Q&A Hero

Q: The shift from ink-on-paper publishing to words-on-a-screen publishing is well under way.

Q: In the early years of television, prime-time was dominated by variety performance shows.

Q: Many news organizations have eliminated or reduced staffing at bureaus in outlying areas because A) other news organizations can collect and distribute news in those areas. B) blogs meet the public’s right to know. C) finances have forced drastic budget cutbacks. D) there is little news produced from them.

Q: The __________, invented by Omar Mergenthaler in 1884, automated and dramatically increased the speed with which text could be typeset for printing.

Q: Slowly at first, newspaper circulation began to decline in the early 1950s as television became an established mass medium.

Q: Unlike many early television series that were adapted from successful radio shows, I Love Lucy was originally created for television.

Q: The 24/7 nature of news and the need to put news on the Internet has resulted in A) more comprehensive coverage of events. B) more enterprise-type stories. C) less independent reporting by traditional news organizations. D) more news beats.

Q: ABC and Roone Arledge established a major presence in televised sports with __________.

Q: The two countries with Marxist-Leninist regimes that are ranked by Freedom House as being among the worst-rated countries for press freedom are A) Peru and Libya. B) Cuba and North Korea. C) Brazil and Iran. D) Haiti and South Korea.

Q: New technologies create new legal questions for the media. In the 1970s, for instance, Betamax raised the issue of consumers’ rights to duplicate copyright-protected television programs.

Q: What type of government system prevents mass-media criticism of its policies with numerous methods? A) Democratic B) Libertarianism C) Authoritarian D) Global

Q: The courts found the 1996 Communication Decency Act constitutionally flawed.

Q: __________ invented movable metal type in the mid-1440s.

Q: In the late 1800s and early 1900s, William Randolph Hearst used his chain of major newspapers to amass one of the largest personal fortunes in history and get elected to Congress.

Q: Director Steven Spielberg tried to get admitted to the University of Southern California film program and failed three times.

Q: As a spin-off based on Marshall McLuhan’s distinction between hot and cool media and the array of media in between, the Vivian textbook proposes an alternate continuum of media from A) big-screen to small-screen media. B) personal media to mass media. C) ten-foot media to one-foot media. D) stand-alone media to web-connected media.

Q: Joseph __________ organized the first newspaper sports department in the 1880s.

Q: David Ogilvy championed brand imaging.

Q: The War of the Worlds caused about 35 million people to brace for the worst, suspending disbelief to think that aliens were attacking earth.

Q: Robert Flaherty who is considered the first documentary filmmaker produced a 1922 look at Eskimo life.

Q: Those who decide what news to carry, when to carry it and how to present it are called A) publishers. B) news hounds. C) gatekeepers. D) reporters.

Q: Music sales for the __________ fell after a group member criticized President George Bush in front of a London audience.

Q: An advergame is a sponsored online game, usually for an established brand at its own site.

Q: Innocently and apparently without intending to do so, Orson Welles created a national panic with his dramatic re-creation of the novel War of the Worlds on radio.

Q: King Henry VIII who cracked down on printed materials headed a political system classified as A) democratic. B) authoritarian. C) libertarian. D) empirical.

Q: A problem with the 1996 Communication Decency Act was restricting objectionable material in a way that would keep it from children without restricting adult access.

Q: Photography and movies have relied on __________ technology through most of their history.

Q: After attempting to save itself with an online edition, U.S. News & World Report finally shut down both its printed and online editions in 2011.

Q: What have studies performed by the Violence Assessment Monitoring Project found? A) a steady presence of violent acts on prime time television B) a dramatic increase of violence on television C) fewer incidences of serious violence on television than previously thought D) children exposed to violence on television are more likely to perform violent acts

Q: Throughout mass media history, what political systems with top-down governances have been most common? A) Authoritarian B) Democratic C) Republican D) Sovereign

Q: “Indecency” is the term used by the Federal Communications Commission for a range of words and depictions considered improper on public airwaves.

Q: __________ technology made the birth of the book, newspaper and magazine industries possible.

Q: Without newspapers and magazines there would be a void in investigative reporting.

Q: Toy Story was the first movie produced entirely by computers.

Q: The first code of ethics for journalism was created by the American Society of Newspaper Editors in the A) 1830s. B) 1850s. C) 1890s. D) 1920s.

Q: The biggest star discovered by Sam Phillips was _________.

Q: Google both collects and pays out money through click-through fees.

Q: ___________ , after reviewing the literatures on violence studies, concluded most media violence research is flawed. A) William McQuire B) George Gerbner C) Sigmund Freud D) Elizabeth Peers

Q: Perhaps the most important figure in establishing rock `n’ roll as a genre was __________, a Memphis disc jockey, promoter, and record producer.

Q: As of 2010, newspapers continued to lead all other media in advertising revenue.

Q: The changing conditions faced by mass media around the world are evident in Afghanistan’s new constitution which was written in 2003 and A) affords unlimited freedom to the Internet but puts very restrictive limits on broadcast media. B) establishes strict government control of all mass media. C) includes a constitutional guarantee against government interference with mass media. D) requires that at least 50 percent of all media content promote religious or cultural values.

Q: The First Amendment protects obscenity.

Q: Even old and traditional mass media have been adapting to __________ technology since the dawning of the 21st century.

Q: A critical question for the future of the book industry is whether young people are reading as much as previous generations did.

Q: Steamboat Willie was an animated character who later morphed into Felix the Cat.

Q: What was the reaction to the 1835 publication in the New York Sun carrying a story about bird-like creatures spotted on the moon through a telescope? A) The scientific community was ecstatic. B) Other newspapers carried the same story. C) A chorus erupted for accuracy and truthfulness in news. D) The hoax was never disproven.

Q: Pornography is legal.

Q: __________ most often involves two people communicating face-to-face.

Q: One of the initial impediments to success of e-books was the number of competing but incompatible formats and platforms on the market.

Q: Computer-generated imagery was introduced to movies in the 1960s.

Q: The difference between traditional news organizations and the plethora of blogs and other web sites that provide news and information is A) traditional news organizations have built-in safeguards to check accuracy. B) web sites don’t have trained journalists. C) news is reported more quickly in non-traditional news providers. D) there is little follow-up reporting on non-traditional news providers.

Q: __________, a song about a new car model by Ike Turner and His Kings of Rhythm, is often cited as the song that launched rock `n’ roll as a new musical genre.

Q: For advertisers, magazines have many advantages of newspapers plus a longer shelf-life.

Q: Which of the following suggests that media-depicted violence has a numbing and callusing effect? A) aggressive cues research B) desensitizing theory C) catalytic model D) catharsis theory

Q: Who concluded that media-depicted violence scares far more people than it inspires to violence, leading them to believe the world is more dangerous than it really is? A) Paul Lazarsfeld B) Wilbur Schramm C) Hadley Cantril D) George Gerbner

Q: Tense relations between the Afgahan government and the Tolo TV network in Afghanistan included all of the following EXCEPT A) Afghan President Hamid Karzi told the network CEO, “You better fix up your TV station.”. B) fifty police officers raided the network, took three staff members away, and beat others . C) Taliban purists forced the network to air nothing but calls to prayer and chanting on TV. D) the vice president’s personal bodyguards had an armed stand-off with the police force.

Q: Discuss the increasing role of negative ads and attack ads in political campaigns and explain why you consider them to be a positive or negative development. Be sure to cite at least three specific examples of ads that support your view.

Q: The right of fair comment and criticism makes it open season on performers in all aspects of their lives.

Q: Unlike broadcasting, web communication shifts much of the control of the communication process to the recipient.

Q: The e-book market is growing at the same rate as the book business as a whole.

Q: Gone with the Wind was the first feature movie in color.

Q: News can simultaneously be gathered from a variety of different online sites by using any of the following EXCEPT A) custom news portals. B) distributive journals. C) emailed news alerts from search engines. D) news aggregation sites.

Q: A blending of black music and hillbilly music led to a new genre called rockabilly, which evolved quickly into __________.

Q: How long a periodical remains in use is called publication life.

Q: A Republican city council member or political candidate would be hard pressed to win a libel suit for being inaccurately called a Democrat.

Q: One obstacle in regulating the Internet is that it is decentralized.

Q: Because book publishers don’t have presses, advertising or online competition, they are unlikely to recover from the economic recession as quickly as magazines and newspapers.

Q: “Talkies” is a term used to describe a movie that emphasizes dialogue in the script.

Q: Web sites that regurgitate news compiled from other sources or that offer pass-through links to other sources are called A) passed-links sites. B) conglomerate sites. C) demassification sites. D) aggregation sites.

Q: Genre trends in the media are __________-driven as people flock to a particular book, song, film, or television show and then to the thematic sequels and spin-offs inspired by it.

Q: Newspapers have high pass-along circulation.

Q: What does George Gerbner view as an end result of violence in the media? A) Demands for more aggressive police protection, even police-violence, to ensure public safety. B) Depictions of violence will drive people to self-reliance as they seek to protect themselves. C) Depictions of violence will exaggerate people’s fears of a police state. D) The freedom to express anything, including violence, strengthens the principles of violence.

Q: In the catalytic theory, the chances of media violence triggering real-life violence is affected by how the media violence is seen. Which of the following is NOT a factor in triggering real-life violence? A) whether the violence in the media is rewarded B) whether the media exposure is heavy and frequent C) whether the media violence is watched during the day or at night D) whether a violent person fits other behavioral profiles

Q: Discuss government officials use of trial balloons and leaks and the impact they have on political and governmental processes. Indicate whether you think their use is a positive or negative development, and explain why.

Q: The Fairness Doctrine states that the level of proof in a libel case is identical for a construction worker and the president of the United States.

Q: Unlike “noise,” a filter does not impede mass communication.

Q: Unlike the newspaper and magazine industries that hit hard economic times in the early 21st Century, the book industry remained financially strong.

Q: Narrative film is another term for documentary.

Q: All of the following are variables that affect what is and isn’t reported in the news on a particular day EXCEPT A) the circulation of the newspaper or ratings of the newscast. B) the size of the medium’s news hole for that day. C) the volume and importance of the events that have occurred since the last news report. D) which reporters are available or on-call that day.

Q: A play shot in a studio with multiple cameras and broadcast on television is an example of __________ performance.