Potential Exam Questions for Media Effects Research: A Basic Overview (5th Edition) by Glenn
G. Sparks
Chapter 9
1. According to the text, which of the following is TRUE about the research of David
Phillips on suicide and media messages?
a. The “Werther Effect” was demonstrated with news stories, but not with soap
operas.
2. According to the text, the effect demonstrated in the research by David Phillips is best
described as which of the following?
a. A repositioning effect: suicides increased after media exposure but then declined
so that the annual rate was unaffected
b. A rescheduling effect: fear of victimization increased after viewing media crime
3. According to the text, which of the following relationships has been uncovered between
“need for cognition” and mass media use?
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part.
c. People with high need for cognition are likely to ruminate more about fear of
victimization and express greater levels of fear for real-world crime.
d. People with high need for cognition are more likely to be fascinated by psychic
telephone hot-lines and actually call in for psychic advice.
e. People with high need for cognition are more likely to maintain an attitude of
superiority when it comes to their own choices about mass media offerings.
4. According to the text, which of the following best describes the starting premise that was
first proposed in connection with “agenda-setting” theory?
a. The media don’t tell us what to think, but they tell us what to think about.
e. The theory cannot be tested with surveys and field research; it must be tested with
experiments because of the nature of the cognitive and social processes that are
proposed.
5. According to the text, which of the following situations is most likely to result according
to the “spiral of silence” theory?
a. Minority views eventually die out and exert little influence even though they are
d. Majority views and minority views are equally influential.
e. Regardless of whether a viewpoint is a majority view or a minority view, it will
eventually run its course in the arena of public opinion and spiral into the black
hole.
6. According to the text, if a TV station wants to effectively communicate to people about
the steps they should take to avoid being killed in a tornado, which of the following
should be done according to the results associated with “dual-coding theory”?
© 2016 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in
part.
b. The instructions should be given with a split screen: the newscaster on the left
side and video footage of a tornado destroying buildings on the right side.
c. The instructions should be given verbally with no video footage of a tornado
destroying buildings.
d. The instructions should be given with a split screen: the newscaster on the right
side and video footage of a tornado destroying buildings on the left side.
e. The instructions should be given with a split screen: the newscaster on the top and
video footage of a tornado destroying buildings on the bottom.
7. According to the text, which of the following is true about popular press coverage on
media research?
a. Popular press coverage is a relatively good barometer for determining the
importance of a research topic—the more coverage, the more important the topic.
b. Popular press coverage is a relatively good barometer for determining the
8. According to the text, two researchers who studied Twitter traffic in relation to political
upheaval in Egypt concluded that:
e. Twitter posts helped to prevent a “spiral of silence.”
9. According to the text, recent research on the effects of having a female news anchor who
has clearly visible sexual cues associated with her physical appearance seems to cause
which of the following?
a. less visual attention from men—but greater retention of news information
b. greater visual attention from men—and greater retention of news information
10. According to the text, which of the following is a primary motivating factor that brings
about the “spiral of silence”?
a. need for cognition