Hanson, Mass Communication, 7e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
Chapter 2: Mass Communication Effects: How Society and
Media Interact
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. Why weren’t stories by women in Hollywood who say they were abused or harassed
by movie producer Harvey Weinstein published until 2017?
A. They were embarrassed this had happened to them.
B. They were afraid they would be blacklisted or lose their chance to work.
C. They were afraid they wouldn’t be believed.
D. all of these
2. Fears that media messages would have strong, direct effects on individuals grew out
of propaganda campaigns during which of the following conflicts?
A. the U.S. Civil War
B. World War I
C. the Vietnam War
D. the Persian Gulf War
3. Godwin’s Law argues that online discussions that go on long enough eventually
______.
A. die out for lack of interest
B. reach a reasonable conclusion based on a wide range of viewpoints
C. are reduced to threats of violence
D. end comparing people to Hitler or Nazis
4. Research on opinion leaders conducted in the 1940s provides an example of ______.
A. Secret 1—The media are essential components of our lives
B. Secret 3—Everything from the margin moves to the center
C. Secret 5—All media are social
D. Secret 7—There is no “they”
5. Which of the following is not a key principle of the critical/cultural model?
A. You can’t make sense out of ideas if you take them out of their historical context.
B. People want to see themselves as holding a majority opinion and will therefore
remain silent if they perceive that they hold a minority opinion.
C. Researchers cannot separate facts from the values attached to them and the
circumstances from which these facts emerged.
D. You can’t fool me. These are all principles of the critical/cultural model.
6. An important consequence of the critical/cultural model is that researchers pay more
attention to ______.
A. how meaning is created within society
B. the effect that watching television advertising has on children’s toy preferences
C. how the rise of mobile devices has changed how teens communicate with each other
D. how electronic documents differ from paper documents
7. Critical theory arose from a group of scholars known as the ______.
A. Marxist Group
B. Frankfurt School
C. Paris School
Hanson, Mass Communication, 7e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
D. Feminist Group
8. A study that attempts to explain why a radio program about the death of an attractive
young woman is more popular with audiences than one about a male soldier who
deserts his unit on the battlefield would be an example of ______.
A. critical theory
B. structural/functionalism
C. uses and gratifications
D. two-step flow
9. Which of the following best describes the findings of the People’s Choice study from
1940?
A. Audiences receive strong, direct effects from media campaign messages.
B. Audiences are unaffected by media campaign messages.
C. Audiences are indirectly affected by media campaign messages.
D. Audiences actively use the media to construct their view of the world.
10. The critical/cultural model assumes which of the following?
A. Audiences receive strong, direct effects from media campaign messages.
B. Audiences are unaffected by media campaign messages.
C. Audiences are indirectly affected by media campaign messages.
D. Audiences actively use the media to construct their view of the world.
11. Correlation is accomplished by persuasive communication through which of the
following?
A. editorializing
B. commentary
C. advertising
D. all of these
12. The way that a dramatic movie score by composer John Williams makes you feel
during a Star Wars movie would be an example of a _________ effect.
A. cognitive
B. attitudinal
C. behavioral
D. psychological
13. The way that a television commercial can convince a 5-year-old to ask his or her
parents for a particular brand of breakfast cereal would be an example of a _________
effect.
A. cognitive
B. attitudinal
C. behavioral
D. psychological
14. A media scholar is looking at why so many Americans are watching This Is Us on
television. What kind of effects is this scholar looking for?
A. message effects
B. media effects
C. ownership effects
D. active audience effects
Hanson, Mass Communication, 7e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
15. A media scholar is trying to find out if children who watch Sesame Street do better in
second grade than children who watch SpongeBob SquarePants. What kind of effects is
this scholar looking for?
A. message effects
B. media effects
C. ownership effects
D. active audience effects
16. A media scholar is trying to find out whether Internet or television political ads are
more persuasive. What kind of effects is this scholar looking for?
A. message effects
B. media effects
C. ownership effects
D. active audience effects
17. A media scholar is trying to find out if the editorial focus of a television station’s
news programming changed after it was purchased by a large media conglomerate.
What kind of effects is this scholar looking for?
A. message effects
B. media effects
C. ownership effects
D. active audience effects
18. Each cast of The Voice becomes famous after appearing on the show for a season.
This is an example of the ______ function of the media.
Hanson, Mass Communication, 7e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
A. surveillance/status conferral
B. correlation of different elements in society
C. socialization and transmission of culture
D. entertainment
19. A study that looks whether press coverage of massive tax cuts made audiences talk
more about government deficits would be an example of which of the following?
A. agenda setting
B. uses and gratifications theory
C. social learning
D. spiral of silence
19. A study that looks at why teenagers like to go to horror movies like The Purge or
Insidious would be an example of which of the following?
A. agenda setting
B. uses and gratifications theory
C. social learning
D. mean world syndrome
20. A study that looks at how children acquire new behaviors by watching movies on
television would be an example of which of the following?
A. uses and gratifications theory
B. symbolic interactionism
C. media logic
D. social learning
21. Canadian economist Harold Innis, in his book Empire and Communications, argues
that all media have a bias. This is a ______.
A. political bias
B. bias in favor of the medium’s owner
C. bias of being easy to transport or lasting a long time
D. bias in favor of a particular ethnic group
22. A newspaper runs stories that suggest that most people in the country support
cutting taxes. After reading the stories, people who support raising taxes tend to keep
quiet because they think their neighbors all support tax cuts. This would be an example
of which of the following?
A. agenda setting
B. spiral of silence
C. social learning
D. symbolic interactionism
23. When researchers are examining how a culture industry can turn ideas into
commodities in order to profit from them, they are doing research on ______.
A. critical/cultural theory
B. cultivation analysis
C. mean world syndrome
D. agenda setting
24. Martha watches quite a bit of television, including a lot of crime dramas. She
believes that the city she lives in has a much higher crime rate than it actually does. You
could explain this using which of the following?
A. uses and gratifications theory
B. mean world syndrome
C. social learning
D. media logic
25. The theoretical orientation that argues that watching large amounts of television can
create a worldview that is at odds with reality is which of the following?
A. uses and gratifications theory
B. social learning
C. symbolic interactionism
D. cultivation analysis
True/False
1. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden had to smuggle all of the
secret documents he stole out of the office in a series of boxes filled with paper files.
2. Canadian economist Harold Innis argues that any given medium has a bias of lasting
a long time or of being easy to distribute.
3. Cable news channels are as likely to report about crime affecting poor African
American women and girls as they are about crime affecting wealthy White women and
girls.
4. Prior to the 19th century, most people in Europe and North America lived in
communities where their neighbors were from similar ethnic and religious backgrounds.
5. The direct effects model of media effects presumes that messages have a direct and
predictable effect on audience members exposed to the message.
6. The indirect effects model recognizes that people will react differently to media
messages because they have different backgrounds, needs, attitudes, and values.
7. Current research supports the fears media critics had in the World War I era of
powerful, direct effects of the mass media.
8. The People’s Choice study found that voters use information from the media instead
of information from family members to make up their minds during elections.
9. The critical/cultural approach to mass communication research looks at how meaning
is created in society.
10. By February 2018, the New York Times had reported on more than 70 men who had
been fired or forced to resign over accusations of sexual misconduct since October
2017.
11. People who need to talk about the news at work are no more likely to learn from the
media than are people who watch the news to be entertained.
12. The channel used to transmit a message can change the meaning of the message.
13. Media theorist Marshall McLuhan argued for “medium neutrality”—the medium used
to communicate did not change how a message is received.
14. Joshua Meyrowitz argues that a major effect of transmitting news through print is
segregating audiences by education, age, class, and gender.
15. Psychographics means using psychics to predict which candidates will be elected.
16. Documents are much more secure when they are stored electronically rather than
on paper.
17. Movies use music as a cue to viewers to tell them how they ought to feel about a
particular scene.
Essay
1. Who are opinion leaders?
2. Provide an example of a cognitive effect of the media.
3. Briefly describe the difference between an attitudinal effect and a behavioral effect of
the media.
4. Provide an example of a psychological effect of the media.
5. When we learn about the world through the media, we are engaging in what?
6. When Omarosa Manigault Newman became famous while she was on the television
reality show The Apprentice, she had her reputation built by the ______ function of the
media.
7. The mass media engage in status conferral in a number of ways. List two.
8. What is agenda setting?
9. According to uses and gratifications theory, why would a young man watch a
romantic comedy movie that he wasn’t interested in with his girlfriend?
10. The following statement, “If men define situations as real, they are real in their
consequences,” is a central principle of what?
11. What is the mean world syndrome?
12. In a brief essay, define the spiral of silence theory, explain where it came from, and
provide an example of how it might work in the world of social media.
13. In a brief essay, explain how agenda setting theory and critical/cultural theory could
each be used to explain why stories about the #MeToo movement of people reporting
sexual harassment and abuse exploded in the fall of 2017.