CHAPTER 11: Media and Media Literacy
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying the topics in this chapter, students should be able to:
2. Discuss three theories of mass media: uses and gratification, agenda setting, and
cultivation.
4. Describe two ways in which mass media cultivate a particular worldview.
6. Apply chapter guidelines to improve your media literacy.
MINDTAP ENGAGEMENT QUESTION
The first student activity in Chapter 11 asks students a polling question where they are presented
with a set of answer choices. One point is awarded regardless of what answer they choose. The
question is designed to reveal beliefs or assumptions about a chapter-specific topic. As an
instructor, you can view your classes’ responses as a pie chart within MindTap and discuss the
results in class, if you choose. This chapter’s question is:
In an average day, how much time do you spend using digital media?
a. Less than one hour.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. The Nature and Scope of Media
A. Mass media are electronic or mechanical channels of delivering messages to large
audiences.
1. Mass media include television, newspapers, magazines, radios, and books.
B. Social media are the means of connecting and interacting actively.
1. Social media include emails, tweets, instagrams, texts, and postings that rely on
2. Unlike mass media, these are tools that engage people and allow them to
collaborate in self-organizing fluid communications.
C. Social media differ from mass media primarily due to digitization, which includes
three components:
2. Convergence
3. Speed
D. Media is a continuum that ranges from clearly interpersonal, on one end, to clearly
mass, on the other end, with a lot of mediated communication between those two
ends.
II. Understanding How Media Work
A. There are four key ways that explain how the mass media attempt to influence our
lives.
1. According to uses and gratifications theory, we choose to attend to mass
2. Agenda-setting theory states that mass communication establishes an agenda for
us by selecting and calling our attention to ideas, people, and events.
3. Cultivation theory claims that television promotes a worldview that is inaccurate
but that viewers nonetheless assume reflects real life.
a. Cultivation is the cumulative process by which television fosters beliefs about
social reality.
4. Mass media exercise ideological influence.
a. Because individuals and groups that have benefited from the existing social
structure tend to control mass communication, they have a vested interest in
B. Social media can be understood through the framework of the uses and gratifications
theory.
1. Social media blur production and consumption because they are increasingly
2. Social media change how we create and participate in communities by redefining
our sense of space.
3. Social media invite super saturation because of the never-ending flow of
information and contact with other people.
4. Social media encourage multitasking.
III. To enhance our effectiveness with mass and digital communication, we must develop
media literacy.
A. Media literacy helps us understand the influence of the media on our lives as well as
our ability to exercise control over their effects.
B. People do not have equal access to the media.
1. The term “digital divide” refers to the gap between individuals and communities
2. If access is based on wealth, then convergence, which is the integration of mass
3. We also need to decide the level of exposure to media that we have access to.
a. Many times, people choose to expose themselves to media that agree with
their viewpoints.
b. To be truly informed about any issue, you must attend to multiple, and even
conflicting, sources of information and perspective.
C. When we are able to analyze something, we are able to understand how it works.
2. Media construct the news through three distinct but related features.
a. Gatekeepers select what gets covered.
b. Reporters and journalists “choose the hook” or how to focus a story and direct
people’s attention to certain aspects of the story.
c. Media choose how to tell the story.
D. When interacting with mass communication, you should use critical thought to assess
what is presented. For example:
1. Why is this story being covered?
E. If we respond actively to mass communication, we recognize that the worldviews
presented in mass communication are not the varnished truth but partial, subjective
perspectives that serve the interests of some individuals and groups while
disregarding or misrepresenting the views of others.
You can also search for these terms directly in MindTap to find them in the Reader. Students can
use flashcards in MindTap to study key concepts.
KEY TERMS PAGE IN TEXT
Agenda setting 213
Convergence 222
Cultivation 214
Cultivation theory 214
Digital divide 222
Gatekeeper 213
Mainstreaming 214
Mass media 210
Media literacy 221
Puffery 224
Resonance 214
Social media 210
Uses and gratification theory 212
ACTIVITIES
1. The Media Debate
This exercise involves student preparation before class and will end in class debates. Depending
on the number of students in your section, divide your class into groups ranging from four to six
students. You should have an even number of groups, as the groups will debate in class.
Assign students the following topics to research before the next class. Students should meet in
their groups outside of class to prepare initial statements supporting their positions. Students
should also be prepared to answer questions about their positions and should be able to defend
Topic One: “Is constant connectivity via social media a positive development?”
Topic Two: “Is advertising ethical?”
Group 3 should answer in the affirmative.
Group 4 should answer in the negative.
Topic Three: “Should the Internet be regulated?”
Topic Five: “Does television programming harm children?”
Instructors can adjust the topics as they see fit. The “debates” should be organized around the
following:
Affirmative presentation 5 minutes
Questions from audience 3 minutes
Negative presentation 5 minutes
Questions from audience 3 minutes
Affirmative summary 2 minutes
Negative summary 2 minutes
Audience votes for the winner.
Instructors can adjust the times to fit their class times.
2. Advertising and Sex Roles
Have students bring to class three or four examples of ads (online or print) that objectify women
1. How are women and men portrayed in such advertisements?
2. What cultural values toward women and men are portrayed in the advertisements?
3. Although there are examples of the objectification of women and men, why are the ads
depicting women more troublesome?
4. Does your class discussion relate to the critical theorists perspective discussed in your
chapter?
5. Does advertising merely reflect culture, or does it help sustain and create culture?
3. Race, Ethnicity, Sex, Gender, and Age in the Entertainment Industry
Ask students to consider the television, streaming, and movie industries and lead a discussion
about casting and fate. This activity relates to the chapter’s treatment of cultivation theory.
Consider the following questions: How are African Americans cast in roles? How are Arab
Americans cast in roles? How are Hispanic Americans cast in roles? Into what roles are older
women cast? Into what roles are transgender people cast?
4. Patterns of News Coverage
This activity relates to the textbook’s coverage of patterns by which media networks construct
the news.
Divide the class into five groups to tape and analyze the evening news on ABC, CBS, CNN,
FOX, and NBC. Have each group analyze the patterns these networks use for delivering the
news. Depending on which technique each particular network uses, how are the networks trying
to encourage the viewers to think or feel?
Ask students to come to class prepared to discuss the above question.
JOURNAL IDEAS
• Rate your media literacy. Consider questions such as the following: Through what channels
and specific media outlets do you obtain most of your news information? Why do you choose
the channels you choose? Do the specific media outlets provide accurate information?
• Consider the role that technology plays in your daily life. To what extent are your day-to-day
activities dependent upon technology? What benefits does technology bring? What
challenges does the amount of technology in our lives present? Have we become too
dependent on technology?
• How do television and streaming services such as Netflix affect you? Consider Gerbner’s
cultivation theory. What are your viewing habits? What types of programs resonate with
you? How do your political and social values differ from the “mainstream” attitudes of heavy
television viewers?
TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES
There are additional student resources in MindTap. If you have a networked computer in your
classroom and a projection system for viewing the computer screen, you can easily introduce
your students by walking them through the process for accessing the website. If you don’t have
this projection and computer equipment in your classroom, you can share the resources in this
manual, or refer them to the directions found in their copy of Communication in Our Lives.
Students can use MindTap to answer the questions in many Communication Highlight boxes and
many Communication & Careers boxes found in the text. The Experiencing Communication in
Web Links
Website Description
URL
The Center for Media Literacy has a
collection of key background articles,
practical teaching ideas, recommended
books, videos, and teaching resources plus
relevant links to significant sites.
http://www.medialit.org/
This site is a gateway of resources for
educators, producers, students, and parents,
related to the influence of media in the lives
of children, youth, and adults.
http://mlop.proscenia.net/
Citizens for Media Literacy is a nonprofit,
public-interest organization linking media
literacy with the concepts and practices of
citizenship.
http://main.nc.us/cml/
The article “Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing: A
Content Analysis of Children’s Television”
analyzes TV shows created specifically for
young children.
http://www.parentstv.org/PTC/publications/reports/childrensstudy/main.asp
Susan Crawford is a legal scholar with
particular expertise on Internet law and
issues of privacy, intellectual property, and
advertising. Her blog gives her opinions on
a range of legal issues entailed by
cyberspace.
http://scrawford.net/blog/
Films
Miss Representation (2011) is a 90-minute documentary showing the hypersexualized
representations of girls and women in media.
Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising’s Images of Women is a 2000 video by Jean Kilbourne, who uses
over 160 ads and television commercials to critique the manner in which advertising portrays
TEST ITEMS
Multiple Choice Items
1. All of the following are examples of mass media EXCEPT
a. television.
b. instagrams.
c. magazines.
d. radio.
e. the Web.
2. How do mass media and social media differ?
a. Social media is digitalized.
b. Mass media cultivate convergence, but social media do not.
c. Mass media have nearly instant speed while social media do not.
d. Mass media are easier to manipulate than social media.
e. All of these choices are examples of how mass and social media differ.
3. Which theory assumes that people are active agents who deliberately choose media to gratify
themselves?
a. uses and gratifications theory
b. agenda setting theory
c. cultivation theory
d. critical theory
e. None of these answers are correct.
4. A person or group that decides which messages pass through the media and which do not are
called
a. editors.
b. content trappers.
c. gatekeepers.
d. flow consultants.
e. media managers.
5. If you watch an action movie because you are bored and want some excitement, which of the
following theories applies?
a. uses and gratifications theory
b. agenda setting theory
c. cultivation theory
d. critical theory
e. inoculation theory
6. The process by which mass communication stabilizes and homogenizes social perspectives is
known as
a. inoculation.
b. mainstreaming.
c. resonance.
d. indemnification.
e. stabilization.
7. The extent to which media representations are congruent with personal experience is known
as what by cultivation theorists?
a. coherence
b. fidelity
c. mainstreaming
d. resonance
e. indemnification
8. The three implications of digitization are
a. convergence, nearly instant speed, and ease of manipulation.
b. convergence, mainstreaming, and resonance.
c. mainstreaming, convergence, and ease of manipulation.
d. resonance, gatekeeping, and nearly instant speed.
e. creation of digital divide, nearly instant speed, and ease of manipulation.
9. The theory that claims that television promotes a worldview that is inaccurate but that
viewers nonetheless assume reflects real life is the
a. uses and gratifications theory.
b. agenda setting theory.
c. cultivation theory.
d. critical theory.
e. attribution theory.
10. The term that refers to the gap between people who have access to media and those who have
little to no access is
a. puffery.
b. gatekeeping.
c. cultivation.
d. media literacy.
e. digital divide.
11. Which theory assumes the media spotlight some issues, events, and people while
downplaying others?
a. uses and gratifications theory
b. cultivation theory
c. agenda-setting theory
d. digital divide
e. None of these answers are correct.
12. Social media include all of the following EXCEPT
a. instagrams.
b. tweets.
c. emails.
d. texts.
e. ebooks.
13. Which of the following theories includes the concept of a gatekeeper?
a. uses and gratifications theory
b. cultivation theory
c. agenda-setting theory
d. critical theory
e. All of these answers are correct.
14. Tony, who had been mistreated by a policeman, identified with a television program that had
police brutality as a central theme. This is an example of
a. gratification.
b. mainstreaming.
c. agenda setting.
d. resonance.
e. attribution.
15. Lana says she enjoys using Facebook because it helps her connect to her friends from high
school who are at other colleges, her cousins who live in New Mexico, and new people she
meets on campus. Lana’s reason for using Facebook is that it
a. allows for diffusion.
b. cultivates convergence.
c. is easily manipulated.
d. offers instant speed.
e. provides resonance.
16. Social media alter conceptions of
a. time.
b. content.
c. space.
d. self.
e. mass media.
17. Small electronic packets of information about users that the advertisers store in users’
personal browsers are known as
a. data.
b. cookies.
c. spyware.
d. malware.
e. media.
True-False Items
18. The mass media exercise little control over the events, people, and issues that do and do not
reach the public.
a. True
b. False
19. According to cultivation theory, the more television you watch, the more accurate your views
of the world are likely to be.
a. True
b. False
20. Gays, lesbians, and trans people are making an increased presence in commercial
programming.
a. True
b. False
21. Both information and people saturate us.
a. True
b. False
22. Violence in the media makes the world seem more dangerous than it actually is.
a. True
b. False
23. Advertisers and political groups cannot influence which messages get through the
gatekeepers.
a. True
b. False
24. The media use standard patterns repeatedly.
a. True