Dines, Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 5e
SAGE Publications, 2018
Part VI: Growing Up With Contemporary Media
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. The global status of television can be claimed because similar debates over
television’s role in ______ have emerged globally. A. the entertainment market
B. political activism
C. advertising
D. the lives of children
2. While this is not a new argument in the discourse of cultural imperialism, American
programming for children has been strongly criticized around the world primarily for
being stereotypical of ______.
A. geopolitical relations
B. economics and finances
C. gender and race
D. women and feminists
3. In the last decade, Disney has made some significant changes in its representations
and storylines, but it remains at odds with ______ by globally distributing entertainment
narratives that simultaneously soften and normalize messages of social-class hierarchy
and antisocial hyper-individualism.
A. authoritarianism and cultural representation
B. societal progression and gender role representations
C. democracy and social responsibility
D. social responsibility and cultural authenticity
4. A consistent ______ organizes moral conflicts and elite responses to challenge in all
Disney features.
A. hierarchical aura
B. ethical paradigm
C. cultural contradiction
D. heteronormative structure
Dines, Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 5e
SAGE Publications, 2018
5. Barbie’s embodiment of a diversity of feminine images reflects Mattel’s efforts to
______.
A. stay relevant in an increasingly digital world where children are not as interested in
toys so much as they are interested in video games
B. market to continuously changing and increasingly diverse groups of United States
and international consumers
C. advertise according to current trends and social interests
D. make their product line larger, so they can sell more toys and continue grow as a
company
6. Behind Mattel’s portrayal of Latino/Latina identity lies a(n) ______ that sells itself as
authentic but that ultimately either depicts Latino/Latina culture as homogeneous and
exotic or repackages the doll’s Latinidad in an assimilated form, whether to make her
more attractive to more assimilated Latinos or to market her more effectively in places
where ethnic diversity is not particularly marketable.
A. system of representation
B. organization of false imagery
C. structure of racism
D. collection of misunderstanding
7. Many of these images are of celebrities—women who have fast become the role
models of today. With their wealth, designer clothes, expensive homes, and flashy
lifestyles, these women do seem enviable to girls and young women since they appear
to embody a type of power that demands ______.
A. publicity and fame
B. attention and visibility
C. money and empowerment
D. to be taken seriously
8. The American Psychological Association’s study on the sexualization of girls found
that there was ample evidence to conclude that sexualizing girls “has negative effects in
a variety of domains.” Some of these effects include ______.
Dines, Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 5e
SAGE Publications, 2018
A. less awareness of sexually transmitted diseases but an increase in mental health,
and higher self-confidence
B. more risky sexual activity and higher rates of depression, but with less social
inhibitions, they tended to have more active social lives
C. higher suicide and self-harm rates but engaged in risky sexual activities less often
D. more risky sexual behavior, higher rates of eating disorders, depression, and low
self-esteem
9. According to the article, under a critical public and media eye, ______ walk a fine line
in terms of their engagement in “sexualized” performances, perpetually risking harsh
condemnation and concomitant falls in popularity.
A. male artists
B. female artists
C. both male and female artists
D. gender nonconforming artists
10. Social media is the first ______ in history where girls and women participate at
equal or greater levels than boys and men as content producers, distributors, and
consumers.
A. artistic site
B. digital community
C. mass media platform
D. public forum
11. Some Internet commentators have argued that ______ will inevitably adapt to social
media in a manner that reduces the threat of privacy invasion or even eliminates the
need for privacy altogether.
A. cultural norms
B. social norms
C. political norms
D. advertising
12. While some critics have depicted video games as benign and even emancipatory,
portraying them as opportunities for players to experiment with new virtual identities,
Dines, Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 5e
SAGE Publications, 2018
hone their hand-eye motor skills, engage in harmless pleasures, or even challenge
capitalism, other critics have been notably less sanguine, with mental health
professionals, for example, warning of ______.
A. how much time people spend playing video games
B. the highly addictive qualities of video games
C. the damage to one’s eyes that might occur when staring at a television screen
D. the effects video games might have on older players
13. Even when the content of video games is not overtly violent, the medium conveys
an educative “message” that instrumental manipulation of the world, self, and other is
both ______.
A. positive and helpful
B. unavoidable and influential
C. negative and detrimental
D. natural and desirable
14. The lack of female engagement in digital play is related to deeply rooted
understandings of ______ in the culture at large.
A. gender differences
B. gaming dynamics
C. online communities
D. psychology
15. In order to truly treat each other as equals, males and females have to willfully
attempt to ignore years of cultural conditioning, which ______.
A. exemplifies understanding
B. demonstrates social class
C. expands on gender politics
D. codifies inequality
Dines, Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 5e
SAGE Publications, 2018
True/False
1. High hopes and great expectations have been expressed worldwide that television
would enrich children’s lives, stimulate their imagination and creativity, broaden their
education and knowledge, encourage multicultural tolerance, narrow social gaps, and
stimulate development and democratization processes.
2. The practice of individual consumption of entertainment commodities (which further
dampens consumerism) supports collective reflections and discussions that make it
difficult to reach democratic impulses and relations.
3. Media targeted to women create a social reality that is so overwhelmingly consistent
it is almost a closed system of messages. In this way, it is the sheer ubiquity of the
hypersexualized images that gives them power since they normalize and publicize a
coherent story about women, femininity, and sexuality. Because these messages are
everywhere, they take on an aura of such familiarity that we believe them to be our very
own personal and individual ways of thinking.
4. As the article states, ultimately, both sides of the slut/not slut binary exercise similar
effects of strategically separating Jessica’s own subjectivity from the slut, disgust
manages the separation from a “slutty” Lady Gaga in the interview with Joely, whereas
disavowal of the slut in her father’s presence allows Jessica to protect her position
within regulatory age-based requirements related to girls’ sexuality.
5. In this account, the self-manufacture of erotic images constitutes, in effect, a form of
unpaid sex work that conflates female bodily display with prostitution even in the context
of an intimate relationship.
6. The author argues that the best thing about video game culture is the way it burrows
down into the marrow of human consciousness to influence the moral.
7. The ability of minority populations to succeed in an environment from which they
were previously excluded appears to be related to percentages. Once a certain numeric
threshold has been crossed, members of the minority population are less likely to feel
the effects of stereotype threat.
Essay
1. Explain one of the ways in which media impacted you as a child.
2. What is cultural norming and what does the “stereotype effect” do to norming as a
paradigm?
3. How is gender identity contextualized? In what ways, positive and negative?