Deck 9: Entertainment

Question 1

When did entertainment evolve as part of human culture?

A) with Gutenberg's introduction of movable type
B) with the introduction of the musical instrument
C) when the Romans built Circus Maximus, which held 170,000 spectators
D) before the emergence of written human history

Answer 1

before the emergence of written human history

Question 2

The core categories of media entertainment remain

A) sports and music.
B) art and literature.
C) storytelling and music.
D) live entertainment and books.

Answer 2

storytelling and music.

Question 3

Entertainment came into the age of mass communication and began to reach large, mass audiences with the introduction of

A) Johannes Gutenberg's movable type.
B) romance novels.
C) pulp Westerns and dime novels.
D) television.

Answer 3

Johannes Gutenberg's movable type.

Question 4

Broad thematic categories of media content are called

A) cross-overs.
B) genres.
C) generics.
D) blockbusters.

Question 5

Which of the following would NOT be considered a thematic genre of entertainment?

A) rock and roll
B) books
C) sports
D) sci-fi

Question 6

Which of these entertainment categories contains the clearest genres within itself?

A) storytelling
B) music
C) sports
D) movies

Question 7

The youngest woman to ever make the Forbes list of the 100 Most Influential Females in the world was

A) Britanny Spears.
B) Hillary Cinton.
C) Lady Gaga.
D) Oprah Winfrey.

Question 8

Attending a Broadway show, you would be witnessing an example of

A) production-line entertainment.
B) authentic performance.
C) the Miller Standard at work.
D) mediated performance.

Question 9

A live, on-site performance is said to be a(n)

A) authentic performance.
B) mediated performance.
C) live performance.
D) scripted performance.

Question 10

What is the primary difference separating an authentic performance from a mediated performance?

A) timeliness
B) quality
C) subject matter
D) audience feedback

Question 11

A blockbuster movie shown on television would be considered

A) authentic performance.
B) mediated performance.
C) artistic performance.
D) recorded performance.

Question 12

Special adjustments made to ensure that the message of a performance will be effectively delivered by mass media transform the performance into

A) an authentic performance.
B) a live-on-tape performance.
C) a mediated message.
D) a pre-recorded message.

Question 13

Which came first in the ongoing waves of popular television content?

A) variety shows
B) quiz shows
C) reality shows
D) police dramas

Question 14

What is the ultimate determinant of genre trends?

A) media conglomerates
B) the Federal Communications Commission
C) producers
D) audiences

Question 15

Rhythm and blues emerged from early black music during the

A) 1850s and 1860s.
B) 1880s and 1890s.
C) 1930s and 1940s.
D) 1950s and 1960s.

Question 16

Hillbilly music had its origins in the

A) rock 'n' roll of the 1950s.
B) rhythm and blues of the 1920s and 1930s.
C) cowboy and western songs from the Old West.
D) English ballads and ditties brought to rural Appalachia.

Question 17

Early rock `n' rock music can be best understood as an evolution that sprang from

A) the blues.
B) country/western music.
C) protest music.
D) rockabilly.

Question 18

Sam Phillips was important in the emergence of rock 'n' roll because he

A) specialized in black artists singing popular white music.
B) discovered Elvis Presley.
C) defended payola even after being convicted.
D) invented the term "rock 'n' roll."

Question 19

What happened immediately after Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks criticized President George Bush for the Iraq War?

A) Their music sales skyrocketed.
B) Legislation was introduced to censor artists.
C) Their music was banned from many radio stations.
D) There was no impact on music sales.

Question 20

What was the response of major recording labels when independent producers introduced rap music?

A) They initially missed the significance of it.
B) They quickly added rap artists to their labels.
C) They attempted to kill rap music.
D) They bought indie labels.

Question 21

Sports as popular media content can be traced to

A) the founding of ESPN.
B) the founding of Sports Illustrated.
C) regular coverage in James Gordon Bennett's New York Herald.
D) ABC's Wide World of Sports in 1961.

Question 22

In 1921, Pittsburgh radio station KDKA was the first to carry what type of programming?

A) rockabilly music
B) rhythm and blues music
C) play-by-play football games
D) play-by-play baseball games

Question 23

Who created Sports Illustrated?

A) Jim McKay
B) James Gordon Bennett
C) Vince McMahon
D) Henry Luce

Question 24

Roone Arledge created what popular sports program for ABC in 1961?

A) Wide World of Sports
B) Friday Night Fights
C) Monday Night Football
D) WWF Smackdown

Question 25

What was Les Brown describing when he said, "At once topical and entertaining, performed live and suspensefully without a script, peopled with heroes and villains, full of action and human interest and laced with pageantry and ritual"?

A) live theater
B) music
C) storytelling
D) sports

Question 26

Which sports event attracts the largest worldwide television audience?

A) World Cup
B) Super Bowl
C) World Series
D) Stanley Cup

Question 27

In recent years, the major television networks have come to view sports programming as

A) profit makers.
B) loss leaders.
C) revenue neutral.
D) program interference.

Question 28

How big is the U.S. sex industry?

A) $100 million to $250 million in profits a year
B) $80 billion in profits a year
C) $60 million in revenues a year
D) $8 billion to $10 billion in revenues a year

Question 29

What Irish classic was originally banned in the U.S. because of its sexual content until a 1930 court decision?

A) Ulysses
B) Trinity
C) How Many Miles to Babylon?
D) The Country Girls

Question 30

What is the difference between obscene material and pornographic material?

A) Obscene material contains offensive language, while pornography is visually oriented.
B) Obscene material can be banned by the government, while pornography cannot.
C) Pornographic material is sexually oriented, whereas obscene material is any other objectionable content.
D) Obscene material is protected by the Miller Standard, whereas pornographic material is not.

Question 31

What does the Miller Standard define?

A) how old one has to be in order to view sexually explicit materials
B) which sexual content is protected from government bans
C) which media are protected from government oversight
D) at what times of day explicit material can be broadcast

Question 32

In order for material to be banned as obscene,

A) a minimum number of complaints must be lodged with the FCC.
B) it must fail all three of the tests set forth by the Miller Standard.
C) it must be inappropriately available to children.
D) it must fail any one test set forth by the Miller Standard.

Question 33

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling against Sam Ginsberg, a New York sandwich shop owner, remains the legal basis for

A) greater freedom of speech for spoken words included in hip-hop lyrics.
B) laws prohibiting the sale of pornographic material to children.
C) laws defining and prohibiting child pornography.
D) tighter standards of acceptability for all lyrics in recorded music.

Question 34

What was the upshot of the Pacifica case?

A) Broadcasters became more careful of their content at times that children might be listening.
B) The sea shell music genre grew in popularity because it was no longer banned.
C) New York station WBAI was exonerated of wrong-doing in the George Carlin case.
D) Peter Jackson had to chose New Zealand over the U.S. to shoot Lord of the Rings.

Question 35

Which comedian was at the heart of the Pacifica case?

A) Lenny Bruce
B) George Carlin
C) Richard Pryor
D) Bill Cosby

Question 36

In response to criticism about sex and violence in video games, the gaming industry has

A) done nothing.
B) devised a rating system with "EC" for early childhood and "AO" for adults only.
C) adopted the rating system used for movies.
D) adopted the rating system used for television.

Question 37

What is an auteur?

A) a performer who is less than professional but more than an amateur
B) a movie-maker whose cinematic contributions are significant and original
C) high-brow artistic content that is too sophisticated for a mass audience.
D) media content lacking artistic excellence

Question 38

Who of the following figures in film-making would NOT be considered an auteur?

A) Jean-Luc Godard
B) Stanley Kubrick
C) Adolph Zukor
D) Spike Lee

Question 39

Movies produced by Hollywood's studio system and the romance novels published by Harlequin are both examples of

A) elitist entertainment.
B) authentic creation.
C) production-line entertainment.
D) media with high production values.

Question 40

The term "pulp fiction" was first coined to denote

A) inexpensively produced short novels.
B) magazines printed on slick paper.
C) books printed on slick paper.
D) cheap magazines filled with short stories.

Question 41

According to the descriptions in the textbook, the television show Dancing with the Stars would be classified as an example of

A) high art.
B) low art.
C) auteur art.
D) kitsch.

Question 42

Who categorized cultural and artistic works along socioeconomic and intellectual lines to draw distinctions between high-culture, middle-culture, and low-culture audiences?

A) Dwight Macdonald
B) Herbert Gans
C) Marshall McLuhan
D) Andre Bazin

Question 43

The Taliban has driven a once robust movie industry underground in what country?

A) Iraq
B) Turkey
C) Pakistan
D) India

Question 44

Susan Sontag wrote "On Culture and the New Sensibility" that

A) divided art into highbrow, middlebrow and lowbrow.
B) clearly defined kitsch.
C) said pop art has cultural and social value.
D) severely criticized Hollywood.

Question 45

A lowbrow audience would most likely read

A) The Iliad.
B) National Enquirer.
C) Romeo and Juliet.
D) Pride and Prejudice.

Question 46

What word became popular during the 1960s after elitist began to accept Susan Sontag's view that pop art could have artistic and cultural merit?

A) cool
B) groovy
C) camp
D) far out

Question 47

As long as there have been celebrities, there have been media outlets that tried to bring them to the public eye.

Question 48

The celebrity craze and special media to track them started soon after World War II but didn't really take off until the advent of the Internet.

Question 49

According to the Pew Research Center, the vast majority of respondents feel that the media coverage of celebrity scandals has gone overboard.

Question 50

The Romans had a venue that held 170,000 spectators for athletic events.

Question 51

The impact of the entertainment content of today's mass media is easy to measure.

Question 52

Broad thematic categories of media content are called genres.

Question 53

The government defines what constitutes an entertainment genre.

Question 54

Genres are most complicated in sports because of all the rules.

Question 55

Lady Gaga made the cover of Time's issue featuring the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Question 56

Lady Gaga has parlayed her talent and outrageous media persona into generous support for causes she believes in including fighting HIV, AIDS, and childhood bullying.

Question 57

Lady Gaga's "charitable contributions" are just part of her act, don't really amount to much, and are only a miniscule portion of the revenue she brings in.

Question 58

People who attend a Broadway play are witnessing an authentic performance.

Question 59

Mass media can change performance.

Question 60

Audience feedback is necessary for something to be an authentic performance.

Question 61

Technology is a key component of a mediated performance.

Question 62

Made-for-TV movies are examples of authentic performance.

Question 63

Among the earliest popular genres in U.S. television entertainment were variety and quiz shows.

Question 64

Some storytelling genres have lasted through the centuries; others have been short-lived, quickly rising to peak popularity and then virtually dying out.

Question 65

Black and hillbilly music can be traced to the same roots.

Question 66

Rhythm and blues emerged during the Civil War.

Question 67

Black and hillbilly music merged to create rockabilly music, which became rock 'n' roll.

Question 68

Sam Phillips discovered Elvis Presley.

Question 69

Many musicologists have concluded that Jackie Brenston's Rocket 88 began rock 'n' roll as a music genre.

Question 70

Music can be a powerful force in societal issues.

Question 71

Rap is music with intense bass, rhyming riffs, and often anti-establishment lyrics.

Question 72

The Dixie Chicks were praised by conservatives after a member of the group criticized President Obama.

Question 73

Even political leaders recognize the power music can have and often incorporate it into their political campaigns.

Question 74

The first U.S. President to effectively use a campaign song was Bill Clinton.

Question 75

Music is both a media unto itself and an important component of several other mass media.

Question 76

James Gordon Bennett was a New York newspaper publisher who first assigned reporters to sports events on a regular basis in the 1830s.

Question 77

Newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer fueled audience interest in sports after organizing the first separate sports department in his New York World in the 1880s.

Question 78

The first play-by-play broadcast of a baseball game took place in 1943.

Question 79

Henry Luce, the publisher of Time and Life, created Sports Illustrated in 1954.

Question 80

Roone Arledge created Wide World of Sports.