Chapter 11 Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. Cumulatively, the media’s crime-and-justice content forwards the all of the
following claims EXCEPT __________________.
a. Crime fighters need more training and resources because they are not
capable of solving crimes legally.
b. Criminals can be rehabilitated in prison.
c. Crime is a result of individual characteristics and is not related to social
structure, racism, or poverty.
d. The courts allow dangerous offenders to avoid guilt.
2. Research suggests that the media’s influence on criminality is an immediate
concern due to all of the following considerations EXCEPT _________________.
a. Media effects motivate terrorists.
b. The media likely have more of a copycat effect on violent crime than
property crime.
c. People seeking notoriety imitate crimes.
d. Violence-prone children and individuals who have difficulty
distinguishing fact from fantasy are particularly at risk for aping media
violence.
3. All of the following statements regarding media-based anticrime efforts are true
EXCEPT __________________.
a. Anticrime efforts appear to be an effective means of disseminating
information and influencing attitudes, but their ability to significantly
affect behavior has not been established.
b. Although useful in specific areas, media-based anticrime programs are not
likely to significantly reduce the overall crime rate.
c. Media-based anticrime programs can have significant immediate effects.
d. Media-based anticrime programs can have significant long-term effects.
4. There are conflicting arguments regarding the media’s effects on unwanted
behaviors and public policies. Which of the following is the model of causality
that concedes a statistical association between the media and some negative
behaviors, but argues that the connection is due not to a causal relationship but to
persons predisposed to certain behaviors seeking out particular types of media and
concurrently behaving in ways similar to the behavior displayed in the media.
Therefore, media can be safely ignored.
a. Negligible cause model
b. Nonlinear cause model
c. Primary cause model
d. Bidirectional cause model
5. The forces which drive the media and continue the disparity between media–
constructed reality of crime and the real world reality of crime and justice include
all of the following EXCEPT ___________________.
a. organizational
b. commercial
c. cultural
d. individual
6. Which type of media-driving force must show a profit regardless of the social
effects, while encouraging redundancy and boundary pushing?
a. organizational
b. commercial
c. cultural
d. individual
7. Which type of media-driving force comes into play in a wide-scale social
acceptance of the media-generated predator criminal icon, which entertains and
comforts us?
a. organizational
b. commercial
c. cultural
d. individual
8. Media-driven social trends have moved us toward more open public institutions
and enhanced scrutiny of public trends. As a result, new media have done all of
the following EXCEPT ________________________.
a. Increased the public’s tolerance for surveillance
b. Decreased media trial coverage
c. Revealed previously low-visibility criminal justice events
d. Increased the acceptance of media technology and entertainment
formatting in crime and justice
9. Media have changed the way people interact with each other. All of the following
statements are true EXCEPT ________________________.
a. The media experience is moving farther away from the direct personal
experience.
b. The full effects of interactive media will be significant in games that
emulate the experiences of crime and violence.
c. There is less direct, face-to–face conversation.
d. There is more face-to–face-like communication via media technology.
10. The future of crime-and-justice reality provides for differing scenarios. The
scenario that frames a free-wheeling infotainment media which dominates the
culture in a technologically resplendent journalism driven by an intrusive, near
sadistic voyeurism is known as ________________.
a. Surveillance
b. Interactivity
c. The crime and justice spectacle
d. None of the above
11. The future of crime-and-justice reality provides for differing scenarios. The
scenario that portrays the commercial media as operating under heavy restrictions,
with tight constraints on their ability to cover, comment on, and portray crime–
and-justice issues and cases is known as ___________________.
a. Surveillance
b. Interactivity
c. The crime and justice spectacle
d. None of the above
12. The single most significant social effect of media crime-and-justice content is on
which of the following?
a. Its effect on generating crime
b. Its effect on criminal justice policies
c. Its effect on behaviors
d. None of the above
13. The media’s role in terrorism is evolving primarily in reaction to __________.
a. The internet
b. Television news coverage
c. Radio coverage
d. Video games
14. The “smug hack” icon is the media’s portrayal of which of the following criminal
justice personnel?
a. police
b. prosecutors
c. defense attorneys
d. correction officers
15. All of the following statements are true regarding media and social construction,
EXCEPT __________________.
a. America’s popular media sets the stage for how we understand crime.
b. We spend more money trying to deal with the problem.
c. Information about crime and justice flows in unabated content looping
cycles.
d. All of the above statements are true.
True/False
1. The dominant crime-and-justice portrait shows that the most effective crime
fighters are those who work within the criminal justice system, adhering to due
process considerations.
2. By constructing crime-and-justice reality, the media subtly affect crime-and-
justice policies.
3. One of the postulates that drive expectations about future media, crime, and
justice interactions is that the media, more often than not, construct the criminal
justice system and its people negatively and as ineffective; yet the cumulative
effect is support for more police, more prisons, and more money for the criminal
justice system.
4. Future media scenarios must be considered due to the fact that the technologies
and capabilities are already available.
5. The social construction perspective prevents us from recognizing claims makers.
6. The most common media portrait of criminality is that of a violent offender who
hunts innocent victims.
7. The media works on copycat crime as a trigger more than a rudder.
8. The media has the capacity to influence criminal behavior with a widespread
criminalizing effect.
9. The media portrays the most successful crime fighters as armed civilians and elite
rogue law enforcement officers.
10. Media content lends support to preventive or rehabilitative criminal justice
policies over punitive policies.