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Test Bank for Media of Mass Communication, 11/e
Chapter 14 Mass Media and Governance
14.1 Multiple-Choice Questions
1) When Linda McMahon, known as the queen of the World Wrestling Federation, decided to run
for the U.S. Senate she faced all of the following challenges EXCEPT
A) convincing voters that being CEO of WWE qualified her to hold a high political office.
B) overcoming voters’ memories of the bitchy image and antics she presented ringside on TV.
C) putting $50 million of her own money into her campaign.
D) raising contributions from deep-pocketed donors and special interest groups.
2) What is known as the fourth estate of government?
A) judiciary
B) executive
C) legislative
D) press
3) Who first coined the phrase “Fourth Estate” in the mid-1700s in England?
A) Edmund Burke
B) King George III
C) Lord Liverpool
D) Thomas Attwood
4) Another name for the “Fourth Estate” when referring to the media is the
A) Fourth leg.
B) Fourth stool.
C) Fourth division.
D) Fourth branch
5) The U.S. government, during its early formation, saw the role of the press as
A) informers.
B) watchdogs.
C) evangelists .
D) vipers.
6) The concept of the press as a skeptical and critical monitor of government is called the
A) new media role.
B) watchdog role.
C) strategic mission.
D) New Partisanship.
7) What requires that stations must allow competing political candidates to advertise under the
same conditions?
A) fairness doctrine
B) framing law
C) equal time rule
D) media rule
8) The equal time rule mandates that broadcasters
A) provide air time for the opposition party to immediately respond to a political message like the
State of the Union.
B) grant non-profit advertisers the same amount of airtime as given to corporate advertisers.
C) must provide the same amount of coverage to all sides of a political issue.
D) charge a flat, across-the-board rate for all political advertisers so they can be assured of equal ad
access.
9) Why did Congress establish the equal-time rule?
A) To guarantee reply time during elections.
B) To preserve the two-party system.
C) To guarantee debate among political candidates.
D) To ensure that people using the limited number of broadcast channels would be even-handed.
10) The former government requirement that stations air all sides of public issues was the
A) equal time rule.
B) C-Span rule.
C) fairness doctrine.
D) framing doctrine.
11) The fairness doctrine was abandoned because
A) it was found to be unconstitutional.
B) it was giving communists a chance to infiltrate U.S. broadcasting.
C) the public could find lots of diversity in the growing number of stations.
D) authoritarian views had become more widely accepted.
12) Radio station owner Don Burden lost his license because he
A) favored some political candidates over others.
B) promoted certain products on-air.
C) used his stations to promote the Communist Party.
D) was sued for labor law violations.
13) The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Tornillo case
A) said the First Amendment was less applicable to print media than to broadcast media.
B) established rules mandating equal time for candidates.
C) blocked attack ads in print media.
D) said First Amendment protections apply more directly to print media than to broadcast media.
14) Newspapers that were considered dissident in Chicago and Ohio were shut down during what
war?
A) Vietnam
B) World War I
C) Civil War
D) World War II
15) All of these mass media are virtually unregulated in terms of political content EXCEPT
A) the Internet.
B) television.
C) magazines.
D) newspapers.
16) What inhibits Internet political content?
A) government fees
B) federal law
C) web site filters
17) Which of the following is supposed to shape what we think about, but should not shape how we
think about it?
A) a television political commentator
B) a high school or college
C) media news coverage
D) a Wall Street stock analyst
18) Scholars Maxwell McCombs and Don Shaw are best known for their pioneering work focusing
on
A) news conflict.
B) agenda setting.
C) visual communication.
D) news scheduling.
19) Agenda-setting is the process by which the media
A) establish the course of a political argument.
B) tell people what to think.
C) arrange political stories in a particular order for broadcast.
D) tell people what to think about.
20) News coverage of such issues as civil rights, Watergate and the White House scandals
demonstrate that news coverage
A) by and large calls on people to take a position.
B) is against government.
C) doesn’t cause change directly but serves as a catalyst to start discussions.
D) is informative but has little impact beyond the events covered.
21) What is the CNN Effect?
A) news organizations going to 24 hour formats
B) more brief headline stories
C) the power of television to interest people in faraway issues
D) Atlanta replacing Washington as the nation’s news capital
22) What is the term for the ability of television, through emotion-raising video, to elevate distant
issues on the domestic public agenda?
A) CNN effect
B) framing
C) agenda-setting
D) sound-bite effect
23) When media coverage shapes how people see issues, this is called
A) framing.
B) homogeneity..
C) conflict.
D)status conferral
24) Which of the following best summarizes framing?
A) Framing is a term that is only applied to issues related to politics or government.
B) Only political candidates frame issues.
C) Politicians deliberately frame issues while news reporters inadvertently frame them by deciding
what to report.
D) Framing is a conscious activity by politicians but is never done by competentnews reporters.
25) In a study of CBS Evening News , what percentage of the opening news stories featured the
president?
A) 10
B) 25
C) 60
D) 90
26) Why is conflict such an exciting subject for media coverage?
A) The language that describes conflict is usually more expressive and active.
B) It often illustrates the great issues by which society is defining and redefining values.
C) Conflict is often bloody.
D) Their responses to conflict help media outlets differentiate themselves from competitors.
27) Journalists learn early in their careers that conflict
A) is not worth covering.
B) is comfortable, usually fun for everybody involved.
C) rarely occurs and hardly is an everyday event.
D) illustrates the issues by which society defines values.
28) What happens when the news media treat politics like a horse race?
A) People place bets on the outcome.
B) Substantive issues are underplayed.
C) It becomes easier to track lesser-known candidates.
D) Reporters use racing and equine metaphors and slang.
29) The actual voice of a figure in the news, usually sandwiched in a correspondent’s report, is
called a(n)
A) talking head.
B) announcement.
C) voice-over.
D) sound bite.
30) How long is a candidate’s sound bite in most of today’s broadcast news stories?
A) 2-5 seconds
B) 10 seconds or less
C) 15-20 seconds
D) 30 seconds up to a one minute maximum
31) Because sound bites have shortened over the years, political candidates have learned how to
A) offer catchy, clever comments.
B) expand on their issues.
C) talk at a rapid pace.
D) avoid the news media.
32) Presidential candidates have learned to bypass the news media with less filtered exposure to
voters through events such as
A) news blackouts.
B) news secretaries.
C) news briefings.
D) Oprah show appearances.
33) One of the simplest ways government officials manipulate the news is deciding when to release
it. President Teddy Roosevelt, for instance, tried to make most of his news announcements on
A) any day there wasn’t a major sporting event that might attract more attention than his story.
B) Fridays because people have more time to spend reading newspapers on the weekend.
C) Saturdays so all the details of his story could be included in the jumbo-sized Sunday papers.
D) Sundays because Monday papers are short of news and would give his story lots of attention.
34) All of the following are ways government officials can try to manipulate news coverage EXCEPT
A) news blackouts.B) news leaks.
C) timing of announcements.
D) trial releases .
35) Government officials try to shape news coverage with all of the following EXCEPT
A) press conferences.
B) stonewalling.
C) shilling.
D) trial balloons .
36) When there is a deliberate leak of a potential policy to test public response, it’s called
A) public relations.
B) putting a toe in the water.
C) a trial balloon.
D) a framed response.
37) A deliberate disclosure of confidential or classified information by someone who wants to
advance the public interest is called a
A) hole in the stonewall..
B) personal agenda.
C) break.
D) leak.
38) To refuse to answer questions, sometimes refusing even to meet with reporters, is called
A) stonewalling.
B) a spiral of silence..
C) bad public relations.
D) closing down..
39) In a news blackout
A) the government shuts down the news media to control the spread of information.
B) officials avoid watching or reading news to ensure minimal outside influence.
C) excess information is given to “blow the fuse” of the media and thus keep issues in the dark.
D) no statements are issued and no media questions are answered.
40) Jon Favreau is best known for
A) his investigative news reports of President Bush.
B) being a speechwriter for President Obama.
C) being the campaign manager for President Obama.
D) his television reports on CNN.
41) A President needs speech-writers like Jon Favreau for all of the following reasons EXCEPT
A) crafting messages the President is comfortable delivering and which resonate with audiences.
B) even an effective speech-writing President doesn’t have time to write dozens of speeches a week.
C) to develop quality messages that don’t rely on trickery with words to get attention.
D) to put words in the President’s mouth for routine occasions he doesn’t have time to think about.
42) What is the name for a photogenic, staged event created to attract media attention?
A) photo-op
B) clip-op
C) PR-event
D) news-maker
43) A staged event that lacks substance and is used to attract media attention is
A) illegal.
B) lobbying.
C) a news-maker.
D) a pseudo event.
44) Political ads, usually on TV, in which a candidate criticizes the opponent are called
A) slam ads.
B) moderate ads.
C) negative ads.
D) stonewalling ads.
45) Negative ads, especially savage ones criticizing an opponent and often playing fast and loose
with context and facts, are called
A) negativism.
B) public relations.
C) attack ads.
D) viral advertising.
46) Senator Russ Feingold used what unusual type of political advertising during the 2004 Senate
race?
A) negative ads
B) emotional ads
C) comparison ads
D) humorous ads
47) Current federal regulations try to ensure a level playing field for all candidates for office during
election campaigns by requiring radio and television stations to do all of the following EXCEPT
A) give equal opportunities for airtime to all candidates competing for any particular office.
B) limit political advertising to less than 60 percent of the station’s total advertising time.
C) offer reasonable opportunities for the discussion of differing views of important public issues .
D) sell ad time to any and all candidates for President or for the U.S. House and Senate.
48) Current federal regulations to ensure a level playing field for all candidates for office during
election campaigns require that newspapers and magazines
A) do nothing different because they have a First Amendment guarantee of press freedom.
B) limit political advertising to less than 60 percent of their total page-space.
C) offer reasonable opportunities for the discussion of differing views of important public issues .
D) sell ad space to any and all candidates for President or for the U.S. House and Senate.
49) All of the following statements about PACs are accurate EXCEPT
A) The largest PAC is a union, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.
B) PACs are allowed to directly funnel money into individual candidates’ political campaigns.
C) PACs originated as a legal way to get around restrictions on political contributions.
D) The term “PAC” originally stood for People Against Corruption, which now seems very ironic.
50) To get around Federal Election Commission regulations, some groups seek “527 status” from
the IRS which means all of the following EXCEPT
A) candidates can distance themselves from distasteful attack ads while still benefiting from them.
B) in election years, they cannot begin running political ads until May 27, the origin of “527 status.”
C) they are still a PAC but have slightly different rules about how they distribute their money.
D) they cannot give money directly to candidate, but they can buy ads to influence an election.
14.2 True/False Questions
1) By spending $50 million of her own money on her unsuccessful election campaign, Linda
McMahon set a record for the most expensive campaign for the U.S. Senate in history.
2) One lesson of Linda McMahon’s unsuccessful run for the Senate is that a willingness to spend
massive amounts of money ($50 million) is not enough, by itself, to win an election.
3) As CEO of News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch’s million dollar contributions to Republican
organizations seem to some to violate the long-time separation between news organizations and
party politics.
4) Historically, the only financial connection between political candidates and the news media was
the purchase of advertising time and space by the candidates.
5) A troubling question raised by Linda McMahon’s $50 million Senate campaign is whether public
office is now limited only to those rich enough to buy enormous amounts of ad time and space.
6) The U.S. media are a watchdog of government on the people’s behalf.
7) The press is known as the third estate.
8) The mass media have a formal responsibility defined in the U.S. Constitution to be watchdogs
over government.
9) Though not a formal part of the government’s structure, the press is expected to serve a
watchdog function.
10) Calling the media the fourth branch refers to its role as a watchdog to the official three branches
of government.
11) If it has offered a political candidate airtime, a broadcaster must offer the candidate’s opponent
equal time under similar circumstances.
12) The fairness doctrine refers to a former government rule that said that whenever the media
covered an issue with two sides, the station was required to air all sides of the issue.
13) The fairness doctrine has been strengthened in recent years.
14) In the Burden opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the First Amendment protection of the
print media, even if they are unbalanced and unfair in their coverage.
15) Don Burden lost his radio stations’ licenses after instructing the news staff to run only favorable
stories on one U.S. Senate candidate and negative stories on the other.
16) The Tornillo decision in the U.S. Supreme Court rejected attempts to extend the fairness
doctrine to newspapers.
17) Since the Tornillo decision, the fairness doctrine applies only to print media.
18) As the Supreme Court sees it, the First Amendment applies more directly to print media than
broadcast media.
19) Supreme Court decisions have clearly indicated that the First Amendment protects print media
more fully than it protects broadcast media.
20) Videos on blogs are covered by campaign law.
21) Political content on the web is almost entirely unregulated.
22) The mass media have a minor role in shaping the public’s issues agenda.
23) Media news coverage shapes what we think about, but high-principled journalism should never
try to tell us how we should think about it.
24) Agenda-setting suggests that the press determines exactly what people should think.
25) Media agenda- setting played a significant role in the U.S. racial integration that followed the
1960s Civil Rights Movement.
26) Investigative news coverage of the 1972 Watergate burglary led to the resignation of President
Richard Nixon.
27) The CNN Effect takes place when coverage is so thorough that the public becomes immune to
its impact.
28) In the process called framing, the media selects aspects of an event for coverage in their
messages, thereby shaping the audience’s perception.
29) Framing is used almost exclusively by the television news media.
30) Partisan framing is usually easy to spot. Commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck, as
well as many bloggers, are so blatantly partisan that their framing is obvious.
31) Despite intense, thoughtful, and scholarly attempts to study and assess the political leanings
and possible bias of news media, there is still no consensus or satisfactory way to do it.
32) A confounding factor in studying bias in the news is that good reporters try to balance their
stories with multiple perspectives, including ones they don’t favor or agree with.
33) In an elaborate study to rank news organizations from liberal to conservative, political scientist
Tim Groseclose and economist Jeff Milya came up with findings everyone accepts as accurate.
34) The news media gravitate towards Senate coverage.
35) Conflict can illuminate the issues by which a society is defining or redefining its values.
36) Conflict generally is a useful indicator of newsworthiness.
37) Journalists provide their most important public service by covering political scandals.
38) Policy stories outnumber scandal stories in Washington coverage, but the ratio has narrowed.
39) Negative stories about Congress have regularly outnumbered positive stories by an
increasingly wide margin.
40) Over-attention to the horse race of poll numbers can result in the underplaying of major issues.
42) In the 20 years between 1968 and 1988, the average length of a sound bite shrank to just 10
seconds.
43) One way political candidates attempt to get their views to the public without having them
condensed and packaged by journalists is to appear on late-night talk shows.
44) A trial balloon tests public opinion on an issue by having a top official make a well-publicized
public announcement that something may soon be done.
45) Leaking confidential or classified information to reporters is one way the media can be used by
government.
46) Stonewalling is refusing to answer questions or even talk with the media.
47) Jon Favreau wrote speeches for President Obama
48) Speech-writing for the President is a big job and requires more than one person. Jon Favreau,
President Obama’s chief speech-writer, usually had two assistants.
49) As President Obama’s speech-writer, Favreau was told of events that needed speeches, then
come up with ideas, wrote the speeches, and gave them to the President who rarely made changes.
50) According to President Obama’s chief speech-writer, a speech that will resonate powerfully
through the mass media needs to be loaded with clever phrases and word-trickery.
51) A pseudo-event is an event staged to look like a social event.
52) A photo-op, short for photo opportunity, is a staged event that offers good visuals for photos to
attract media attention.
53) Instant feedback in the form of e-mails from viewers on a specific subject offer dubious results.
54) An attack ad differs from a negative ad in that a specific person is targeted.
55) Negativism in political campaigns is nothing new, but observers fear that television attack ads
have demonstrated just how powerful and effective negativity on television can be.
56) Groups with 527 status can collect unlimited amounts of money independently and are NOT
affiliated with candidates or political parties.
57) Current federal regulations require radio and television stations to provide equal opportunities
for airtime to all candidates competing for any particular office.
58) Legally, radio and television stations must sell ad time to candidates for U.S. President or for
Congress, for governor or legislator of a state, or for mayor in cities with populations over 100,000.
59) Federal regulations limit political advertising to less than 60 percent of a station’s total
advertising time.
60) Federal regulations to ensure a level playing field for all candidates for political office have no
effect on newspapers and magazines which have a First Amendment guarantee of press freedom.
61) PACs which originated as a legal way to get around restrictions on individual political campaign
contributions can directly funnel money into a candidate’s political campaign.
62) The term “PAC” originally stood for People Against Corruption, which now seems ironic in light
of the ways they’re being used.
63) A PAC that has obtained “527 status” from the IRS cannot give money directly to a candidate,
but it can buy ads for or against a candidate to try to influence the election.
64) When a PAC with 527 status pays for ads attacking a candidate’s opponent, the candidate can
distance herself from the distasteful attack ads while continuing to benefit from them.
65) During election years, PACs with 527 status cannot run any political ads before May 27, which
is why they have “527 status.”
66) The role of television and other visual media in politics can certainly be disputed.
67) Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay, spent close to $200 million on her 2010 campaign to
become governor of California.
14.3 Short Answer Questions
1) When the votes were all counted, Linda McMahon, queen of World Wrestling’s Smackdown, had
__________ her $50 million campaign for the U.S. Senate.
2) Edmund Burke referred to the press as the __________ Estate.
3) The __________ to the U.S. Constitution says the government shouldn’t place restrictions on the
press.
4) The requirement that stations offer competing political candidates the same opportunities and
conditions for airing their viewpoints as their opponents is called the __________ rule.
5) The Federal Communications Commission has largely abandoned the __________, a policy which
required broadcasters to air all sides of controversial issues.
6) The Internet is almost entirely __________ in terms of political content.
7) The process of the media telling people what issues they should pay attention to is called
__________.
8) The power of television to put faraway issues in the minds of domestic audiences has been
labeled the __________ effect.
9) __________ is the term for the selection process used in media coverage that shapes how people see
issues.
10) A study of CBS Evening News found that 60 percent of the opening stories featured the __________.
11) Journalists like conflict in part because it always involves __________ which is the essence of news.
12) Media stories about the Watergate cover-up, Monica Lewinski, Hilary Clinton’s investments,
Jack Abramoff’s wheeling-dealing, John Edwards’ infidelity, and other political __________ are still
outnumbered by stories about political and public policy, but not by as much as they used to be.
13) When the news media obsess on reporting polls during a political campaign, they are treating
the campaign like a(n) ___________.
14) The voice clip of a news source in a newscast is a(n) __________ bite.
15) Sound bites have become much __________ in length than they used to be.
16) Trying to ensure news coverage, President Theodore Roosevelt issued many announcements
on __________ because he knew Mondays were such slow news days his stories would get reported.
17) Political leaders float __________ to get an advance peek at public reaction.
18) A(n) __________ is a deliberate disclosure of classified or confidential information that is usually
provided by a confidential source.
19) When someone refuses to answer questions or even meet with reporters, that person is
___________.
20) A(n)__________ is when a person or institution decides to issue no statements and declines news
media questions, despite public interest.
21) Jon Favreau’s job as a __________ involves listening while the President speaks and making notes,
reshaping those notes into a draft, having the President rewrite the draft, then reshaping and
rewriting what the President has done, and finally both of them add the finishing touches.
22) The key to good Presidential __________ that resonate powerfully through the mass media is not
trickery with words but a quality message.
23) A(n) __________ is a staged event, usually a photogenic one, presented to attract media attention.
24) An advertisement that savagely criticizes a political opponent is a(n) __________ ad.
25) Allegedly independent political groups with __________ are not supposed to be affiliated with
political candidates and are tax-exempt so they can collect and spend unlimited funds.
26) Legally, radio and television stations must sell ad time to candidates for __________, or for the U.S.
House and Senate.
27) Federal regulations to ensure a level playing field for all candidates for political office have no
effect on newspapers and magazines which have a __________ guarantee of press freedom.
28) The term “__________” refers to stand-in or front who secretly receives money and then donates it
to a political campaign as a way of getting around legal limits on campaign contributions.
29) The term “PAC” stands for __________.
30) A PAC that has obtained __________ from the IRS cannot give money directly to a candidate, but it
can buy ads for or against a candidate to try to influence the election.
Test Bank for Media of Mass Communication, 11/e
265
14.4 Matching Questions
Match each concept on the left with the best explanation from the right column.
1)Political Action Committee
A) Former broadcast requirement to air all sides of public issues
2) Fourth branch
B) Focusing on polls and who’s leading in election campaigns
3) Fairness doctrine
C) Refusing to answer questions
4) Swiftboating
D) Short snippets of someone’s speech or comments
5)Horse race coverage
E) Organization to funnel large campaign contributions to
candidates
6) Framing
F) Means of balancing candidates’ access to paid exposure on
broadcast stations
7) Sound bites
G)Using attack ads to smear a political candidate
8) Equal time rule
H) Anonymously releasing confidential information to the media
9) Leaking
I) The press
10) Stonewalling
J) Media coverage that shapes how people see issues
14.5 Essay Questions
1) Describe how the press came to be called “the fourth estate” and how that later came to be
synonymous with “the fourth branch” after the U.S. Constitution was written. Further explain how
this history is thought to imply that the U.S. press should play a watchdog role with respect to the
2) Describe the equal time rule and the fairness doctrine in terms of their purpose and their actual
impact on how the broadcast media report on political campaigns and issues today.
3) The text makes a point of saying the Internet is “almost entirely unregulated in terms of political
content.” Explain the extent to which this is the same or different than the way other media are
treated.
4) Discuss three different types of stories that news reporters tend to gravitate towards when
covering politics and government and cite at least two examples of each type.
Page Ref: 375-77, Topic: Media Effects on Government
5) Discuss government officials use of trial balloons and leaks and the impact they have on political
and governmental processes. Indicate whether you think their use is a positive or negative
development, and explain why.
6) Critics often fault the media for falling short in their coverage of political campaigns. Discuss at
least three of the common criticisms of the media’s campaign coverage that you particularly agree
with. Be sure to include a specific example of each criticism you cite and explain why you think it’s a
266
7) Discuss the increasing role of negative ads and attack ads in political campaigns and explain why
you consider them to be a positive or negative development. Be sure to cite at least three specific
examples of ads that support your view.
