Q&A Hero

Q: The sale of paperback books accounts for a relatively small portion of book sales.

Q: What are the implications of censorship for democracy?

Q: As opposed to other mass media, conglomeration has yet to strike the book publishing industry.

Q: What are the arguments for and against censorship of books in the United States?

Q: Over half of all book sales in the United States are accounted for by independent bookstores.

Q: Essay Questions List six cultural functions of books. Describe each and discuss why books, as opposed to other mass media, may be better or worse equipped to fulfill these functions.

Q: Within the e-publishing industry, only new or untested authors are making their works available online.

Q: Book publishers confronted with censorship face a conflict: the supposed good to the culture resulting from limiting publication versus the democratic obligation to resist censorship. If you were a publisher, how would you decide this conflict? Defend your position.

Q: Much of book buying has gravitated toward the Internet.

Q: How have commercialization and the demand for greater profits affected the book publishing industry?

Q: Aliteracy is a form of self-censorship.

Q: All of the following books have been targeted by censors except a. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck b. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling c. Find Me Im Yours by Hillary Carlip d. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Q: Online book-seller Amazon controls _____ percent of all e-book sales. a. 20 b. 60 c. 90 d. 30

Q: Digital books with the appearance of traditional books but content that is digitally stored and accessed are a. e-readers. b. trades. c. magazines. d. book club editions.

Q: Critics fear the use of ______________ in books will sacrifice the quality of the work to please sponsors. a. censorship b. synergy c. product placement d. tie-ins

Q: The book industry was slow to develop after the Revolutionary War because books were still expensive and literacy remained a luxury. But in a movement that began before the Civil War, _____________ came to most states by 1900, swelling the number of readers. a. the railroads b. compulsory education c. reduced taxes on the purchase of books d. the automobile

Q: True/False Questions After its development by Gutenberg, the printing press spread rather slowly throughout Europe.

Q: The American novel flowered in the 1800s because of all but which of the following? a. technically improved printing b. low-cost printing (and therefore lower-cost books) c. widespread literacy d. increased leisure time

Q: The book is the least mass of our mass media in terms of audience reach.

Q: a. Erastus Jones b. John Wiley c. Allen Lane d. Nathaniel Hawthorne

Q: One of the reasons books are seen as powerful cultural agents is because they are agents of social change.

Q: Dollar books for a dime was the slogan of publisher Beadle & Company, sellers of all but which of the following? a. dime novels b. pulp novels c. inexpensive frontier and adventure stories d. comic books

Q: Books are an advertiser supported medium.

Q: Robert de Graffs company, Pocket Books, sold paperback books that were inexpensive reissues of successful hardbacks. They cost a. 10 cents. b. 25 cents. c. one dollar. d. a dollar and a half.

Q: We turn to books for certainty and truth about the world in which we live and the ones about which we want to know specifically because books are a. agents of social and cultural change. b. important cultural repositories. c. sources of personal development. d. sources of entertainment and escape.

Q: About _____________ new and reprinted book titles are issued each year in the United States. a. 100,000 b. 150,000 c. 300,000 d. 1,000,000

Q: Which type of book includes not only fiction and most nonfiction but also cookbooks, biographies, art books, coff ee-table books, and how-to books. a. el-hi b. trade books c. professional books d. higher education

Q: The publication and distribution of a book initially or exclusively online is called a. e-publishing. b. digital books. c. e-books. d. POD.

Q: A book that is downloaded in electronic form from the Internet to a computer or handheld device is a. e-publishing. b. an e-book. c. an e-read. d. POD.

Q: When books are digitally stored and instantly printed, bound, and shipped when ordered, this is called a. e-publishing. b. d-read. c. e-books. d. print on demand (POD).

Q: A recent trend in the book business is ______________, the idea that potential synergies between books and other media have spurred big media companies to invest in publishing companies. a. Hollywoodization b. synergy c. hypercommercialism d. tie-in novels

Q: Most of the books carried to the New World by the American colonists were a. inexpensive and survival oriented. b. religious in nature. c. agriculturally oriented. d. expensive literary volumes.

Q: Books that are written based on popular shows and films are a. mass market paperbacks. b. dime novels. c. tie-in novels. d. graphic novels.

Q: The first printing press came to the colonies in 1638 and was operated by a. Benjamin Franklin. b. the Cambridge Press. c. Poor Richards Press. d. Thomas Paine.

Q: John Adams Novanglus Papers and Thomas Paines Common Sense a. openly challenged British rule of the colonies. b. articulately supported Britains right to rule the colonies. c. were instrumental in the fight to free the slaves. d. were originally printed in Latin.

Q: The first true novel printed in the colonies was Pamela, written by British author Samuel Richardson and published by a. Benjamin Franklin. b. the Cambridge Press. c. Poor Richards Press. d. Thomas Paine.

Q: Fahrenheit 451 was written by a. Robert Grisham. b. Ann Rice. c. Ray Bradbury. d. Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Q: Designed to help England recoup the money it lost waging the French and Indian War, the passage of the _____________ in 1765 angered colonial printers, who correctly saw it as a limit on their right of free expression. a. Alien and Sedition Act b. Paine Act c. Stamp Act d. Royal Printing Act

Q: The number of American adults who do not read book at all is a. 50 percent. b. 5 percent. c. 75 percent. d. 25 percent.

Q: The _____________, employing a typewriter-like keyboard, was introduced in the 1800s, allowing the mechanical rather than manual setting of type. a. pulp machine b. offset machine c. linotype machine d. hot print machine

Q: In the 1800s, _____________ was developed, making printing possible from photographic plates rather than metal casts. a. the daguerreotype b. offset lithography c. the linotype machine d. the hot print machine

Q: In 1860, the Beadle brothers began selling popular action novels for 10 cents. These _____________ helped turn books into a mass medium. a. dime novels b. ten-cent readers c. broadsides d. serialized novellas

Q: a. de Graff Brothers b. Harper Brothers c. Penguin Books d. Pocket Books

Q: A book is _____________when someone in authority limits publication of or access to it. a. proscribed b. censored c. mandated d. circumscribed

Q: Books that are published first and only as paperbacks designed to appeal to a broad readership are called a. el-hi. b. trade books. c. professional books. d. mass market paperbacks.

Q: The process of eliminating gatekeepers between artists and audiences is a. disintermediation. b. censorship. c. print on demand. d. platform agnostic publishing.

Q: Many publishers, even authors, are happy to distribute their books in any and all formats, print and electronic. This is called a. multistage publishing. b. cross-publishing. c. the three-screen strategy. d. platform agnostic publishing.

Q: Publishing houses, now increasingly part of larger conglomerates, were once typically small operations, closely identified with their authors and staffs. In other words, publishing had been largely a _____________ industry. a. low-profit b. cottage c. mom-and-pop d. loosely regulated

Q: The sale of a book, its contents, and its characters to filmmakers, paperback publishers, book clubs, and merchandise manufacturers is called the sale of its _____________ rights. a. editorial b. managerial c. outsource d. subsidiary

Q: Possessing the ability to read but being unwilling to do so characterizes a. literacy. b. aliteracy. c. illiteracy. d. media literacy.

Q: 17About 40% of new books are sold every year by a. chain bookstores. b. discount stores. c. independent bookstores. d. Amazon.

Q: Differentiate between concentration of media ownership and conglomeration.

Q: What is globalization?

Q: What is hypercommercialism?

Q: What is audience fragmentation?

Q: What are economies of scale and oligopoly? How are they related?

Q: What are product placement and branded content?

Q: What elements are fueling todays rampant media convergence?

Q: Differentiate between appointment consumption and consumption-on-demand.

Q: What are the five major trends currently reshaping the mass communication process? How does each promise to do so?

Q: What are the two major concerns of globalizations critics? Do you feel that concern? Why or why not?

Q: Differentiate between notions of content producers, audiences, messages, and feedback in the traditional view of the mass communication process and the more contemporary understandings of these elements of the process.

Q: What is a platform?

Q: Where NBC executive Bob Wright warns, You cant fight technology, Advertising Ages Scott Donaton cautions, A cell phone isnt a TV. What is the concern behind each comment? Is one more correct than the other? With whom would you side in a debate, and why?

Q: Can you describe recent changes in audience size for movies, recorded music, network television, DVD, radio, newspapers, and videogames?

Q: Many industry insiders attribute the recent fall-off in audiences for movies, recorded music, network television, DVD, radio, newspapers, and videogames to changes in technology; people are finding new ways to access content. And while this is certainly true to a degree, others say that in this age of concentrated and hypercommercialized media, audiences are simply being turned off. Would you agree with the critics? Why? Can you give examples from your own media consumption?

Q: How would you describe contemporary levels of overall media consumption?

Q: Critics of concentration of media ownership and conglomeration argue that they are a threat to democracy. What is the thrust of their concern? Do you share it? Why or why not?

Q: What is convergence?

Q: When asked which devices American teens use daily, 76% said they use their cellphones every day and 72% watch television every day, but only 38% use a desktop computer and only 36% use an iPod or other music player. Would you say you use devices with multiple uses more often than devices with singular uses? What do you think this says about the effects of conversion on American culture?

Q: What is media multitasking?

Q: Do you find product placement and branded content as troublesome as do its critics? Why or why not? Are you sympathetic to those writers who want to be paid extra for inserting commercials into their scripts? Why or why not?

Q: Software for mobile digital devices is called a. a webisode. b. Wi-Fi. c. an app. d. brand entertainment.

Q: Increasing the amount of advertising and mixing commercial and noncommercial content is known as a. audience fragmentation b. hypercommericalism. c. convergence. d. globalization.

Q: The fact that people increasingly have no preference for where they access their media content suggests that they are becoming a. lazy. b. content-neutral. c. media literate. d. platform agnostic.

Q: Many cable channelsfor example, Nickelodeon and A&Eprosper through their ability to deliver demographically narrow audiences to advertisers.

Q: Convergence refers to the collecting, or converging, of many media companies into a few large corporations.

Q: The availability of USA Today in the form ofa newspaper, an iPad app, and a webpage is an example of a. concentration of media ownership. b. globalization of media. c. audience fragmentation. d. erosion of distinctions among media.

Q: Supporters point to economies-of-scale in their defense of media concentration.

Q: When a media company has content that it can use across a number of its different holdings, this is a. narrowcasting or niche marketing. b. subgroup marketing. c. synergy. d. message concentration.