Which of the following statements about municipal cable television systems is false?
A. Communities can build their own municipal cable systems.
B. Consumers in cities with municipal cable systems typically pay less for cable.
C. There are only about a hundred municipal cable services across the country.
D. In most cases, municipal cable systems are operated by community-owned nonprofit
electric utilities.
E. None of the options is false.
Who launched United Artists?
A. Mary Pickford
B. Adolph Zukor
C. Edwin S. Porter
D. Thomas Edison
E. None of the above options is correct.
Which radio program panicked listeners on Halloween eve in 1938?
A. The Shadow
B. The Green Hornet
C. Amos “n” Andy
D. War of the Worlds
E. None of the above options is correct.
Which of the following statements about reality television is false?
A. The genre includes programs like Survivor, Top Chef, and American Idol.
B. The shows introduce us to characters/people who seem more like “us'” and less like
celebrities.
C. The inspiration for reality TV can be traced to MTV’s Real World.
D. Reality TV is much more expensive to make than typical comedies or dramas.
E. All of the options are true.
Why were AT&T and GE able to undercut Marconi’s influence with the U.S. Navy,
even though Marconi was the best company?
A. The U.S. Navy wanted to use government-owned companies over private
companies.
B. The U.S. Navy was concerned about a foreign-controlled company having so
much power over their communications.
C. The U.S.Navy wishedto promote international relations by using foreign companies.
D. The U.S. Navy was dissatisfied with the way American Marconi was being run.
E. None of the above options is correct.
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.
Which statement best describes mass media?
A. Books by their very nature are culturally superior to other forms of mass media.
B. Television programs by their very nature are culturally inferior.
C. Billboards and broadcast satellites aren”t part of mass media.
D. Any media form can provide content that is worthy or that panders to the worst in
human nature.
E. Mass media evolve thanks to clever inventors, not to cultural, political, or
economic circumstances.
The value of favoring the small over the large and the rural over the urban is called
.
A. ethnocentrism
B. individualism
C. responsible capitalism
D. small-town pastoralism
E. All of the options are correct.
Which of the following is not true about Ivy Ledbetter Lee, one of the founders of
modern public relations?
A. He wrote the first college textbook on public relations.
B. He worked as a reporter.
C. He argued that an open relationship between business and the press would lead to
a better public image.
D. He thought facts were important, but also elusive and malleable.
E. He helped clients repair tarnished images with photo opportunities and
well-publicized acts of philanthropy.
Prior to the 1950s and 1960s, most radio listening occurred in the home
because__________ .
A. people didn’t have televisions yet
B. radio sets before the invention of transistors used bulky and delicate vacuum tubes
C. automobiles weren”t really widespread yet so most people couldn”t leave home
D. radio programs used to be longer and required people’s undivided attention
E. None of the above options is correct.
Which model of expression tolerates all forms of speech, including pornography?
A. Authoritarian
B. State model
C. Libertarian
D. Social responsibility
E. Communitarian
The U.S. Supreme Court’s standards for judging something as obscene include which of
the following?
A. The average person, applying community standards, would find that the material
appeals to prurient interests.
B. The material depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way.
C. The material lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
D. The work as a whole must be judged obscene.
E. All of the options are correct.
Why did AOL begin losing customers in the early 2000s?
A. It didn’t provide instant messaging.
B. It couldn”t keep up with the advent of broadband Internet connections.
C. It didn’t screen out pornographic sites.
D. It merged with Time Warner.
E. It merged with Google.
Commercial U.S. films function as by providing shared cultural
experiences.
A. consensus narratives
B. patent pools
C. cinema verit
D. vertical integration
E. star vehicles
In commercial filmmaking, who is considered the “author” of a film?
A. The lead actor/actress
B. The executive producer
C. The studio
D. The screenwriter
E. The director
Which of the following is true about the magazine Sports Illustrated?
A. It is an example of a general-interest magazine.
B. It is never criticized for its annual swimsuit edition.
C. It is never credited with major investigative reporting.
D. It was originally aimed at well-educated, middle-class men.
E. It originally promoted its content as “humanized geography.”
Magazines like Seventeen and AARP that target a certain age group represent a form
of
A. specialization
B. globalization
C. partisanship
D. ageism
E. synergy
Hidden or disguised print or visual messages are called .
A. subliminal advertising
B. slogans
C. public service announcements
D. saturation advertising
E. spam
What is vertical integration?
A. Control of the production, distribution, and exhibition of a film or other cultural
product by one company
B. A system for predicting whether a film will succeed or fail at the box office
C. The theory that media elites atop the social hierarchy can persuade the citizenry to
act in certain ways
D. The process a movie goes through from script to promotion
E. A unionizing tactic in which all levels of movie productionfrom actors and directors
to camera operators and janitorsare brought into a single bargaining force
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 the cost of producing 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.
Plato wanted to banish which group from ancient Greece because he thought they
would undermine oral storytelling?
A. Printers
B. Poets
C. Persians
D. Prophets
E. None of the above options is correct.
Which of the following is the best-selling book of all time?
A. Various versions of the Bible
B. Better Homes andGardens Cookbook
C. Baby and Child Careby Dr. Benjamin Spock
D. Peyton Placeby Grace Metalious
E. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
The U.S. movie rating system is an example of .
A. industry self-regulation
B. censorship
C. state regulation
D. FCC guidelines
E. federal regulation
According to the textbook, some print journalism observers think one piece of good
news for the industry is .
A. small papers that focus on local news and ads retain a loyal reader base
B. large corporate chains have numerous divisions to spread costs across
C. college graduates entering the print journalism field are looking for job openings
D. newspaper sales are increasing in North America and Europe
E. None of the above options is correct.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt: A Memorial, published in 1945, is an example of which
type of book?
A. Religious
B. Instant book
C. Reference
D. Fiction
E. Graphic novel
Which of the following statements about audio books is true?
A. Audio books are now downloadable to iPods and other portable devices.
B. Audio books offer a valuable service to sightless and vision-impaired readers.
C. Regular readers enjoy audio books during daily commutes or long drives.
D. The number of audio books borrowed from libraries soared in the 1990s and early
2000s.
E. All of the options are correct.
The trend of downsizing .
A. leaves newsrooms with fewer editors and reporters to cover important events
B. is supposed to make companies more profitable, competitive, and flexible
C. has forced many employees to scramble for jobs
D. has increased the wage gap between the corporate CEO and the average worker
E. All of the options are correct.
Which movie inspired by video games spurred a franchise of books, comic books, and
arcade and console video games in the 1980s?
A. Transformers
B. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
C. Avatar
D. Tron
E. Brave
Temporary gaming teams usually assembled by match-making programs integrated into
the game are called__________.
A. PUGs
B. ninjas
C. MMORPGs
D. noobs
E. clans
An example of a magazine that was conceived as online-only is .
A. Time
B. TV Guide
C. Wired
D. Entertainment Weekly
E. Slate
is the theory that people believe others are more affected by media messages
than they are themselves.
A. Cultivation effect
B. Agenda-setting
C. Third-person effect
D. Textual analysis
E. Spiral of silence
What has been the defining feature of public debate regarding radio as a natural
resource?
A. Broadcasting companies are eager for questions on their financial arrangements.
B. Public debate is vigorous and intense over the role of radio.
C. There is little public debate over the issue.
D. Record companies want to encourage debate in order to create the best environment
for artists to grow on the airwaves.
E. All of the options are correct.
Commercial Alert is .
A. a nonprofit watchdog group
B. an ad agency that created the Marlboro man and the Keebler elves
C. a statisticaldatabase that ad agencies use to monitor competitors’ campaigns
D. an award organization honoring the year’s most inventive TV commercials
E. an online service that alerts users about commercials that are specific to their profile
Evergreen magazine subscriptions are those that are automatically renewed on the
subscriber’s credit card.
One twentieth-century trend associated with advertising was the transition from a
producer to a consumer society.
P. T. Barnum used gross exaggeration, fraudulent stories, and staged events to secure
newspaper coverage for his clients, his American Museum, and his circus.
With the current generation of consoles, processors are the__________ standard.
Cable systems in the United States are increasingly owned by fewer and fewer
companies, called multiple-system operators.
While e-books can be read off computers and smartphones, devices created specifically
for reading e-books are called .
The key component of the first video games was the__________ .
Magazines survived the coming of television in part by developing demographic and
regional editions.
, an early tactic of movie studios to control exhibition, involved pressuring
theater operators to accept marginal films with no stars in order to get access to films
with the most popular stars.
The idea of the public sphere, defined as a space for critical public debate, was first
advanced by American media critic Walter Lippmann.
The word broadcasting derives from the steel industry, in part because KDKA in
Pittsburgh was one of the first stations to begin using radio as a mass medium.
Edward Bernays thought that in the hands of the right experts, leaders, and PR
counselors, public opinion could be shaped and public support directed.
The 1996 Telecommunications Act set off an unprecedented consolidation in radio
station ownership.
are large conglomerates of ad agencies that offer a full range of advertising,
public relations, and other services.
Unlike most other forms of mass media, book publishing has avoided being dominated
by a few huge corporations.
The classical view of art is that it should aim to instruct and uplift.
Google is a subsidiary of YouTube.
The Internet is owned and operated by the federal government, which has the power to
shut it down when necessary.
In TV syndication, barter deals are usually arranged for new or untested shows.