Q&A Hero

Q: Media literacy requires distinguishing between messages and the messenger.

Q: The sinking of the Titanic was the impetus for the U.S. government to begin regulating the transmission of radio signals .

Q: Even though the sales of downloaded music are up, the sales of other recordings are so far down that they have offset the gain and produced an overall decrease in total sales.

Q: A free trip abroad for a journalist is known as A) a perk of the profession. B) promotional consideration. C) an appearance of propriety. D) a junket.

Q: Realizing that a letter personally addressed to you with several references to your hometown and school is part of a mass mailing and not a personal message demonstrates your media literacy.

Q: Government has favored mass media over other businesses through such policies as low postal rates.

Q: The problem of free music-swapping is now much worse outside the U.S. than it is here.

Q: Turkey cut off access to YouTube on the grounds of A) morality and decency. B) political insurrection. C) economic viability. D) inadequate bandwidth.

Q: After 1844, news reporting could be done even faster and from farther away by using the __________ to relay news from where it happened back to the newspaper.

Q: By design, advertisements are self-serving.

Q: In trying to convince her company to do consumer research with social media, Joan Lewis, Procter & Gamble’s market knowledge officer, has asserted all of the following EXCEPT A) social media are quicker than other methods for tracking fast-changing consumer behavior. B) social media permit better two-way communication between the company and consumers . C) social media research needs more sophistication and better standards of measurement. D) social media research will soon replace outdated and expensive traditional research methods.

Q: China has the most labor-intensive censorship initiative in history.

Q: Chinese university student Liu Di, using the pseudonym “Stainless Steel Mouse,” was arrested for sending negative comments out on the Internet about political leaders.

Q: Upton Sinclair’s book, The Brass Check, examined A) corruption in the banking industry. B) difficulties in getting financial assistance in the early 1900s. C) dangerous flaws in large factories’ safety procedures. D) newsroom corruption, such as bribes.

Q: Media literacy is only concerned with how messages are received and perceived; media production is concerned with how they are prepared and sent.

Q: The death tax is another name for taxes on inheritances.

Q: The recording industry is worried that up to 95% of all music downloaded worldwide is outside of its revenue-generating channels.

Q: What has been the response of authoritarian governments toward social networking sites during tense moments within their countries? A) increased use of sites to promote their cause B) no response because the Internet is impossible to regulate C) attempts to block access D) purchasing advertising to counter opposing views

Q: The Bennett model of news emphasized timeliness and reporting that focused on __________ rather than on ideas or people.

Q: PR allows an organization complete control over the message delivered to the public.

Q: When it was first introduced, iTunes faced some of the same legal challenges that drove Napster out of business.

Q: How many videos areuploaded daily to YouTube? A) almost 500,000 B) about 1 million C) over 5 million D) over 10 million

Q: Bennett was the first to assign reporters to news __________ such as the police, the courts, local government, etc., and made them responsible for covering anything that developed there.

Q: Both PR and advertising sell products or services.

Q: A2/M2 is a ratings measurement system created by A) Arbitron. B) Nielsen. C) Gallup. D) Pew.

Q: Describe the concept of cultural transmission and then, within that framework, discuss the differences between historical transmission and contemporary transmissions. Be sure to include at least two examples of each.

Q: Dubai TV claims to penetrate 50 percent of the market, thus reaching 100 million people across the Mideast.

Q: Selective editing is A) making editorial choices with the moral outcome of the decisions in mind. B) using omission and/or juxtaposition with the goal of distorting. C) the use of PR events in place of real news. D) carefully weeding out the falsehoods and misleading facts while editing a story.

Q: The better your media literacy skills, the better equipped you are to deal with a deluge of media messages.

Q: Family ownership of newspapers is increasing.

Q: Media professionals justify re-creations as A) more costly than on-scene reporting. B) helping people quickly understand the situation. C) an exciting diversion from their daily drudgery. D) time-savers that free them to cover more important stories.

Q: One measure of media literacy is awareness of the presence of media messages.

Q: Several universities have started student-led, non-profit news organizations.

Q: Some of the most obvious casualties of file-sharing were independent, stand-alone music stores.

Q: Passed links are A) links that no longer work. B) references to web sources shared among computer users. C) Facebook users who no longer are online. D) a tweet that is not answered.

Q: Recognizing that being the first to report news gave him a competitive advantage, James Bennett Gordon developed an approach to news that emphasized its __________.

Q: Success is easier to measure in advertising than public relations.

Q: Media Metrix is a leading audience measuring company for A) television. B) satellite radio. C) terrestrial radio. D) the Internet.

Q: Describe the impact on children of increased intergenerational eavesdropping and discuss three examples of it you recall from your own life experiences.

Q: Which of the following is NOT a tool used to measure broadcast audiences? A) interviews by phone or in-person B) viewing and listening diaries C) mass mailings D) people meters

Q: Describe how the media help in the socialization of children and cite three examples of the prosocial values that are portrayed by the media in the United States.

Q: Terrorist organizations have not been able to effectively use mass media in advancing their causes.

Q: Most of our media exposure is invisible to us – or at least goes unnoticed – at a conscious level.

Q: One form of journalism that is being abandoned by budget-strapped traditional media companies is investigative journalism.

Q: Napster’s impact on the recorded music industry was incredibly dramatic and caused several major music-retailing chains to go out of business.

Q: What did Steven Johnson cite regarding an educational conference during which participants were encouraged to post tweets that were displayed on a screen? A) The tweets were so distracting that little was accomplished. B) They had no real impact on the conference. C) People outside the conference joined the conversation, which extended for weeks after the conference ended. D) Those who posted tweets did not get as much value out of the conference because of multitasking.

Q: __________ is the somewhat subjective standard journalists use in deciding which among many possible news stories to report.

Q: Advertising is a management function.

Q: “Film literacy” which deals with the conventions and techniques of motion media was already a well-established term and area of study long before “visual literacy” came on the scene.

Q: The need to generate sufficient revenue to maintain infrastructure is an inhibiting factor when a non-profit considers buying a for-profit business.

Q: The Supreme Court halted iTunes’ free distribution of music.

Q: Ashton Kutcher became the first person to attract 1 million followers on A) Facebook. B) Flickr. C) Yahoo. D) Twitter.

Q: Factors that go into determining __________ include proximity, prominence, impact on society and the so-called gee-whiz factor.

Q: The more effectively public relations is practiced, the more dangers it creates for society and the more likely it is to permit tyrannical leadership to gain a foothold.

Q: Among the statistics that have been used to try to measure audience sizes and engagement for Internet sites have been all of the following EXCEPT A) browser downloads. B) click-ons and click-throughs. C) page views. D) time-on-site.

Q: Describe Noelle-Neumann’s spiral of silence and the impact it can have on a society. Explain why it’s considered to be part of the cumulative effects theory and why its developer worries about its possible effects on democratic societies.

Q: Dubai Media Incorporated is a quasi-government agency building Dubai as an entertainment production center.

Q: Which of the following is NOT an example of misrepresentation? A) junkets B) staging news C) selective editing D) re-creations

Q: Shawn Fanning wrote the Napster software for file-sharing audio downloads.

Q: A social networking site primarily used for posting photos is A) YouTube. B) Flickr. C) MySpace. D) My Photos.

Q: The nature of news always deals with some type of __________.

Q: The advantages of the dialogic theory of public relations is that it is highly ethical and very easy to implement.

Q: A polling technique to gauge how attentive people are to certain programs and ads is called A) engagement ratings. B) intensity ratings. C) attachment ratings. D) longevity ratings.

Q: Explain the cumulative effects theory and discuss where it falls on a continuum between the powerful effects theories and the minimalist effects theories that were developed much earlier than it was. To which of these earlier theories is it most similar?

Q: Since its beginning, Al-Jazeera has consistently been praised by the U.S. government as a voice for democracy and reform.

Q: Why is staged news a less significant ethics question for publicists than for journalists? A) By definition, publicists are amoral. B) Staged news is always free from bias. C) Staged news is creative, and ethics never enters into creative works. D) Publicists generally are up-front about what they are doing.

Q: At the most basic level, __________ can be defined is any report about change.

Q: The dialogic theory of mass communication centers on two-way communication, attempting to communicate with others instead of just speaking to or at them.

Q: When viewers avoid commercials by changing from channel to channel, it is called A) zapping. B) flipping. C) flushing. D) zipping.

Q: Discuss two important differences between the powerful effects theory and the minimalist effects theory of media effects and explain how continuing research on media effects led to a change from one to the other over the years.

Q: Al-Jazeera was modeled after ABC.

Q: Janet Cooke, a reporter at the Washington Post, fabricated a story about an A) 82-year-old Alzheimer’s patient. B) 8-year-old drug addict. C) 18-year-old prostitute. D) 18-year-old drug dealer.

Q: Visual literacy, a key part of media literacy, can be described as the ability “to read” still and moving images.

Q: Skeptics worry that community foundations owning newspapers might not provide detached and neutral coverage.

Q: The Associated Press is the largest news-gathering organization that is profit motivated.

Q: All of the Big Four recording companies are U.S.-owned and based conglomerates.

Q: Social networking sites differ from the America Online concept because A) there is advertising. B) users generate content. C) they are sponsored. D) they are censored.

Q: Which is the largest social network? A) Flickr B) YouTube C) Facebook D) MySpace

Q: In the heyday of the Penny Press newspaper content was reshaped to attract the maximum number of readers because advertisers ran their ads in papers with the largest circulation.

Q: The dialogic theory of public relations is based on being able to persuade other people and organizations to see things your way.