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Chapter 8 Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. Which of the following conceptual frameworks, which helps us understand the criminal
justice system and mass media’s effects on the system, can be defined as: seeing the
criminal justice system as an obstacle course in which the government must prove an
accused person’s guilt while conforming to strict procedural rules?
a. Crime control model
b. Retribution model
c. Due process model
d. Community justice model
2. Which of the following conceptual frameworks, which helps us understand the criminal
justice system and mass media’s effects on the system, can be defined as: perceiving the
criminal justice system as an assembly line along which defendants should be processed
as quickly and as efficiently as possible?
a. Crime control model
b. Retribution model
c. Due process model
d. Community justice model
3. News stories rarely place criminal justice information in the contexts of history,
sociology, or politics by highlighting trends, persistent problems, or other systematic
phenomena, which is known as a ____________________.
a. Compounded format
b. Impermanent format
c. Thematic format
d. Episodic format
4. More than one hundred years ago, the media’s ecological image of crime was populated
by which of the following images?
a. Wolves, sheep, and sheepdogs
b. Wolves, chickens, and hunters
c. Wolves, lambs, and shepherd dogs
d. Bears, cows, and border collies
5. Today’s media-constructed crime-and-justice ecology is populated with what type of
offenders, victims, and heroes?
a. ideal
b. unpredictable
c. predictable
d. irrational
6. The belief that a divine higher power will intervene, and reveal and punish the guilty
while protecting the innocent is known as which of the following?
a. Distributive justice
b. Procedural justice
c. Retributive justice
d. Immanent justice
7. When a correlation is looked for between media attention on a social issue and public
concern, what kind of relationship is found?
a. none
b. weak to moderate
c. moderate to strong
d. strong
8. Research indicates that media effects ______________________.
a. Appear to increase with exposure
b. Are more significant the less direct experience people have with an issue
c. Are more significant for newer, concrete issues than for older abstract ones
d. All of the above
9. It is theorized that media are homogenizing society, influencing heavy television
consumers. The hypothesis that the media affect some viewers more than others
regardless of exposure level is called ___________________.
a. inclusion
b. worldview cultivation
c. mainstreaming
d. none of the above
10. The most relevant crime-and-justice attitude that has been linked to the media is fear of
criminal victimization. Fear-of-crime levels are socially important because
_______________.
a. they encourage support for punitive criminal justice policies
b. they increase crime
c. they increase incivility
d. the affect police strategies
11. The media-criminal justice policy model that predicts that the media’s coverage of an
external event and the event may both influence criminal justice policy is called
_______________________.
a. No media influence external even
b. Simultaneous media influence external event
c. Direct media influence
d. None of the above
12. Unexpected effects arise from the novel manner in which the media related to criminal
justice policy. One such effect refers to the tendency for officials to treat defendants in
unpublicized cases harshly if the press has been demanding such treatment for defendants
in publicized cases. This is called the ________________.
a. Anticipatory effect
b. Echo effect
c. Counterproductive effect
d. Reflection effect
13. If DUI prosecutions increase due to an investigatory media series suggesting that lenient
treatment for DUI offenders is common, this is an example of a media-related change
____________________.
a. Due to a criminal justice policy change directly lobbied for by the media
b. In anticipation of a policy being changed
c. In anticipation of media attention
d. In response to the public’s outcry
14. The relationship between the media, policies, and theory can be modeled in a four-step
process. Choose which of the following depicts the steps of the process in the correct
order.
a. social attitudes, perceptions, and behavior ; media’s crime-and-justice content ;
social construction reality process ; criminal justice policy.
b. social construction reality process ; social attitudes, perceptions, and behavior ;
media’s crime-and-justice content ; criminal justice policy.
c. criminal justice policy ; social attitudes, perceptions, and behavior ; social
construction reality process ; media’s crime-and-justice content.
d. media’s crime-and-justice content ; social construction reality process ; social
attitudes, perceptions, and behavior ; criminal justice policy.
15. The media could improve the portrayal of crime and justice by providing comprehensive,
contextual cover, as is done for ________________.
a. Sporting events
b. Entertainment events
c. Political events
d. Weather coverage
True/False
1. Media effects on the criminal justice system are always perceived as bad.
2. The media’s construction of the criminal justice system appears to lead the public to
evaluate the overall system as fair.
3. By depicting a predatory violent social environment, the media show the public that due
process considerations hamper the police.
4. The good versus evil perspective on crime and justice is reflected in the common media
crime fighter who primarily motivated by upholding the law, rather than individual
retribution.
5. In addition to the media’s focus on individual factors as the cause of crime, the portrait
typically includes social and structural conflicts, such as racism, sexism, and economic
inequality.
6. The media emphasis on crime has been credited with raising the public’s fear of being
victimized and giving crime an inappropriately high ranking on the public agenda.
7. Media-based claims are expected to have an equal impact on beliefs about crime among
those who have had direct neighborhood experience with crime, as compared to those
who have not had direct neighborhood experience with crime.
8. The available research indicates that among criminal justice officials, even more than
among the public, the media significantly influence both policy development and support.
9. The predictability of the media’s effect on criminal justice policy makes it easy to
determine the direction and magnitude of influence.
10. If there is a general media effect on criminal justice policy, it is to decrease punitiveness
and surveillance.
