Chapter 12 Mass Audiences
Chapter 12 Mass Audiences
12.1 Multiple-Choice Questions
1) Using his new approach to analyzing and predicting results Nate Silver accomplished all of the
following EXCEPT
A) accurately forecasting which stock prices would drop the most during the recession.
B) correctly predicting the outcomes of U.S. Senate elections in 49 of the 50 states in 2008.
C) developing an amazing system for tracking and projecting the performance of baseball players.
D) inspiring the blockbuster film Moneyball..
2) Until the 2008 elections, it was almost universally believed that no one could accurately predict
election outcomes, but now that view is being challenged by amazingly accurate predictions from
A) George Gallup.
B) Leslie Nielsen.
C) Nate Silver.
D) Fred Silverman.
3) For the most part, who do surveys serve?
A) mass media audiences
B) private clients, like advertisers and office-seekers
C) the Census Bureau
D) schoolteachers
4) What intellectual interests did George Gallup bring together in his mother-in–law’s run for
secretary of state in Iowa?
A) feminism, history and agriculture
B) survey research, public opinion and politics
C) mathematics, sociology and communication
D) organizational management, human resources, accounting
5) Which of the following used quota sampling techniques to predict presidential election
outcomes in the 1930s?
A) Andy Kohut
B) Arbitron
C) AC Nielsen
D) George Gallup
6) Why did George Gallup abandon quota sampling?
A) too time-consuming
B) pressure from the political correctness movement
C) difficulty in pinpointing public opinion closer than 4 points
D) too expensive
7) What is the bandwagon effect?
A) Decided voters change their minds and begin to support the front-runner.
B) Pollsters phrase questions that lead people to answer them in pre-determined ways.
C) Poorly phrased questions encourage respondents to give the same answers others do.
D) Poll results drive undecided voters towards the current front-runner.
8) What organization is best known for its television ratings evaluations?
A) Nielsen
B) Gallup
C) Harris
D) Arbitron
9) Arbitron is known for
A) tracking television network audiences.
B)measuring radio audiences in local broadcast markets.
C) using people meters.
D) tracking audience members who cross-over from one medium to another.
10) What does the Gallup Organization usually measure?
A) human nature and behavior
B) television audience size
C) magazine circulation
D) radio audience size
11) The Pew Research Center studies
A) television and radio audiences.
B) attitudes toward politics and public policy issues.
C) print-media audiences.
D) local television audiences.
12) Probability sampling requires
A) questioning as many people as possible.
B) mostly guesswork.
C) a precise cross-section of the population.
D) that every member of the population have an equal chance to be interviewed.
13) In polling for a population of 500,000 or greater, how many people are needed for 95 percent
confidence with less than 5 percent error margin?
A) 384
B)1,483
C) 3,840
D) 18,340
14) A good probability sample selection for polling
A) requires polling one in every six people.
B) gives every member of the population being sampled an equal chance.
C) will include an equal number of males and females.
D) will vary depending on the topic.
15) The margin of error for a survey is
A) insignificant if enough people are surveyed.
B) critical to determine accuracy.
C) good enough as long as it’s near 5 percent.
D) needs to be 2 percent or lower for any level of confidence.
16) What kind of sampling matches the demographics of the people polled?
A) probability sampling
B) geo-demographic sampling
C) quota sampling
D) measured-interval sampling
17) Why is it important to know when a poll was taken?
A) Opinions shift over time.
B) Weather impacts people’s emotions
C) People are more alert in the morning, less so in the evening
D) Most people aren’t home during the day, thus skewing the sample
18) It is important to know who paid for a poll because the people who pay
A) may determine what a pollster will understand.
B) will be more open-minded about the results.
C) have a vested interest in the outcome.
D) restrict what other work a pollster may be able to do.
19) Which of the following is NOT true regarding how a poll is conducted?
A) Polls conducted on street corners are not worth much statistically.
B) Mail surveys are flawed unless pollsters follow up on those who didn’t answer.
C) Surveys taken in shopping malls are statistically flawed.
D) It makes no difference whether the poll is done on the telephone or face to face.
20) When developing a survey instrument, it is important to pay attention to the wording of survey
questions because
A) people remember polysyllabic words best.
B) people remember the words they heard first.
C) wording can skew responses.
D) people will reject a pollster who uses slang.
21) Who selects the participants in a straw poll?
A) pollster
B) respondents themselves
C) pollster’s client
D) interviewer
22) 900-number phone surveys are an example of
A) straw polling.
B) low-budget polling.
C) electronic sampling.
D) random sampling.
23) Newspapers conduct people-on-the-street interviews because
A) they are efficient and accurate.
B) studies have shown them to be accurate.
C) they represent the average person in their communities.
D) they are circulation builders.
24) What organization checks circulation claims?
A) Arbitron Circulation Bureau
B) American Research Bureau
C) A.C. Nielsen Co
D) Audit Bureau of Circulations
25) Who was the first pollster to measure how many people listened to network radio programs?
A) George Gallop
B) A.C. Nielsen
C) Archibald Crossley
D) Rupert Murdoch
26) Congressional investigations into false and inflated claims about broadcast ratings prompted
networks to create the
A) Audit Bureau of Ratings.
B) Pew Research Center.
C) Broadcast Ratings Council.
D) Institute of American Public Opinion.
27) The Broadcast Ratings Council
A) surveys broadcasters.
B) accredits ratings companies.
C) rates television networks.
D) confirms audience size.
28) When events such as giveaways coincide with sweeps weeks, it is an example of
A) slanted results.
B) a black week.
C) flushing.
D) hyping.
29) Which is a television ratings sweeps month?
A) January
B) March
C) June
D) February
30) A black week in television is
A) a week of programming by African-Americans.
B) when no ratings are conducted.
C) when a station goes off the air.
D) a week without network programming.
31) When polled with handwritten diaries, many people overstate the time they spend watching
A) steamy programs.
B) sophisticated programs.
C) prime time cartoons.
D) sitcoms.
32) The flush factor is a term to describe
A) the elimination of television shows with low ratings.
B) firing a television personality after sweeps week.
C) viewers leaving their television sets during commercials to go the bathroom.
D) discarding embarrassing results from a flawed poll.
33) When viewers avoid commercials by changing from channel to channel, it is called
A) zapping.
B) flipping.
C) flushing.
D) zipping.
34) A polling technique to gauge how attentive people are to certain programs and ads is called
A) engagement ratings.
B) intensity ratings.
C) attachment ratings.
D) longevity ratings.
35) Among the statistics that have been used to try to measure audience sizes and engagement for
Internet sites have been all of the following EXCEPT
A) browser downloads.
B) click-ons and click-throughs.
C) page views.
D) time-on–site.
36) Which of the following is NOT a tool used to measure broadcast audiences?
A) interviews by phone or in-person
B) viewing and listening diaries
C) mass mailings
D) people meters
37) Media Metrix is a leading audience measuring company for
A) television.
B) satellite radio.
C) terrestrial radio.
D) the Internet.
38) A2/M2 is a ratings measurement system created by
A) Arbitron.
B) Nielsen.
C) Gallup.
D) Pew.
39) In trying to convince her company to do consumer research with social media, Joan Lewis,
Procter & Gamble’s market knowledge officer, has asserted all of the following EXCEPT
A) social media are quicker than other methods for tracking fast-changing consumer behavior.
B) social media permit better two-way communication between the company and consumers .
C) social media research needs more sophistication and better standards of measurement.
D) social media research will soon replace outdated and expensive traditional research methods.
40) Which of the following is an interview-based research method?
A) overnights
B) demographic breakdowns
C) sweeps
D) focus groups
41) Which research method is called the “heartthrob approach”?
A) galvanic skin checks
B) heart monitors
C) heatmapping
D) viewer letters and phone calls
42) Galvanic skin checks favor
A) ugly news anchors.
B) adrenaline-activating news stories.
C) dull news scripting.
D) routine video of public meetings.
43) Which of the following is an example of prototype research?
A) screening a television pilot
B) conducting a focus group on a long-running show
C) Nielsen overnights
D) a portable people meter
44) What is a sample of a possible new sitcom called?
A) galvanic check
B) focus group
C) focus cluster
D) pilot episode
45) Cohort analysis has studied and classified the demographic characteristics of people so they can
be targeted for marketing and other communication efforts based on
A) the company they work for or organization they belong to.
B) the industry in which they or their family members work.
C) the generation to which they belong based on when they were born.
D) the region and type of housing in which they live.
46) One finding of cohort analysis is that
A) as people get older, they adopt their parents’ values.
B) people who grew up on Coke switch to coffee.
C) many people, as they get older, stick to the habits of their youth.
D) baby boomers prefer Cadillacs as much as their parents did.
47) Who created PRIZM?
A) George Gallup
B) Lou Harris
C) Al Neuharth
D) Jonathan Robbin
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48) What does geodemography do?
A) It describes why people live in different topographies.
B) It describes the influence of weather on buying habits.
C) It describes the effect of global warming on people’s interest in media.
D) It describes lifestyle breakdowns based on demographic characteristics and regions.
49) Which of the following is a psychographic analysis by values, lifestyle and life stage?
A) VIRIS
B) PALZ
C) PRISM
D) VALS
50) Which VALS category represents the largest percentage of the U.S. population?
A) achievers
B) belongers
C) emulators
D) integrateds
51) The prosperous people comprising about 20 percent of the U.S. population, according to VALS,
are the
A) achievers.
B) emulators.
C) experientials.
D) integrateds.
12.2 True/False Questions
1) Nate Silver correctly predicted the outcomes of the Presidential election and U.S. Senate elections
in 49 out of 50 states during the 2008 elections.
2) Newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer is believed to have done some of the first audience
3) George Gallup conducted the first serious poll for a political candidate when his mother–in-law
ran for office.
4) George Gallup’s accurate predictions of Franklin Roosevelt’s election as President established his
reputation as a pollster and quickly attracted clients.
5) Gallup was convinced that public opinion surveys helped to make democracy work.
6) By the 1940s, Gallup had switched from quota sampling to probability sampling because it
provided more accuracy and reliability in predicting election outcomes.
7) Susan Whiting founded the Institute of American Public Opinion.
8) Arbitron is a company that is primarily known for measuring television audiences.
9) If a political candidate is interested in results of a poll about public policy issues, the candidate
likely would consult one done by the Pew Research Center.
10) One serious flaw in probability sampling is that not everyone in the population being sampled
has an equal chance to be selected.
11) Statisticians consider 834 to be the minimum number of people needed to guarantee a margin
of error lower than 5 percent.
12) If you want to increase the confidence level in a poll and, at the same time, reduce the margin of
error, you need to use a larger sample.
13) Quota sampling seeks demographically representative samples.
14) Call-in polls with 800 or 900 numbers test the views only of people who are aware of the poll
and who have sufficiently strong opinions to want to be heard.
15) When a poll is taken makes little difference in the results because opinions rarely change.
16) Responsible and cautious journalists will thoroughly question the methodology of polls before
running stories about their findings.
17) Interview polls conducted in shopping malls are just as accurate as other methods of polling.
18) There is at great risk of exposure and public embarrassment if a polling company’s client
misrepresents survey results.
19) Polling companies relinquish all rights to their findings when they issue the results to their
clients.
20) The sampling behind straw polls is usually carefully constructed.
21) Sidewalk interviews conducted by newspapers accurately reflect the views of the population.
22) Press runs are part of the data used to determine magazine circulation figures.
23 The Audit Bureau of Circulations pioneered radio audience studies.
24) Radio and television audiences are just as easy to measure as are the readers of print
publications.
25) Demographic information included in Nielsen’s rating system includes a number of age
brackets.
26) Networks created the Broadcast Ratings Council after a 1963 congressional investigation.
27) The Broadcast Ratings Council reviews ads to keep racy ones off TV.
28) Significant discrepancies in ratings services findings point to flawed methodology or execution.
29) People who answer surveys always answer truthfully.
30) Black weeks are often hyped by networks.
31) Sweeps weeks are conducted during eight months of the year.
32) The flush factor was first noticed during halftime of televised football games.
33) Engagement ratings measure how attentive people are to programs and ads.
34) Page views and counts of click-ons have been replaced by time-on-site as a better way to
determine something like engagement ratings for Internet sites.
35) Procter & Gamble spends $400 million per year on market research which is more than any
other single company.
36) Procter & Gamble is currently exploring ways to make more use of social media for marketing
and consumer research.
37) Procter & Gamble’s market knowledge officer thinks there’s a need to do more qualitative
research relating to social media in addition to traditional quantitative data-gathering.
38) Telephone interviews have become the preferred method to poll broadcast audiences.
39) One problem with the accuracy of diaries is that viewers would forget about them and then
enter information days later.
40) Media Metrix measures Internet audiences.
41) Nielsen’s new A2/M2 process tracks both local and network television viewership.
42) Heatmapping is a new research tool that uses a video camera to track people’s eye movements
as they look at a web page to determine what attracted their attention without asking questions.
43) As a result of heatmapping, graphic designers have learned they can use the same principles of
layout and design on the Internet that they use for print publications.
44) Mass media base content decisions on audience reaction.
45) Even when conducted by a skillful interviewer, a focus group’s results may be skewed by a loud
participant.
46) Galvanic skin checks test an audience’s physiological reactions.
47) Prototype research is the term used for the newest trend in polling methods.
48) Many movie directors don’t like their creative control contravened by test screenings.
49) When USA Today was being developed, several different prototypes were designed to test
readers’ reactions.
50) A pilot is a successful TV sitcom going into reruns.
51) Among the techniques used for audience analysis are demographics, geodemographics and
psychographics.
52) Cohort analysis identifies audience motivations.
53) Habits of youth stick with a generation as it gets older.
54) PRIZM is a system that has classified and grouped every ZIP code according to the demographic
characteristics of the people who live within those areas.
55) PRIZM and VALS are both geodemographic measures.
56) Surveys based on neighborhood lifestyles are geodemographic.
57) Magazines can customize their advertising and editorial content to match the interests of
readers through sophisticated geodemographic audience analysis.
58) Psychographics divides the population into lifestyle segments.
59) According to VALS, achievers comprise the largest category of people.
60) At the bottom of the VALS hierarchy are need-driven people.
61) Despite the sophistication of new, high-tech research methods, the best and most preferred
ways of measuring media audiences remain telephone surveys and respondent diaries.
12.3 Short Answer Questions
1) The 2011 blockbuster movie __________was inspired by Nate Silver’s amazing ability to predict and
forecast the future performance of athletes as well as the outcome of elections.
2) As a result of his success in predicting the outcome of the 2008 elections, Nate Silver was hired
by __________ as a columnist and blogger who shares his perspectives on politics, culture, and sports.
3) Nielsen Media Research is primarily known for its __________, but it also does a lot of work
tracking retail sales.
4) In contrast to Nielsen, Arbitron is mostly known for its work in measuring __________ audiences.
5) George Gallup introduced __________ sampling.
6) Statisticians have found that a total of __________ people provides a reliable sample for 95 percent
confidence with a 5 percent margin of errors in probability sampling.
7) A survey’s __________ is the percentage by which the sample results may differ from what the
findings would be if every member of the population was surveyed.
8) The degree of certainty that a survey is accurate is the __________ level.
9) When demographics of a sample coincide with the demographics of the whole population, the
researcher is employing __________ sampling.
10) A poll in which respondents select themselves is called a(n) __________ poll.
11) The number of copies a newspaper or magazine prints is part of the formula for determining its
official __________.
12) The characteristics of a population being sampled, such as age, gender, education, income, and
affiliations, are called their __________.
13) No broadcast ratings are measured during __________ weeks.
14) When viewers use the VCR to record programs and eliminate commercial breaks, it’s called
__________.
15) __________ ratings gauge how attentive people are to certain television programs and ads.
16) Engagement with Internet sites is more meaningfully measured by tracking audience members’
__________ than by simply counting page views.
17) Nielsen’s next-morning reports on television network viewership are called __________.
18) Media Metrix is a service measuring the audience size on __________.
19) The Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement system, called A2/M2, was developed by __________
to track television viewing regardless of what kind of device the viewers are using.
20) __________ is a new technology to measure what attracts a visitor’s attention on a web page by
using a camera to track where and for how long their eyes focus.
21) __________ are small groups interviewed in loosely structured ways for opinion and reactions.
22) In galvanic skin checks, wires are attached to individuals to measure changes in their pulse and
__________ reactions such as perspiration.
23) When Gannett decided to establish USA Today, it first created __________, each designed
differently, to test readers’ reactions.
24) In network television, a prototype may make it on the air in the form of a(n) __________.
25) ___________ analysis is a demographic tool to identify marketing targets by the common
characteristics of the generation into which they were born.
26) The PRIZM system identifies the overall demographic characteristics of people living in each
__________.
27) __________ would love to figure out how much of the media audiences they buy is disinterested in
their products and messages.
Test Bank for Media of Mass Communication, 11/e
12.4 Matching Questions
Match each concept on the left with its description/characteristic on the right.
1) Probability sampling
A) Respondents self select
2) Arbitron
B) Focuses on lifestyle breakdowns
3) Quota sampling
C) Each person has an equal chance of being chosen for a
survey
4) Straw polls
D) Prototype research
5) Black weeks
E) Measures audience on a wide range of video platforms
6) Engagement ratings
F) Measures radio audiences
7) A2/M2
G) Measures intensity and time spent with the media
8) Television pilots
H) Sample’s demographics match the whole population’s
9) Cohort analysis
I) No broadcast ratings are collected
10) Psychographics
J) Identifies generational demographics
12.5 Essay Questions
1) Explain the significance of the number “384” in sampling, polling, and survey research. Then
2) Discuss how the accuracy of a survey based on probability sampling is affected by each of the
following factors: the sample size, sample selection method, acceptable margin of error, and desired
confidence level.
3) List at least four of the six questions a careful reporter or editor should ask about the research
methods used when preparing a story based on a poll or survey, and then explain why each of these
4) Discuss some of the problems that were encountered in using viewing or listening diaries to
survey people to determine broadcast ratings and then describe some of the newer methods that
have been developed to replace written diaries. .
5) Identify the three primary research tools used in measuring broadcast audiences and explain
how each of them is used.
6) Discuss the importance of having an effective moderator leading a focus group and describe
some of the ways an ineffective or overly-authoritative moderator can distort the process and the
results.
7) Describe the basic concept of prototype research and why it can be so useful and cost-effective to
do it. Building on that explanation, more specifically explain and cite an example of prototype
research as it is done in movies, print publications, and television.