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Croteau, Media/Society, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
Chapter 7: Social Inequality and Media Representation
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. Which is NOT one of the five ways in which researchers can assess the significance
of media content?
A. society in general
B. producers
C. audience Interests
D. hypothetical scenarios
2. What research investigates media content as a gauge of social norms?
A. content as reflection of audience preference
B. content as reflection of society in general
C. content as an influence on audiences
D. content as reflection of producers
3. Historically, mainstream U.S. media have taken “Whites” to be the norm against
which all other racial groups are measured. This has led to the study of race and
ethnicity in the U.S. media to focus on the portrayal of minorities, because ______.
A. tradition has many variations associated more with the structuralism and semiology
found in literary and film studies and linguistics
B. racial distinctions have powerful social meaning with profound real-world
consequences
C. comedies reflect a high level of social concern for children
D. the idea that media producers are only “giving the people what they want” also
implies that people want what they get
4. What roles did African Americans get in early Hollywood films of the 1920s and
1930s?
A. entertainer
B. servant
C. antagonist
D. both entertainer and servant
5. In the fashion field, one study of Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Vogue in the late
1980s found that approximately ______ of ads featured Black women
A. 5%
B. 3%
C. 2%
D. 10%
6. Racial and ethnic diversity has increased in the population as a whole and inclusive
content is more likely to attract these diverse audiences to sell to advertisers. In this
way, increased diversity is a ______.
A. path to hiring a more diverse crew
B. call-to-action for advertisers
C. problem that they should ignore
D. money-making proposition
7. While the growth in abundance likely facilitates growing diversity, ironically, it may
undermine the impact of that diversity, this has lead television to be ______.
A. inclusive to all
B. segregated
C. more engaging
D. unimportant
8. In what year did the trend in media turn toward more inclusiveness and growing
sensitivity?
A. 2000s
B. 1920s
C. 1960s
D. 2010s
9. Which is an example of “modern” racism?
A. the stereotype of the idealized Indian in Dances With Wolves
B. the “Mammy” caricature
C. the themes in To Kill a Mockingbird
D. Tim Burtons Claymation style
10. What type of racism includes subtle stereotypes and tends to remain below
conscious awareness?
A. traditional racism
B. casual racism
C. modern racism
D. covert racism
11. What did Entman and Rojecki contend after finding in their survey that crime stories
tended to overrepresent both Black perpetrators and White victims?
A. Black crime is more exciting.
B. White victims make for better interviews.
C. Media just gives what the people want.
D. Blacks tend to be portrayed in ways that make them more threatening and less
sympathetic than Whites.
12. A reason for the absence or stereotyping of different racial groups in the media is
that ______.
A. those racial groups aren’t putting themselves out there enough
B. there weren’t very many minorities at the time
C. White men have historically controlled the mainstream mass media
D. minorities were only interested in counterculture.
13. One way minority journalists have worked for change in their field is by ______.
A. organizing a variety of associations to collaborate on efforts to promote diversity in
the newsroom
B. covering stories only about minorities
C. pushing White men out of power
D. organizing boycotts to bring awareness to their struggles
14. In media, women are more likely to be focused on ______.
A. money
B. family
C. religion
D. both family and religion
15. In a recent content analysis of prime-time television it was found that male
characters ______.
A. are not being objectified
B. are more family oriented than female characters
C. are equally as dominant when compared to female characters
D. still appear more dominant through verbal and physical aggression
16. One well-documented area of class imagery is the ______.
A. romantic-comedy
B. family-based sitcom
C. relationship-based drama
D. action-adventure movie
17. What profession will you most likely find an adult having in a home-based situation
comedy?
A. schoolteacher
B. lawyer
C. nurse
D. accountant
18. Which is an exception to the relative scarcity of working-class characters on
sitcoms?
A. reality television
B. survival shows
C. animated comedies
D. cooking shows
19. According to Derry, a worrying side to reality television in recent years is that it
______.
A. instills a sense of fear and loathing
B. corrupts the hearts and minds of young children and teens
C. has grown in popularity and may become the new standard for television
D. creates stereotypes and ever caricatures for easy comedy, mockery, or disgust
20. An issue with how unions are featured in media is that ______.
A. they are promoted to heavily and give unions in reality too much power
Croteau, Media/Society, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
B. it’s only ever used for comedic relief
C. they are not featured at all
D. it’s usually in a negative light, claiming that they encourage unproductive, lazy, and
insubordinate workers
21. Which is NOT a way news media content panders to middle- and upper-class
readers and viewers?
A. the inclusion of stock market reports
B. lack of labor reports
C. the addressing of people as consumers and never as workers
D. the availability of the news media content being open to everyone
22. The organizational structure of journalism favors coverage of ______.
A. the wealthy and powerful
B. the homeless
C. the working class
D. the middle class
23. Unrepresentative images of class are perhaps most obvious in ______.
A. entertainment television
B. news
C. advertising
D. movies
24. In “class shaming,” ______.
A. the working class is given positive representation
B. the working class are presented as losers and incompetents
C. the wealthy are targeted and shown as shallow
D. the working class are shown to be more important than they actually are
25. What is of big concern for advertisers?
A. the economic status of media consumers
B. the race of media consumers
C. the health and wellness of media consumers
D. the morality of media consumers
26. As a result of media producers needing advertisers, media producers tend to
______.
A. improve the demographic profile (in terms of average household income)
B. avoid content that might offend advertisers
C. deliver solidly middle-class consumers
D. all of these
27. With the need to avoid controversy and deal with severe time constraints, writers
and other personnel often ______.
A. resort to tried and tested formulas
B. think outside of the box on projects
C. hire on more people to deal with the workload
D. come up short on their projects
28. Fejes and Petrich argued that, until the early 1930s, film portrayals of homosexuals
were used as ______.
A. comic devices
B. a form of erotic titillation
C. to depict deviance, perversion, and decadence
D. all of these
29. Fejes and Petrich note that, during the 1960s, homosexuality was portrayed at best
as ______.
A. completely reasonable
B. unhappiness and sickness
C. Witchcraft
D. a crime against humanity
30. What milestone for the LGBTQ community happened in 1997?
A. David Fisher of the HBO series Six Feet Under is the first complex gay male
character
B. Elton John became openly “gay”
C. Ellen DeGeneres “came out”
Croteau, Media/Society, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
D. the L Word aired on showtime and focused on the lives of lesbian, bisexual, and
transgender people
1. There are well-intentioned works that have racist stereotypes.
2. Historically, mainstream U.S. media have taken “Whites” to be the norm against
which all other racial groups are measured.
3. Collectively, minorities are represented correctly based on population in the United
States.
4. On television through the 1940s and 1950s, Blacks were given virtually no serious
dramatic roles.
5. Early studies of advertising repeatedly found underrepresentation of people of color
but more recent research show significantly increased diversity.
6. There were very few Hispanic or Native American primary characters in the 150 most
popular games of 2005.
7. Most mainstream media are commercial ventures that pay close attention to user
trends.
8. Even well-intentioned works that perpetuate a positive image of African Americans
can do harm.
9. Modern racism includes blackface.
10. Asian Americans, despite making up more than one third of San Francisco, are still
underrepresented in media that takes place there.
11. Changing the mainstream media from within is not a viable strategy for taking back
control of media images of race.
12. The American Society of Newspaper Editor has reached their goal of creating
newsrooms that reflect the nation’s diversity.
13. Even now, the majority of recurring characters on television are men.
14. Over the years, the dominant roles for women have been as mother, homemaker, or
sexual object.
15. Overwhelmingly, the American society portrayed in the media is wealthier than it is
in the real world.
Answer Location: Class and Media Content
Short Answer
1. What are the three crucial issues that emerge when we consider how racial and
ethnic differences have been portrayed in the media? Why?
2. What are some ways that activists from both inside and outside of the industry have
tried to change media practices?
3. What are some advantages and disadvantages to developing alternative media?
Croteau, Media/Society, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
4. What are some advantages and disadvantages to changing the mainstream media
from within?
5. What are the common characteristics given to a working-class man on television?
