Chapter 6 Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. Which of the following have the courts recently defined?
a. What is or is not insane behavior
b. Proper or improper child care
c. Intrusive or acceptable government law enforcement policies
d. All of the above
2. Which of the following is NOT an emphasis of media judicial portraits?
a. Rare events
b. Common charges
c. Unlikely interactions
d. Improbable evidence
3. Which of the following is NOT true of female attorney portrayals in the media?
a. Like police women, female attorneys in the media are often defeminized
b. Police women have had a longer tradition in the media than female attorneys
c. The real world experiences of female attorneys are more likely to be portrayed
than the real world experiences of police women
d. Female attorneys are often portrayed as young, white, single, and childless
4. Which of the following is NOT true of media trials?
a. Media trials have been present in society for less than 50 years
b. Media trials are massively and intensively covered
c. Coverage of media trials is live whenever possible
d. When it comes to media trials, pictures are preferred over text
5. In their coverage of trials, the media offer direct and individualist explanations of crime,
which does NOT include _______________.
a. feelings of lust
b. insane diagnoses
c. social obstacles to conformity
d. immoral behavior
6. Which of the following entertainment media narratives, all of which are common in
media trial representations, typically involve bizarre or sexually related crime?
a. Abuse of power
b. The sinful rich
c. Evil strangers
d. None of the above
7. The entertainment media narrative of “evil strangers” includes the following
subgroup(s)?
a. Non-Americans and the sinful rich
b. The sinful rich and psychotic killers
c. Psychotic killers and non-Americans
d. All of the above
8. Which of the following is a major concern regarding the effects of televising trials?
a. The courts don’t want the public to have access to the courtroom and trial
procedures
b. Defendants’ rights to privacy will be infringed upon
c. Attorneys, judges, and other participants may alter their courtroom behaviors in
the presence of cameras
d. All of the above
9. In 1981 the Supreme Court rejected previously held assumptions about television during
the Chandler v. Florida case. The Court felt that television could benefit the judicial
system by showing all of the following EXCEPT __________.
a. Plea bargaining
b. Conviction of the guilty
c. Imposition of fair sentences
d. Fair procedure
10. A defendant is believed by many to be guilty of child molestation because the media has
been reporting stories from neighbors who have seen the defendant hanging out outside
of a public school even though he has no children. This evidence helps to establish which
of the following prejudicial publicity forms?
a. Factual information
b. Emotional information
c. Both A and B
d. Neither A or B
11. Which judicial strategy for dealing with pretrial publicity directly conflicts with the First
Amendment?
a. Shield strategies
b. Sunshine strategies
c. Reactive strategies
d. Proactive strategies
12. Which of the following is NOT a reactive strategy for dealing with pretrial publicity?
a. restrictive and protective orders
b. the sequestering of jurors
c. the granting of trial continuances
d. the expansion of jury selection
13. Which type of strategy is more effective for dealing with pretrial publicity?
a. Proactive strategies
b. Reactive strategies
c. Both proactive and reactive strategies are equally effective
d. Neither proactive nor reactive strategies are ever effective
14. Which of the following does NOT benefit the media in their pursuit to access government
information and to guard their own information?
a. the Freedom of Information Act (1966)
b. the Privacy Act (1974)
c. Shield Laws
d. the Sunshine Act (1976)
15. Which of the following exemplifies how infotainment has worked its way into court
proceedings?
a. Attorneys use entertainment narratives to construct reality and as building blocks
for their cases
b. Visual representations in the courtroom often include entertainment video clips
c. Real world attorneys often use tactics used by their media counterparts
d. None of the above
True/False
1. The public’s perception of courts is in no way influenced by media portraits and
representations.
2. The courts are distorted indirectly through the media, which presents the judicial system
as soft on crime, easy on criminals, and due process-laden institutions.
3. When lawyers in the media are not being portrayed as crime fighters they can expect to
be portrayed negatively.
4. Media trials have become the most important single contributor to the social construction
of the courts in America.
5. Although televised coverage of trials has become increasingly popular over the years,
there are still some states which forbid cameras in the court room.
6. One unresolved issue of television coverage of trials is the effect the coverage has on
victims reporting crimes, particularly victims of rape.
7. A defendant’s personality and character helps to establish factual information about them
in regards to their innocence or guilt.
8. Jurors can be exposed to extensive media content regarding a case and still be considered
impartial.
9. A judicial contempt-of-court ruling, which deters and punishes those who ignore judicial
order regarding media publicity, is the ultimate reactive judicial remedy for media
publicity.
10. Journalists/reporters feel that their rights are well-protected by shield laws, which protect
them from forced divulgence of information.