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56. Which of the following statements about cross-platform media convergence is false?
A) A primary goal is to maximize profits.
B) A common result of this kind of convergence is using fewer employees to generate
content for multiple outlets.
C) It can involve a single company owning various media holdings, such as radio and
television stations, Internet service providers, and cable television systems.
D) A primary goal is to offer more choice to media consumers.
E) None of the statements are false.
57. Which of the following statements about Google is false?
A) Google makes most of its money by generating original content.
B) Google is an example of a successful digital age media company.
C) Google is used to locate both “new” and “old” media content.
D) Google makes most of its money from shopping-related searches.
E) Google has expanded far beyond being a search engine by offering e-mail,
mapping, and numerous other services.
58. Which of the following statements best describes media convergence?
A) It only happened because of the Internet.
B) It makes older forms of mass communication obsolete and leads to their disuse.
C) It allows older forms of mass communication to find new life with new technology
D) It creates new forms of media unlike anything we’ve seen before.
E) It only applies to the reinvention of the printed word.
59. What is one concern identified in the textbook about the future of news content available
through Internet news search sites like Google?
A) People aren’t interested in reading the news online.
B) Who will pay for quality news content?
C) It seems likely that newspapers will block their material from search engines.
D) Newspapers, radio stations, and television stations don’t like the Internet.
E) All of the options are correct.
60. As writer Joan Didion once put it, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” Narratives
are the main way we make sense and meaning of life experiences. What is an example of a
narrative used by media?
A) A post on a blog
B) A tweet by Donald Trump
C) A funny television commercial
D) A Fox News “exclusive”
E) All of the options are correct
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61. Concerns about how young people might be negatively influenced by messages in
popular or “low” cultural forms _______.
A) didn’t happen until the appearance of rock-and-roll music in the 1950s
B) were resolved by Plato, Aristotle, and other classical philosophers who decided for
all time what was to be considered “art”
C) have been around at least since the time of the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates
D) have always been about important moral values and never a cover for racism or
bigotry
E) existed in ancient Greece, but went away until jazz music started to become popular
around the start of the twentieth century
62. Elvis Presley was filmed only from the waist up in his third appearance on the Ed
Sullivan Show because _______.
A) his left leg was in a cast
B) some critics considered his hip movements lascivious
C) another singer complained that Presley had stolen his dance routine
D) the public demanded to see Presley’s face close up
E) None of the options are correct.
63. According to your textbook, a major concern of critics of contemporary culture is
_______.
A) dull and boring television
B) making sure networks have enough money to continue making programs
C) overly restrained talk shows that are too polite to discuss difficult topics
D) children being bombarded by too many television commercials
E) the lack of information available to consumers
64. Which of the following statements best describes how the textbook characterizes the
interaction of media and society?
A) Media are definitely the cause of society’s problems.
B) Media are just a mirror that reflects what is already in society.
C) Violent movies and song lyrics cause school violence, not media.
D) How much media really shape society is unknown.
E) None of the options are correct.
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65. Critics who adopt the “skyscraper” model of understanding culture worry that too much
“low” culture will _______.
A) stunt their imagination and undermine their intellectual growth
B) take meaningful and complex works of art and literature and render them trivial
C) distract people from meaningful political action and important social change
D) prevent people from experiencing genuine art
E) All of the options are correct.
66. Which of the following statements does not represent part of the traditional “high”
culture critique against popular culture?
A) Popular culture is formulaic and repetitive.
B) Popular culture simply exploits and recycles “high” culture to lesser effect.
C) Popular culture debases our taste for finer culture.
D) Popular culture creates a greater appetite for “high” culture, making “high” culture
less elite.
E) The abundance of pop culture material leaves consumers with less time and money
to spend on “high” culture.
67. Critics who view culture as a map _______.
A) see the map as rigidly structured
B) acknowledge that the familiar and unknown often coexist in the same song, movie,
or other cultural artifact
C) feel that culture was more meaningful in the “good old days” of the mid-twentieth
century
D) see popular culture as more innovative than “high” culture
E) None of the options are correct.
68. In the nineteenth century, critics felt which of the following might create havoc?
A) Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Gothic novel Frankenstein
B) Populism
C) “Mash–ups” such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
D) Rising literacy rates among the working class
E) Increased access to technology
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69. Which statement(s) reflect(s) the modern period’s ideal about working efficiently?
A) New technology should be used to make manufacturing more efficient, thereby
providing inexpensive products for everyday life.
B) There was a cultural shift from the ornate and decorative to the functional.
C) It provoked criticism about the impact on individual dignity, such as in the book
Brave New World and the movie Modern Times.
D) Modern journalism rejected decorative adjectives and adverbs for “just the facts.”
E) All of the options are correct.
70. Which of the following is not a value the textbook associates with postmodern culture?
A) Resistance to ideas such as “high” and “low” culture that set hierarchies of taste.
B) An emphasis on the fragmentation and mixing of cultural styles.
C) Increased faith in science owing to technological and scientific advances.
D) A willingness to accept paradox.
E) All of the options are correct.
71. Celebrating populism in postmodern culture can result in _______.
A) political leaders talking about their love of expensive wine, fancy French cheese,
country club memberships, and an Ivy League education
B) political leaders telling stories that are meant to resonate with the middle-class
C) political leaders talking about well-respected and peer-reviewed scientific studies
D) political leaders openly supporting big corporations
E) None of the options are correct.
72. Postmodern values include which of the following?
A) A belief in rational order
B) Working efficiently
C) Diversity and fragmentation of cultural styles
D) Rejecting tradition
E) None of the options are correct.
73. Which of the following is an aspect of postmodern culture?
A) The idea that populist themes devalue the notion of “art”
B) Acknowledging paradoxes such as having both a nostalgia for the past and an
appetite for new technology
C) Never mixing fact with fiction, preferring only to “stick to the facts”
D) Believing that rational thought is the answer to every social problem
E) All of the options are correct.
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74. Which of the following does the textbook associate with postmodern culture?
A) HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
B) The New York Times
C) The Gutenberg Bible
D) Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World
E) None of the options are correct.
75. In the interpretation stage of the critical process, an answer must be found to which of
the following questions?
A) When?
B) How many?
C) Who?
D) So what?
E) Where?
76. What does the textbook suggest is the best way to approach media literacy and media
criticism?
A) Learn as much as you can so you can sit on the sidelines and criticize effectively.
B) Understand the various types of media so you can participate in the process of
helping them live up to their democratic potential.
C) Examine mass media through a careful critical process.
D) Both the “learn” and “examine” options are correct.
E) Replace cynical perception of the media with genuine criticism.
77. The five major phases in communication history include the ___________________,
written, print, electronic, and digital periods.
78. The telegraph was the first media development to break the connection between
transportation and ____________________.
79. ____________________ refers to images, texts, and sounds that are converted into
electronic signals that are later reassembled as a precise reproduction of the original image, text,
or sound.
80. The phenomenon whereby audiences seek messages and meanings that correspond to
their preexisting beliefs and values is called ____________________.
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81. The stages in the development of most new mass communication industries are called
the ____________________ stage, the entrepreneurial stage, the mass medium stage, and the
convergence stage.
82. ____________________ is the technological merging of content in different media
channels.
83. The common denominator that makes both our entertainment and information cultures
compelling is ____________________.
84. According to the textbook, one attains ____________________ by following a five-step
critical process: description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and engagement.
85. ____________________ is the second step in the critical process. It involves discovering
significant patterns that emerge from the description stage.
86. The final step in the critical process, ____________________ occurs when citizens
actively work to create a media world that helps serves democracy.
87. Explain how the printing press helped books become the first mass medium.
88. What is the importance of the telegraph in media history?
89. Explain the two different meanings of the term media convergence.
90. Using an example, explain the four stages in the development of a new mass medium.
91. Describe the linear model of mass communication and give at least one critique of the
model.
92. Name three ways in which “high” culture differs from “low” culture.
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93. Explain why thinking of culture as a map rather than as a skyscraper or hierarchy is more
inclusive. Use your own example(s) to illustrate your answer.
94. Describe the five-step critical process for developing media literacy.
95. Using your own favorite or familiar example from popular media (a hip-hop or
alternative rock song, a TV show, a magazine), explain how it works as culture (a term you will
need to define).
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Answer Key
1. A
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45. E
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91.
92.
93.
94.
95.