Instructor Resource
Graber, Mass Media and American Politics 10e
CQ Press, 2018
Chapter 10: Foreign Affairs Coverage
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. Which type of news organization would be most likely to cover foreign affairs news?
A. blogs
B. talk radio
C. cable news
D. social media
2. Indexing refers to which of the following?
A. the fact that that the media generally emphasize the government’s positions until many
respected sources voice strong dissent
B. foreign affairs correspondents’ use of index cards to keep their notes in the field
C. journalists’ use of call lists for their elite government sources
D. none of these
3. Which of the following is NOT one of the pressures that shape foreign affairs news?
A. cultural pressures
B. political pressures
C. media diplomacy
D. economic pressures
E. All of these are pressures that shape foreign affairs news.
4. The __________ is the belief that media coverage of foreign affairs has at times
prompted political action by the government.
Red Cross effect
Media Intervention effect
CNN effect
Amnesty International Media effect
None of these
True/False
1. The Indexing effect suggests that political elites drive foreign affairs coverage; the CNN effect
suggests foreign affairs coverage drives the decision making and behavior of political elites.
Instructor Resource
Graber, Mass Media and American Politics 10e
CQ Press, 2018
2. Foreign affairs gets a lot more coverage than domestic politics from U.S. news outlets.
3. Americans do not need to pay attention to foreign affairs news because they are highly
attentive to international politics and relations.
4. Foreign affairs stories rarely comprise even 20% of national news coverage.
5. The economics of news have little to do with the volume of foreign affairs news from major
U.S. outlets.
6. Though many claim Americans are not interested in foreign affairs, some metrics reflect a
more substantial audience for news on international affairs than these arguments suggest.
7. Pressure for sensational coverage is even greater when covering foreign affairs.
8. Though international news bureaus are on the decline generally, a few major outlets remain
committed to keeping their international bureaus and the provision of coverage based on facts on
the ground.
9. Citizen journalists and bloggers are in a position to pick up some of the international reporting
slack; the problem is that most are unlikely to reach mass audiences.
10. Cultural and political factors rarely influence reporting; well-trained professional reporters
from anywhere tell largely the same stories.
11. Threats to foreign reporters around the world is on the rise, making global understanding of
events around the world more difficult.
12. Because terrorist events are sensational, they tend to receive a lot of coverage from U.S.
outlets, no matter where they occur.
Instructor Resource
Graber, Mass Media and American Politics 10e
CQ Press, 2018
13. International relations tend to color U.S. reporting of other places—friends and allies get
good framing while enemies and antagonists get negative framing.
Short Answer
1. What are some of the characteristics foreign news stories must have in order to “make the
news”?
2. Name some of the pressures that shape foreign affairs news.
3. How do cultural pressures shape foreign affairs news?
4. How do political pressures shape foreign affairs news?
5. How do economic pressures shape foreign affairs news?
6. What is the CNN effect?
Essay
1. What makes reporting on foreign affairs and/or war different from reporting on
domestic affairs? How are the sources different? How does the foreign affairs reporting we see
look different than reporting on domestic issues? What are the implications for our current
situation in Iraq or for democracy more generally?
2. What are some of the hazards of coverage containing some of the common biases in foreign
news? Specifically, what are the implications of “good frames for friends, bad frames for foes,”
emphasis on conflict, and uncritical flashlight coverage?
3. Discuss the indexing hypothesis. What is indexing? How does it emerge? What are the
implications of indexing for the information news consumers receive? How might journalists
move beyond indexed coverage?