Deck 6: Public Opinion Political Socialization and The Media

Question 1

Transmitting political values

A) is more likely to happen from parents to children.
B) is less likely to happen from educators to students.
C) is equally likely to happen from educators as from parents.
D) most likely happens when children, influenced by educators, influence parents in turn.
E) never happens from children to parents.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Political socialization is

A) what people think about something.
B) the process by which people acquire political beliefs and attitudes.
C) when people's beliefs and attitudes give politicians an idea of when to address those issues.
D) when people are categorized based on what they believe.
E) when people generally agree on an issue.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

The generational effect in politics refers to

A) the way in which political socialization produces opinions.
B) the increased tension between the two major political parties.
C) the tendency for persons to become more conservative as they grow older.
D) the long-lasting effect of the events of a particular time on the political opinions of those who came of age at that time.
E) the way in which the family influences voting.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

If the results of an opinion poll look like the following: Favor: 44%; Oppose: 45%; No opinion: 11%), the results show an example of opinion.

A) consensus
B) divided
C) dubious
D) favorable
E) unified

Question 5

Which of the following best explains the relationship between education and interest in politics?

A) The less education a person has, the more likely s/he will be interested in politics.
B) The more education a person has, the more likely s/he will be interested in politics.
C) The more interest a person has in politics impacts the amount of education s/he will receive.
D) Uneducated people vote the most.
E) Highly educated people are the most apathetic about politics.

Question 6

Which of the following groups are more likely to vote Republican?

A) Factory workers
B) Union members
C) Small-business owners
D) Attorneys
E) College instructors

Question 7

Jewish voters are notably

A) more likely to vote for candidates that are politically conservative.
B) more liberal than members of other groups on cultural issues, but more conservative on economic issues.
C) focused almost totally on domestic issues.
D) more liberal than members of other groups on both economic and cultural issues.
E) similar to the overall population in their political preferences.

Question 8

An opinion leader is

A) one who is able to influence the opinions of others because of position, expertise, or personality.
B) a pollster.
C) always someone whose job is to sway public opinion, such as a member of Congress.
D) a public relations expert.
E) someone who relies on position, or expertise, rather than something like personality.

Question 9

Political attitudes are more likely to be shaped by peer groups when

A) people are over the age of fifty.
B) it is not an election year.
C) people within the peer group do not have strong party identification.
D) the peer groups are involved directly in political activities.
E) members of the peer group are all of the same gender.

Question 10

In recent years, Protestants and Catholics have

A) both become more likely to abstain from voting.
B) both become more likely to vote Democratic.
C) moved toward Jewish voters politically.
D) moved farther apart from each other politically.
E) grown closer to each other politically.

Question 11

Private opinion becomes public opinion when

A) that opinion, regardless of its subject matter, is publicly expressed.
B) it is publicly expressed and concerns public issues.
C) an individual is polled by a major polling organization.
D) it is not divided.
E) it is articulated to at least ten other people.

Question 12

Recently, having more than a bachelor's degree

A) is associated with a greater tendency to vote for Republicans.
B) is associated with a greater tendency to vote for Democrats.
C) is associated with a greater tendency to vote for Independents.
D) has no influence on voting behavior.
E) is associated with a greater tendency to abstain from voting.

Question 13

Many people contend that the media's influence on public opinion

A) has remained constant.
B) is decreasing.
C) has grown to equal the influence of the family.
D) is negligible.
E) is not, nor has it ever been, a significant factor.

Question 14

Because so many people are in the United States and it's impracticable to poll everyone, people interested professionally in looking at public opinion describe the of opinions about a particular question.

A) number
B) reliability
C) validity
D) distribution
E) standard deviation

Question 15

Which of the following BEST describes public opinion?

A) When a number of people generally feel the same way about something
B) Polling data
C) How people feel about something
D) What people think
E) The aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs shared by some portion of the adult population

Question 16

When people generally agree on an issue, the agreement itself is called

A) a consensus.
B) an opinion.
C) unanimity.
D) reliability.
E) validity.

Question 17

Which of the following is true regarding political socialization?

A) Older Americans tend to be more liberal than younger Americans.
B) The experience of marriage and raising a family has a measurable liberalizing effect.
C) A more important factor than age is the impact of momentous political events that shape the political attitudes of an entire generation.
D) Voters who grew up during the Great Depression were likely to form lifelong attachments to the Republican Party.
E) The years of economic prosperity under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s led many young people to identify with the Democratic Party.

Question 18

Those with high incomes tend to

A) lean toward the left.
B) vote Democratic.
C) favor government action to promote economic equality.
D) oppose government intervention in the economy.
E) favor government action to benefit the poor.

Question 19

New forms of media

A) have decreased the polarization that characterizes American politics.
B) are all Internet based.
C) were made possible by the enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine.
D) include talk radio and cable television.
E) are all equally influential.

Question 20

Determining which public policy questions will be debated or considered is a process known as .

A) roll call
B) subconscious influence
C) lobbying
D) media dominance
E) agenda setting

Question 21

Which of the following methods is most likely to control sampling error?

A) Surveying the least educated
B) Processing survey results quickly
C) Conducting a telephone poll
D) Taking a large random sample
E) Taking a large quota sample

Question 22

Critical consumers should watch out for surveys with and other types of skewed samples.

A) margins of error greater than one percent
B) large numbers of respondents
C) quota-sampled respondents
D) randomly-sampled respondents
E) self-selected respondents

Question 23

African Americans of all religious tendencies have been

A) more likely than Catholics, but less likely than Protestants, to vote Republican.
B) in line with non-African American religious voters with regard to their voting tendencies.
C) evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.
D) strongly supportive of Democrats.
E) strongly supportive of Republicans.

Question 24

All of the following about American political culture is true EXCEPT

A) it is a set of attitudes and ideas about the nation and government.
B) it consists of symbols such as the American flag, the Liberty Bell, and the Statue of Liberty.
C) it supports the political system.
D) it is only shared by Americans of similar backgrounds.
E) shared beliefs exist about values such as liberty, equality, and property.

Question 25

Political culture, to some extent, consists of symbols, such as

A) the American flag.
B) the Liberty Bell.
C) the Empire State Building.
D) Both options A and B are true.
E) None of the above is true.

Question 26

The public tends to emphasize problems that are

A) long-term.
B) immediate.
C) education-related.
D) easily solved.
E) most likely to affect future generations.

Question 27

Usually, the Gallup and Roper polls interview

A) 3 percent of the U.S. population.
B) about 1,500 individuals.
C) over 100,000 individuals in each random sample for presidential elections.
D) people who have been selected based on their intelligence.
E) using quota samples.

Question 28

The answers given by respondents to poll questions are influenced by all of the following EXCEPT

A) the order in which questions are asked.
B) wanting to please the interviewer.
C) a yes/no format that restricts the respondents' choices.
D) the size of the sample.
E) the possible answers from which the respondents are allowed to choose.

Question 29

The difference between the percentage of women who vote for a particular candidate and the percentage of men who vote for the candidate is called

A) the feminization of politics.
B) political socialization.
C) the ideology spectrum.
D) an opinion poll.
E) the gender gap.

Question 30

The principle of randomness in sampling means that

A) every person should have a known chance, and especially an equal chance, of being sampled.
B) there is no preplanning in the selection process.
C) every person in the target population who is encountered is selected.
D) researchers decide how many persons of certain types they need in the survey.
E) the poll is unscientific.

Question 31

Sampling error occurs when

A) a whole generation of voters uniformly believe that something is based on a commonly shared experience.
B) socioeconomic status influences what types of answers are given in a survey.
C) an interviewer presents survey questions with a good deal of bias.
D) there is a difference between the sample result and what the sample really responded.
E) there is a difference between a sample result and the true result if the entire population had been interviewed.

Question 32

Which of the following statements is NOT true?

A) The majority of Hispanic Americans vote Democratic.
B) Cuban Americans are usually Republican.
C) Most Asian American groups lean toward the Democrats.
D) A majority of Muslim Americans of Middle Eastern ancestry voted Republican in 2000.
E) African Americans have voted principally for Democrats since the 1880s.

Question 33

Currently, which of the following regions are more supportive of the Republicans than the Democrats?

A) The West Coast and the Northeast
B) The South and the Northeast
C) The South, the Great Plains, and several of the Rocky Mountain states
D) The Midwest and the West Coast
E) The West Coast, the Great Plains, and several of the Rocky Mountain states

Question 34

Which of the following best describes an opinion poll?

A) The amount of deviation in the sample of the population chosen from the real opinion
B) A method of systematically questioning a small, selected sample of respondents who are deemed representative of the total population
C) The total number of people surveyed
D) When the people surveyed have an inherent bias that affects the results of the poll
E) When pollsters take voter information and analyze it to predict other trends than simple opinions

Question 35

Politically speaking, American women are

A) more likely than men to support capital punishment.
B) less likely than men to be concerned about the environment.
C) more likely than men to support social welfare programs.
D) more likely than men to support interventions abroad.
E) less likely than men to support extending civil rights to gay men and lesbians.

Question 36

During the 1800s, certain American newspapers and magazines spiced up their political coverage by

A) letting a coin flip determine the outcome of elections.
B) republishing the poll results of the magazine Literary Digest.
C) conducting face­to­face polls or mail surveys of readers' opinions.
D) fabricating poll results.
E) conducting accurate representative surveys of Americans' opinions.

Question 37

Scholars began to detect the gender gap following the election of

A) Ronald Reagan.
B) Gerald Ford.
C) Jimmy Carter.
D) George W. Bush.

Question 38

Which of the following best describes sampling error?

A) Any given poll will result in as certain percentage point variation from the true answer as pollsters could not really interview everyone.
B) Researchers take a random number of people and survey them.
C) Pollsters get a sample of people using demographic or geographical software to yield a high level of accuracy.
D) Researchers take a sample of voters and slant the results in order to influence future polls.
E) Pollsters make up the survey results.

Question 39

Which of the following best describes political trust?

A) People identifying themselves as Democrats, Republicans, or independents
B) Degree to which individuals express trust in political institutions
C) Everyone having the right to vote
D) People's thinking about somethings.
E) Huge majority of Americans demanding the nation do something about a given issue

Question 40

People in large cities tend to be

A) evenly split between Republican and Democratic voters.
B) conservative and Republican.
C) liberal but vote Republican.
D) conservative but vote Democratic.
E) liberal and Democratic.

Question 41

How important is it that newspapers are struggling? Are online sources of news such as blogs a good replacement for print news? Why or why not?

Question 42

By far, the greatest number of radio and television hours are dedicated to

A) identifying public problems.
B) reporting the news.
C) entertaining the public.
D) providing a political forum.
E) educating the public.

Question 43

Describe the difference between consensus and divided opinions. Can politicians use either one more effectively than the other to form public policy? Why or why not?

Question 44

Today, of Americans use television news as their primary source of information.

A) less than 10 percent
B) 25 percent
C) 55 percent
D) 78 percent
E) 69 percent

Question 45

Provide an example of media "spin" about a current political issue or campaign. What tactics have been most
effective in shaping public opinion?

Question 46

Blogs and the Internet have

A) improved candidates' management of sound bites.
B) made it more difficult for candidates to manage the news coverage of their campaigns.
C) prevented news organizations from using video clips and other online materials.
D) had little effect on campaigns.
E) made it more difficult for campaigns to raise funds.

Question 47

The media tends to depend on for their income.

A) subscriptions
B) Internet taxes
C) government spending
D) advertisers
E) contributions

Question 48

A political advisor who tries to convince journalists of the truth of a particular interpretation of events is called a

A) news consultant.
B) flip-flopper.
C) spin doctor.
D) fact checker.
E) win engineer.

Question 49

A brief, memorable comment that can easily be fit into news broadcasts is a

A) falsehood.
B) story line.
C) multimedia platform.
D) sound bite.
E) unit of analysis.

Question 50

How does political socialization occur in the United States? Explain the various means by which Americans obtain their political beliefs.

Question 51

Describe the ways in which the government is involved in regulating the media. Why is regulation necessary? What effects does it have on what information we receive?

Question 52

Identify the functions performed by the mass media in the United States. Are certain functions more important than others? Why or why not?

Question 53

What trends can be seen in public opinion about institutions? Describe factors that drive these trends.

Question 54

Describe the ways television has been used in, and influenced, political campaigns.

Question 55

Which of the following best describes bias?

A) An inclination or preference that interferes with impartial judgment
B) Information that is the personal property of someone
C) The news media injecting opinions into reporting to reflect the political attitudes of its consumers
D) Networks such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
E) None of the above

Question 56

The public agenda is

A) decided by the public through ballot initiatives.
B) issues that are perceived by the political community as meriting public attention and governmental action.
C) never influenced by the mass media.
D) also called the Massachusetts ballot.
E) an explicit agreement among media providers about what topics to cover and how.

Question 57

When conducting a public opinion poll, what things must be taken into consideration and what problems might there be? What measures help ensure accurate results?

Question 58

How do demographic influences shape voting behavior? Use specific examples in your answer.

Question 59

Negative political ads can backfire when

A) there are only two candidates in the race.
B) there are three or more candidates in the race.
C) they mention atomic attacks.
D) they decrease the profitability of television station owners.
E) they are run by Democratic candidates.

Question 60

Studies of bias in the media have reached

A) different conclusions: some found a liberal bias, whereas others found a conservative bias.
B) a clear conclusion: there is a liberal bias in the media.
C) a clear conclusion: there is a conservative bias in the media.
D) a clear conclusion: there is no bias in the media.
E) the conclusion that it is impossible to test for bias.