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6. According to Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, what three characteristics of the news media restrict the
breadth and depth of perspectives on an issue available to citizens?
7. What are the three Bs of television? What do they say about the role of that medium in our culture?
8. What are cultural indicators’ five assumptions about television? How does each support the argument
of power media effects?
9. What is Gerbner’s ‘ice age analogy?” Do you agree or disagree with it?
10. In what ways are Silverblatt’s and Potter’s conceptions of media literacy similar? Different? Which do
you find more personally useful and why?
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Almost everyone thinks that U.S. politics needs reform. Do you agree with arguments that place
considerable responsibility for this situation on the mass media? Could or should national politics and
national political campaigns be reported differently?
2. Can you think of a situation in which you were reluctant to express your opinions on an issue because
media reports indicated that these opinions were becoming less popular? In other words, have you been a
victim of the spiral of silence? Are you afraid of becoming socially isolated when you express unpopular
views on issues? If not, do you have friends and family (reference groups) who you can count on for
support even if you express unpopular views?
3. Do you believe those researchers who argue that one of the problems of our contemporary political
system is the loss of social capital, that is, that many of the traditional social groups that bring diverse
people together and develop local political leaders are losing membership and influence? If not, why not?
Do you accept their view of media’s role in this breakdown? Why or why not?
Discussion Aids
Gerbner himself presents cultivation analysis in The Electronic Storyteller: Television and the
Cultivation of Values from the Media Education Foundation (www. igc.org/mef). Films for the Humanities
& Sciences (www.films.com) offers three videos that support the chapter’s news intrusion and news
production research discussions—The Looking Glass: Inside TV News, Talked to Death: Have TV Talk
Shows Gone Too Far, and The Rise of the Television Talk Show.
Advertising and the commodification of culture are addressed in Insight Media’s (www.insight-
media.com) The Fine Art of Separating People From Their Money, The 30 Second Seduction, Why Ads
Work: The Power of Self Deception, and Invisible Persuaders: The Battle for Your Mind. The Ad and the
Ego, from California Newsreel (e-mail: newsreel@ix.netcom.com) is the best of this lot. Particularly
powerful videos, The Merchants of Cool and The Persuaders, are available from PBS Video. Aimed at
students like ours, it is a strong indictment of convergence and synergy’s influence on the media and, by
extension, the culture.
Several good sources exist to support the chapter’s media literacy section. Films for the
Humanities & Sciences (www.films.com) has a three-part series The Internet Learning Program, with each
unit running between 30 and 40 minutes. Face to Face Media (phone: 604-251-0770) distributes a forty-
unit literacy collection called Scanning Television. Insight Media (www.insight-media.com) has a similar
but more compact video course, Creating Critical TV Viewers and a 30-minute tape entitled Tuning Into
Media: Literacy for the Information Age. Finally, First Light Video (www.firstlightvideo.com) distributes a
ten-part series called Lessons in Visual Language, each unit running from 9 to 16 minutes.
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Several of this chapter’s concepts can be illuminated through the use of contemporary television
news programming, news magazines, and newspapers. Any of the intra-Party and inter-Party debates
from the 2011/2012 presidential campaign season can be used as well. Have students match their
“agendas” with those of different news organizations or with debate questioners’. Framing, news
production research, and objectivity rituals are all there as well. Be warned, though, student bias often
leads to useful or destructive class debate. You may have to ride herd a little on the discussion.
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CHAPTER 10
MEDIA AND CULTURE THEORIES: MEANING-MAKING IN THE SOCIAL WORLD
Multiple Choice
1. Both symbolic interaction and social construction assume that it is _________
that allows the construction, maintenance, and efficient operation of culture.
a) typification schemes
b) symbolic override
2. According to Erving Goffman, we are constantly
c) moving from fantasy to reality as we go from TV to the real world
d) making framing mistakes that we experience as frightening and unreal
3. In Gender Advertisements, Goffman argues that advertising routinely
shows women to be __________ than men
a) less athletic
4. Advertising strategies that encourage people to attach certain symbolic
meaning to products and experience these as real-attributes are making
an effort to
a) inform consumers about the merits of products
5. In frame analysis, ________ is the real world in which people and events
obey certain conventional and widely accepted rules.
a) up-shifted reality
b) primary reality
6. According to social construction of reality, ________ are objects expressly
designed to impart subjective meaning.
c) symbols
d) typification schemes
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7. Goffman’s frame analysis argues that although people have the capacity to
reframe their experience on an ongoing basis, we maintain the
impression that our experiences are constant and routine. We do this by
a) ignoring the cues around us
b) losing ourselves in the mass media
8. Specific sets of expectations that people use to make sense of social
situations at given points in time are called
a) upshifts
b) downshifts
9. Mead used the example of a baseball team to illustrate how people routinely
learn
a) how to use media
b) athletic skills
10. Alfred Schutz, originator of the concept of typifications, encouraged his
students to
c) see the similarities in a broad range of cultural experiences
d) ignore ideas popularized by the Chicago School
11. Which of the following is not an example of a communication commodity?
a) television program
12. According to Tunstall, American mass media have been so successful in
selling their cultural commodities worldwide because
a) U.S. political power backs them up
b) it is part of a U. S. elite effort to subvert world culture
13. Social constructionism is a theory that argues that
c) we are free to construct the social world any way that we want
d) churches and schools don’t do much to construct the social world
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14. When framing theorists assess the way journalists frame news about science
c) optimistic because frames tend to encourage interest in and respect for
science
d) neutral because there is no clear conclusion about the way science is framed
15. A communication theory that examines who participates in transforming
communication into action, in which sectors and institutions of society,
with what basis in everyday life, by what form of consensus concerning
criteria and procedures, and with what consequences for the structure of
society is said to be a __________ theory.
c) postmodern
d) mediated
Essay
1. Agency is central to pragmatist theory. What does “agency” mean in this context and how does
pragmatism see its operation and value?
2. Give an example that indicates how social construction of reality theory can be applied to the study of
media and politics. You can describe some specific research, or you can make up your own example.
3. What are the basic precepts of symbolic interaction? Of social construction of reality? Which do you
find more useful in understanding media’s role in our culture? Why?
4. Explain how critical cultural theorists view advertising. Why do they consider it to be the ultimate media
commodity? What long-term societal and individual consequences do they attribute to advertising? How
do you view these criticisms?
5. How does social construction of reality distinguish between symbols and signs? Which do you think
hold greater importance in the shaping of our culture? Why?
6. Both symbolic interaction and social construction of reality assume shared or a correspondence of
meaning. What does this mean? How does it come about?
Critical Thinking Questions
1. What examples of failure to share meaning of signs and symbols can you recall from your own
experience? What was the outcome of those experiences? Why do you think errors occurred (try to frame
your answer in terms of the intersection of communication and culture)?
2. Has your life been affected or disrupted by consumption of cultural commodities, including advertising?
Can you think of any examples of misconceptions about yourself or the world that you got from media
content? Could you have avoided making these mistakes? To what extent should media practitioners be
held responsible for them?
3. Do you know any heavy users of television? If so, is Gerbner right? Do these people have views of the
social world that are biased toward the way that medium portrays it? Are they more fearful of being victims
of crime and more supportive of police power?
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4. Have you ever made a serious framing error? That is, have you ever approached a situation with one
set of expectations, only to have to downshift or upshift to perform appropriately? Describe the situation.
Were you successful in making the necessary adjustment?
5. Where would you place yourself along a media literacy continuum that runs from clueless to completely
in control of interpretation? Defend your answer.
Discussion Aids
A number of the discussion aids suggested for previous chapters can be used to illustrate points
made in this chapter. In particular, you could reuse TV program segments that students have considered
when they discussed other theories. Does framing theory allow differing interpretations of the content? For
example, what sort of social world is being constructed by I Love Lucy or Leave it to Beaver? How does
this social world compare to one constructed by current TV shows. Assess these shows using cultural
commodification notions. It’s often easier for students to detect cultural commodification in older
programs. For example, TV westerns from the 1960s could be shown and the commodification of Native
Americans could be discussed.
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CHAPTER 11
THE FUTURE OF MEDIA THEORY AND RESEARCH
Multiple Choice
1. Internet addiction is characterized by __________.
a) constant attention to multiple websites
2. People addicted to the Internet often have individual sessions that last as
much as_____ hours.
a) 60
3. Internet depression is often accompanied by anhedonia, ___________.
c) excessive social networking site use
d) reduced social networking site use
4. Many theorists have argued that the introduction of new, personal
communication technologies will invite more people into the process of news
production and distribution. They label this effort __________.
a) crowd-sourcing the news
b) audience-centered news
5. ________ describes the brain’s physiological adaptation to the sensory stimuli
c) Atomization
d) Evolution
6. New technology critics sometimes echo the fears of the early ______ theorists
in that they worry that technology will disconnect or atomize individuals.
a) cultural critical
b) limited-effects
7. An identifying code added to a computer’s hard drive by a visited website is
______________
c) an atomizer
d) a filter
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8. Because the Internet sorts the materials people see based on their already
existing interests, the realities they construct from this profit-motivated content
selection may not serve people or democracy very well. This is an argument quite
at home in ___________ theory.
c) postmodern
d) limited-effects
9. Persuasion consists not only of attitude change and attitude formation, but
attitude ________.
a) alteration
b) replacement
10. The dual-factor model of Facebook use argues that people’s use of that site
is motivated by the need to belong and _________.
a) lonliness
11. The tendency for creators of social network site profiles to display idealized
characteristics that do not reflect their actual personalities is the ______
hypothesis.
a) extended real-life
b) filter bubble
12. The ________ predicts that people use social networking to communicate
their real personalities.
c) dual-factor
d) idealized virtual identity
13. When the functions of an existing medium are replaced by a newer
technology, the older medium finds new functions. This is ___________.
a) obsolescence
b) survival of the fittest
14. ________ is branded or sponsored online content that takes the form of
c) Pseudo-journalism
d) Pseudo-events
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15. News frames that highlight positive aspects of social movements an dthe
need for action are ___________ frames.
a) participatory
b) news reality
Essay
1. How are new digital communication technologies producing profound changes in the delivery of health
care and health care information?
2. Discuss Internet addiction, depression, and distraction. Illustrate these concepts with specific examples
from your own experience or people that you know.
3. What is the filter bubble and how might it be affecting the sorts of advertising that you see when you
use the Internet?
4. Why do Bennett and Iyengar think that the Internet could reduce the power of media and lead to a new
era of minimal media effects?
5. To what extent do you rely on computer mediated communication as an alternative to face to face
communication? If you are a Facebook user, then you likely use it to mediate quite a bit of communication
with a large network of friends. Discuss the pros and cons of this mediation.
6. Discuss the efforts to reconceptualize and reform journalism. Are they useful and necessary or are they
problematic? Explain your views.
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Are you a new communication technology optimist or a new technology pessimist? Do you think the
rapid and sometimes amazing advances we are seeing in how we can interact with one another and our
environments will produce a more humane culture or one that leaves us separated and isolated? Support
your answer, using evidence from your current media use if you can.
2. Good or bad, societal and cultural change will inevitably follow advances in communication technology.
But who should direct or shape that change? If “the market” is to provide that direction, will some groups
be served more than others will? Will some groups benefit and some be disadvantaged more than others
will? Identify the winners and losers in the communication revolution should the market rule.
Should government or some other technocracy (Chapter 3), presumably with the best interests of all in
mind, regulate the new communication technologies? Defend your answer.
3. Maybe the market should direct the social and cultural change that follows advances in communication
technology. Maybe the government should, but what of the public? Media literacy advocates believe that
people—if they are sufficiently media literate—will do the best job. After all, their lives and their worlds will
be affected. Do you think this view of people’s willingness and ability to actively participate in the mass
communication process is too optimistic? Defend your answer, using examples from your own media use
if you can.
4. Native advertising, sponsored content, or whatever one calls the eroding distinction between paid-for
and journalist-created content is very controversial, as you might imagine. But is it better than having no
news organizations at all? What might you suggest as a happy medium, if at all? If you see no
compromise, defend your argument.
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5. Critics have argued that journalism could do more to tell people how to take action against society’s
problems. Journalists argue that they can’t remain objective and become involved in solving those
problems. What do you think? Are there examples of problems that journalists should help to solve?
Currently, the nation is facing a number of difficult issues, immigration, how to best deal with terrorism, too
many Americans without health insurance, for example. Yet most people are poorly informed about these
problems or how to solve them. Should journalists be doing more the assist in clarifying the problems and
suggesting solutions or would that involve them in partisan politics?
Discussion Aids
This chapter is structured to allow debate over the future of media theory as mass communication
itself is undergoing massive change. Discussion, therefore, should be easy to initiate simply by having
students debate the issues raised in the chapter—the Internet as an example of the double edge of
technology; the return of minimal effects, yes or no; computer-mediated communication as a substitute for
face-to-face interaction; the plusses and minuses of electronic health communication; how will journalism
survive its current disruption; can journalism be reformed.
There are also several videos options that can fuel comment. Commentary on the communication
revolution and its promise or peril can be generated from a number of videos. Intercon Productions in New
York City distributes the William Gibson vehicle Cyberpunk. In it, the patron saint of the cyber-revolution
discusses his dark view of the wired future. PBS’s Frontline, Bill Moyers Journal, and Independent Lens
regularly run documentaries on or discussions of contemporary new technology and media issues. Check
their Websites as the programs are offered free for streaming. Finally, Jay Rosen, featured in this chapter,
maintains an excellent blog at pressthink.org that frequently offers provocative videos.