Deck 9: Communications

Question 1

What national change greatly improved America's literacy rates in the 1800s?

A)Compulsory education
B)Territorial expansion
C)Laying the railroads
D)Abolishing slavery

Answer 1

Compulsory education

Question 2

What role do syndicates play in the news industry?

A)They operate chain newspapers.
B)They control the media in certain regions.
C)They gather and sell the work of journalists, photographers and others en masse.
D)They organize collective bargaining for editors.

Answer 2

They gather and sell the work of journalists, photographers and others en masse.

Question 3

What allowed magazines to drastically reduce their prices in the late 1800s?

A)Decreased postal fees
B)Increased advertising revenues
C)National deflation
D)Innovations in color printing

Answer 3

Increased advertising revenues

Question 4

What is muckraking?

A)Including unnecessary details to embarrass politicians
B)Covering risqué stories about celebrities
C)Targeting powerful people or groups to provoke action
D)Writing untrue stories with a political agenda

Question 5

When did radio first become an important medium for disseminating news?

A)During World War II
B)During World War I
C)In the 1890s
D)During the Cold War

Question 6

What is a pseudo-event?

A)An event that is faked in front of cameras
B)An event that is put on specifically to gain publicity
C)An unimportant event that gets overhyped on a slow news day
D)A re-enactment of a real event

Question 7

The 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act targeted PR pioneer Ivy Lee. What action of his prompted the law?

A)Denouncing World War II
B)Renouncing his citizenship
C)Agreeing to represent Nazi Germany
D)Writing about the Great Depression

Question 8

Which audiences do PR professionals address in their work?

A)Shareholders
B)Employees
C)The general public
D)All of the above

Question 9

How are public affairs and public relations different?

A)Public affairs professionals only deal with the general public.
B)Public affairs professionals work for the government.
C)Public affairs professionals work with powerful institutions on behalf of theircompany.
D)Public affairs professionals deal mostly with the media.

Question 10

What is the standard unit for expressing an advertisement's efficiency?

A)Cost per hundred
B)Cost per thousand
C)Cost per million
D)Cost per household

Question 11

What is a paradigm?

A)A strategic business plan
B)A theory that orders information about the world
C)A process that determines how people receive information
D)The total body of knowledge within a given context

Question 12

Which of the following accurately summarizes two-step flow theory in mass communications?

A)Ideas flow from opinion makers to opinion followers.
B)Persuading people to accept new ideas is a two-step process.
C)New ideas must come from two different sources to be believed.
D)People will only accept two new ideas at a time.

Question 13

What does Klapper's reinforcement theory say about mass media communication?

A)It has the power to form bold new ideas.
B)It has the power to change social customs.
C)It only has the power to reinforce existing beliefs.
D)It has the power to change political paradigms.

Question 14

Which of the following is an example of agenda setting?

A)An editor's choice to put a politically embarrassing story on the front page
B)A photographer's decision to keep some pictures over others
C)A writer's decision to paraphrase an interview
D)A company's decision to advertise with a given newspaper

Question 15

Which theory states that the image created by the media is accepted because people choose to believe it?

A)Critical communication theory
B)Dependency theory
C)Social construct theory
D)Cultivation theory

Question 16

Which method do polling companies use to estimate public opinion?

A)Sampling
B)Interpolation
C)Trial and error
D)Experimentation

Question 17

Due to media influence, presidential campaigns now focus more on the candidates':

A)Backgrounds.
B)Personalities.
C)Social policies.
D)Foreign policy experience.

Question 18

Which of the following accurately describes libel?

A)It is false, malicious reporting that damages someone's reputation.
B)The term only applies to print media.
C)It is is any reporting that damages someone's reputation.
D)It is protected by the First Amendment.

Question 19

Does a journalist have the right to shield a confidential source?

A)Yes, journalists are protected by a federal shield law.
B)It depends on the state.
C)It depends on what the source has said.
D)Yes, unless the source has broken the law.

Question 20

What country was responsible for the creation of Radio Free Europe?

A)France
B)Germany
C)USSR
D)USA

Question 21

During a conversation, when a friend nods at something you have said, what is this an example of?

A)Feedback in personal communication
B)Noise in personal communication
C)Noise in mass communication
D)Encoding

Question 22

What was meant by Marshall McLuhan's famous statement, "the medium is the message"?

A)Media areable to directly control what people think about.
B)People care more about a specific medium than about specific content.
C)It is important to choose the right medium to convey an idea.
D)The medium used to convey an idea is unimportant.

Question 23

Which of the following is an example of technological determinism?

A)Signing up for an e-mail account
B)Getting rid of your landline and relying on a mobile phone
C)Believing that theInternet will cause society to break down
D)Changing your physical newspaper subscription to an online subscription

Question 24

What was the first mass-produced form of media?

A)Books
B)Newspapers
C)Records
D)Radio

Question 25

Which best defines literacy?

A)The ability to read simple sentences
B)The ability to effectively use a given medium
C)The ability to sound out words
D)The ability to interact with the rest of society

Question 26

Which is the best definition of a genre?

A)A specific story arc that writers tend to follow
B)A collection of writers who enjoy the same topics
C)A group of works within a specific medium that share many conventions
D)A group of works that are usually enjoyed by the same consumers

Question 27

Which of the following most affects people's voting behavior?

A)Televised news
B)Print media
C)Online media
D)Conversations with friends

Question 28

What is the CNN effect?

A)The agenda-setting power of televised media
B)The power of media to simplify news stories
C)The effect of the24-hour news cycle on politics
D)The effect of the 24-hour news cycle on other media outlets

Question 29

What justification did the government use to first start regulating radio and television broadcasts?

A)The need to protect citizens.
B)The need to regulate interstate commerce.
C)The scarcity of airwaves
D)The health threat posed by transmissions

Question 30

What was the Fairness Doctrine?

A)The FCC policy that broadcasters must air all sides equally
B)The FCC policy that anyone should be able to hear radio broadcasts
C)The doctrine used to regulate broadcast rights close to state borders
D)The doctrine that prevented political broadcasts immediately before an election