Dines, Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 5e
SAGE Publications, 2018
Part VI: Advertising and Consumer Culture
1. It is sometimes difficult to locate the origins of our most cherished values and
assumptions because ______.A. we as a cultural value the whole, rather than the
individual
B. we live inside the consumer culture, and most of us have done so for most of our
lives
C. we tend to focus on the values of others more than ourselves
D. we get caught in the influencing force of society, which tells subconsciously that our
values don’t matter
2. When the author says that in the contemporary world messages about goods are all
pervasive, he means that ______.
A. advertising has increasingly filled up the spaces of our daily existence
B. consumerism is not as important as it once was
C. advertising has become less important than the actual product being sold
D. the dominant culture of the country has shifted and is focused more on quality of
products than availability
3. As described in the article, speed and fragmentation are not particularly conducive to
thinking because they induce feeling. The speed and fragmentation that characterize
the commodity image-system may have a similar effect on ______.
A. the formation of morals
B. the construction of consciousness
C. the ability to judge right from wrong
D. the interpretation of received messages
4. For all its popularity, the shopping mania provokes considerable disease: ______.
A. many Americans worry about our preoccupation with getting and spending
B. all Americans are obsessed with self-expression and presentation
C. some Americans devote all their income to be seen as higher in the social standing
Dines, Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 5e
SAGE Publications, 2018
D. Americans in general are not concerned with the effects of their actions but instead
are only interested in experiencing the newest trend
5. The new consumerism has also set in motion another dynamic: ______.
A. it leads resources into other sources that could be used for social change
B. it takes monetary resources from the rich and sends that to programs for lower class
Americans
C. it diverts economic resources that could be used for government consumption
D. it siphons off resources that could be used for alternatives to private consumption
6. With its emphasis on luxury, expensiveness, exclusivity, rarity, uniqueness, and
distinction, “new consumerism” reflects and perpetuates structures of ______.
A. empowerment
B. economics and capitalism
C. inequality and power
D. class relations
7. According to the article, without a privately controlled industry jockeying to compete
with one another for consumer dollars, there’s no need for ______.
A. large corporations
B. advertising
C. consumerism
D. the study of economics
8. In the article, the author talks about how the ironic, contra Coke GIFs couldn’t help
but become transformed back into brand-compatible Coca-Cola messaging. This issue
shows that ______.
A. capitalism is an immensely resilient institution
B. economics rarely behaves predictably
C. capitalism only produces increasingly powerful corporations
D. advertising can have unexpected outcomes
9. As the author describes, for some, the answer comes in dreaming of a near future in
which all that anxiety melts away, but for others, the answer to such distress is ______.
A. anger and revolt
B. doing nothing
C. calm discussion of the issues
D. protest and agitation
10. Gloria Steinem states that when Ms. began, they didn’t consider not taking ads. She
says the most important reason was keeping the price of a feminist magazine low
enough for most women to afford. But the second and almost equal reason was
______.
A. getting the magazine seen by the maximum number of women
B. creating an advertising dependent reader base that relied on the ads for discovering
new products and services
C. providing a forum where women and advertisers could talk to each other and
improve advertising itself
D. to make as much money off the magazine quickly so they could expand
11. In the article, the author expresses that the fact that Ms. was asking companies to
do business in a different way meant their saleswomen had to make many times the
usual number of calls—first to convince agencies and then client companies besides—
and to ______.
A. provide exceptional customer service
B. constantly validate their credentials to new clients
C. present endless amounts of research
D. seek out only high-profile clients.
12. As the author states, no matter how much never–to–be-recovered cash is poured
into starting a magazine or keeping one going, _______ seem to be all that matter.
A. appearances
B. finances
C. readers
D. corporate backers
13. Objectification’s centrality to the feminist critical lexicon lay in its ability to speak to
the ways in which media representations help to justify and sustain relations of ______.
A. equity between men and women
B. romantic involvement between men and women
C. partnership and codependence between men
D. domination and inequality between men and women
14. Midriff advertising is notable not only for its success in selling brands but also—much
more significantly—for its effective rebranding or reconstruction of ______.
A. the ideas and the work involved in creating the objectifiable through the visuals of sex
and power
B. the anxieties and the labor involved in making the body beautiful, through a discourse
of fun, pleasure, and power
C. the pleasures and the intensity involved in making a body powerful through a
campaign of images and visuals
D. the experiences and the process in making the body visually stimulating through
advertising and media
15. A feminist semiotic analysis suggests that, under a guise of corporate altruism that
democratizes female beauty, Campaign for Real Beauty endorses ______.
A. culturally accurate representations of women
B. progressive pop culture views toward women
C. socially responsible ideas of womanhood
D. global postfeminist citizenship
16. This article advances that the Campaign for Real Beauty is a cause branding
strategy that merges messages of corporate ______.
A. “concern and commitment for a cause”
B. “worry but don’t lose money”
C. “care as long as it benefits the company”
D. “care only about the cause, keep the people first”
17. Like cause marketing, this cause branding strategy “is merely a cleverly disguised
ploy to mask some of the fundamental problems for which the very same marketing
forces are directly or indirectly responsible.” Within this consumer context, commercial
connotations are attached to ______.
A. pop culture messages
B. cultural heritage and commercial pandering
C. subtext and topical philosophy
D. popular messages and practices of philanthropy
18. Popular discourses surrounding female celebrities and cosmetic surgery most often
emerge from ______.
A. a post-feminist perspective
B. a heteronormative perspective
C. a cross-cultural perspective
D. a postindustrial perspective
19. Postfeminism is a term made up of multiple and conflicting meanings, and in this
context, the author refers to Rosalind Gill’s conception of postfeminism as ______.
A. a nondescript blending of various post–civil rights ideologies
B. a distinctive sensibility consisting of a number of interrelated themes
C. a very specific hybrid of modern femininity and postindustrial work values
D. none of these
20. According to the author, individuals use celebrities as a nexus of ______.
A. social judgments
B. identity negotiation
C. self-evaluation
D. moral role models
21. The transformation of the Olympics into a ______ event affects the authenticity of
the athletes who literally embody the positive aspects of “Olympism”—the ideals that
underpin the event and movement or, in more commercial terms, the meaning of the
Olympic brand.
A. culturally iconic
Dines, Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 5e
SAGE Publications, 2018
B. social spectacle
C. global politics
D. media entertainment
22. This commercialization has been inevitable, largely because of the wider
development of sport as a commercialized leisure and entertainment industry that is
dependent on both ________ and ____________.
A. corporate media; commodity corporate finances
B. consumers; producers
C. technology; economics
D. high-profile players; every-day fans
23. Commercial intertextuality is used to describe the production and interlinking of texts
like blockbuster films or TV series with______ and products.
A. subplots and side narratives
B. underlying messages
C. allied paratexts
D. additional online content
24. True Blood illustrates the increasing diversity of ______.
A. transmedia intertextual space and its tensions and contradictions
B. broadcast television and its plots and stories
C. HBO and its shows and characters
D. the vampire genre and its meanings and effects
True/False
1. The premise of the threat of branding is that commercialization is not a negative
aspect of contemporary sports industries because it doesn’t render sports as just
another indistinct form of consumerism and does not remove any enthusiasm from its
audience.
2. True Blood is a television show based on novels, The Southern Vampire Mysteries,
by Charlaine Harris. The stories, the 10th of which was published in 2010, were best
Essay
1. What does Jhally mean when he says, “Advertising is part of a ‘discourse through
and about objects’”?
2. What are two strategies for attracting audiences covered in part IV of the readings?
3. What are some changes in media culture over the last 50 years as discussed in part
IV of the readings?