.
C) Lucky Strike’s “torches of freedom” smoking campaign created by Edward Bernays.
D) Tylenol’s handing of tampering that killed several people.
51) Public relations people engaged in performing government relations are called
A) propagandists.
B) Ivy Leaguers.
C) PR agents.
D) lobbyists.
52) Lobbyists are expediters because they know
A) about “the skeletons in the closet” and how to use such information.
B) local traditions and customs.
C) how government works and have personal contacts in powerful places.
D) how to protect their clients from harsh publicity.
53) Advising candidates and groups on public policy issues, usually in elections, is known as
A) canvassing.
B) political communication.
C) electioneering.
D) media relations.
54) Jack Abramoff is best known for
A) his ethical behavior in lobbying Congress.
B) his ability to defuse crises at minimal financial cost.
C) directing the campaign of President George W. Bush.
D) being convicted in one of the largest Congressional corruption scandals.
55) Public relations advocacy includes all of the following EXCEPT
A) astroturfing.
B) labeling.
C) lobbying.
D) political communication.
56) A public relations practitioner engaged in political communication could do all of the following
EXCEPT
A) campaign management.
B) organizing front organizations.
C) survey research.
D) testifying before congressional sub-committees.
57) The association for professionals working in public relations is called the
A) American Association of PR Practitioners.
B) Journalism and Public Relations Foundation.
C) Association for Integrated Communications.
D) Public Relations Society of America.
58) What distinction is given to public relations professionals who are accredited by the Public
Relations Society of America?
A) AP
B) APR
C) PRSA
D) PR-Certified
59) Another term used to describe the practice of covering up mistakes or abuses instead of
correcting them is
A) gift wrapping..
B) whitewashing.
C) plausible denial.
D) spin-doctoring.
10.2 True/False Questions
1) During the 1950s wearing jeans was condemned by right-wingers as part of the communist plot
to corrupt American youth.
2) The Denim Council’s campaign relied heavily on the mass media to achieve its strategic goal of
making jeans socially acceptable and it was very successful in turning around the image of jeans.
3) Jeans makers successfully linked “Wear Denim to Work Day” with fund-raising efforts for key
women’s charities to promote themselves as social responsible corporations and sell more jeans.
4) Public relations is a persuasive communication tool to establish beneficial relationships.
5) Public relations is an important management tool.
6) A constituency with which a public relations professional attempts to establish beneficial
relations is called a client.
7) Public relations is a mass medium.
8) Most public relations ignores mass media, leaving that to advertising.
10) Dialogic theory states its best to use the telephone when communicating with a hostile news
reporter.
11) The dialogic theory of public relations is based on being able to persuade other people and
organizations to see things your way.
12) The dialogic theory of mass communication centers on two-way communication, attempting to
communicate with others instead of just speaking to or at them.
13) The advantages of the dialogic theory of public relations is that it is highly ethical and very easy
to implement.
14) The more effectively public relations is practiced, the more dangers it creates for society and
the more likely it is to permit tyrannical leadership to gain a foothold.
15) Advertising is a management function.
16) Success is easier to measure in advertising than public relations.
17) Both PR and advertising sell products or services.
18) PR allows an organization complete control over the message delivered to the public.
19) By design, advertisements are self-serving.
20) Because advertising messages appear in space or time that has been purchased for them,
advertisers have full control over their messages.
21) Because public relations messages are usually incorporated into the media’s news reports at no
cost to the organizations that submitted them, their form and content is controlled by the media.
22) If the PR person who submitted a news release doesn’t like the way the media edit it, he or she
can demand that it be revised or be pulled from the media.
23) In its earliest years, public relations was created as a response to the public disdain for big
business.
24) Social Darwinism maintains that the public good should be favored over business profits.
25) Ivy Lee is remembered mostly for his shouting out “the public be damned.”
26) Ivy Lee’s philosophy about openness in company dealings resulted in diffusing tense relations
in railroad and mining crises during the early 1900s.
27) P.T. Barnum was the epitome of puffery.
28) World War I was an extremely popular cause with Americans from the beginning.
29) Former employees of the Office of War Information shaped the way PR was conducted in
America after World War II.
30) Public relations methods used by the U.S. Office of War Information in the Gulf War brought
public relations practice to much higher level.
32) A public relations vice president has an inherent conflict of interest between developing
strategy and implementing it.
33) The three functional areas of responsibility for most public relations department are external
relations, internal relations and media relations.
34) External relations includes in-house employee newsletters.
35) Integrated marketing communication closely coordinates the efforts of PR and advertising
within an organization.
36) Paul Garrett coined the phrase “enlightened self-interest.”
37) Enlightened self interest means corporations can ignore the public.
38) Paul Garrett, General Motor’s public relations chief during the Great Depression, learned the
craft of public relations from the government’s Creel Committee in World War I.
39) The three primary tactics built into most long-term public relations campaigns are promotion,
image management, and advocacy.
40) Media relations is a critical part of the larger tactical function of promotion.
41) Image management is NOT a service routinely provided by public relations.
42) BP launched one of the biggest and most expensive image management campaigns in history,
but it failed miserably because the public saw a huge gap between the image and reality.
43) After a devastating product tampering case, Tylenol never again regained its position as a
market leader in the analgesic field.
44) The Tylenol tampering case is a good example of proactive media relations.
45) In the wake of its Gulf Oil spill BP reduced its online advertising in hopes that having a lower
profile might avoid further antagonizing the public.
46) Advocacy by public relations people is not limited to lobbying and political communication, but
they are two of the most important types of advocacy.
47) Public relations is an important component in politics.
48) Lobbyists are legally required to register, but this is NOT always strictly enforced.
49) Political communication is the exchange of information between politician and lobbyist.
50) Jack Abramoff, while engaged in suspicious activities, was found NOT guilty in a congressional
scandal.
51) Fund-raising has growing importance in political communication, especially since the Internet
has made it possible to solicit a much broader base of support.
52) False congressional testimony arranged by the public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton helped
spark the U.S. to lead a war against Iraq to make it end its occupation of Kuwait.
53) The Public Relations Society of America is the professional public relations association.
54) Public relations is universally respected as a professional craft.
55) APR indicates accreditation by the Public Relations Society of America.
56) Public relations ensures more diversity in public dialogue by giving an articulate voice to
organizations.
57) Public relations, practiced well, is honest advocacy in society’s marketplace of ideas.
10.3 Short Answer Questions
1) Characters wearing __________ in movies like Blue Denim and Rebel Without a Cause were so edgy,
rebellious, and antisocial that they triggered a real-life backlash against their clothing.
2) To correct the negative image of blue jeans in the 1950s, manufacturers pooled their resources
and formed the __________.
3) By applying classic __________ techniques, jeans manufacturers were able to use the mass media as
vehicles to sway public opinion and bring a favorable image to jeans.
4) Public relations is a management tool for institutions to establish beneficial __________with other
institutions and groups.
5) A fairly recent approach to public relations that emphasizes two-way communication and talking
with an organization’s publics instead of to them is based on the __________
6) Mutuality, empathy, commitment, and a willingness to take risks are among the characteristics of
the dialogic theory of __________ .
7) Public relations practitioners call their organization’s constituent groups __________.
8) Nobody expects __________ to point out a product’s flaws and weaknesses because that’s not the
way you sell things.
9) The dialogic theory does expect __________ people to tell the whole story about their organizations,
the shortcomings as well as the strengths to help build mutually beneficial relationships.
10) A(n) __________ is a packet provided news reporters to tell the story in an advantageous way.
11) __________ was a 19th century theory used to justify companies making huge profits on the
grounds that because they are the fittest, God has given them their just financial rewards.
12) __________ was a pioneer in the public relations field who believed in institutional openness,
finding upbeat angles, and giving organizations a human face.
13) After the __________ in 1914 where two women and 11 children were killed, mine owner John D.
Rockefeller Jr. visited the Colorado mine to defuse the situation.
14) Circus promoter __________ was best known for his puffery.
15) The Committee on Public Information, better known as the Creel Committee, was created to
stem antiwar sentiment during __________.
16) An early advocate of public relations as a top-level management function was __________.
17) As a public relations tool, an employee newsletter is an example of __________ relations.
18) A hybrid communication function of public relations and advertising that links the two is
known as __________ communication.
19) Paul Garrett coined the phrase enlightened __________.
20) The three key tactics of most long-term public relations campaigns are promotion, __________,
and advocacy.
21) Media relations which obtains publicity through the mass media is part of the broader tactical
function of __________.
22) __________ is based on the belief that appearances make a difference, so it’s important to create,
nurture, publicize, and sometimes repair how an organization looks to the public.
23) In the wake of its Gulf Oil spill __________ dramatically increased its spending for online search
ads that it hoped might counter negative news coverage with more positive views of the company.
24) Influencing public policy, especially legislation and regulations, is called __________.
25) When public relations people engage in lobbying they often prefer to call it __________.
26) PR professionals who work on campaign management, survey research, media relations, image
consulting, and more for elected officials specialize in __________.
27) Organizing a “front organization” that looks like a grassroots group but is actually sponsored as
part of some organization’s or individual’s public relations campaign is called __________.
28) The term __________has been coined to describe the actions of organizations that try to cover up
their shortcomings by touting themselves as being eco-friendly.
29) PRSA is the acronym for the professional organization whose full name is the Public Relations
__________.
30) The letters __________ after a practitioner’s name indicate accreditation by the PRSA.
10.4 Matching Questions
Match each concept in the left column with its best description in the right column.
1) Public relations
A) Addressed anti-business sentiment in the 1930s
2) Enlightened self-interest
B) A weak substitute buzzword for public relations
3) Social Darwinism
C) Often prompted the sneering criticism “It’s just PR.”
4) Institutional openness
D) Proclaiming eco-friendliness to cover up shortcomings
5) Puffery
E) Societal “survival of the fittest” applied to business
6) Dialogic theory
F) Using a pseudo-grassroots organization for advocacy
7) Strategic communication
G) Tool for beneficial relationships
8) Lobbying
H) Two-way communication to negotiate relationships
9) Astroturfing
I) Influencing public policy, usually through legislation
10) Greenwashing
J) Admitting mistakes and assisting reporters
Match each person on the left with his corresponding accomplishment in the right column.
1) William Henry Vanderbilt
A) Brought enlightened self-interest to GM
2) Paul Garrett
B) Promoted PR as a top management function
3) Howard Dean
C) Used puffery as a promotion tool
4) Ivy Lee
D) Made smoking acceptable for women
5) P.T. Barnum
E) Democratized political fund-raising via the Internet
6) George Creel
F) Updated Creel’s work to respond to World War II
7) Arthur Page
G) Declared “The public be damned.”
8) John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
H) Headed Committee on Public Information
9) Elmer Davis
I) Image changed from demon to caring tycoon by Ivy Lee
10) Edward Bernays
J) Early advocate of institutional openness
Chapter 10 Public Relations
10.5 Essay Questions
1) Identify four of the five major features of the dialogic theory of public relations and then discuss
the notion that a willingness to take risks is actually tied into all of them. Explain the potential risk
in each of these features and cite an actual or hypothetical example that might arise.
2) Discuss three philosophical or operational differences between public relations and advertising.
3) Explain why it’s important that public relations be a top-level management function while
4) Identify three fundamental principles of public relations practiced by Ivy Lee and explain how
they revolutionized both public relations and business practices in the late-19th and early-20th
centuries. Also discuss the extent to which these principles remain relevant today.
5) Discuss some of the ways public relations was used in the United States during World War I and
describe the effectiveness and long-term impact of those efforts.
6) Describe the three most common functional areas of responsibility for public relations
practitioners and cite two examples of target audiences or activities that fall within each of these
functional areas.
7) Describe the differences between lobbying and political communication as types of public
relations advocacy.
