Deck 12: Mass Audiences

Question 1

Using his new approach to analyzing and predicting results Nate Silver accomplished all of the following EXCEPT

A) accurately forecasting which stock prices would drop the most during the recession.
B) correctly predicting the outcomes of U.S. Senate elections in 49 of the 50 states in 2008.
C) developing an amazing system for tracking and projecting the performance of baseball players.
D) inspiring the blockbuster film Moneyball..

Answer 1

accurately forecasting which stock prices would drop the most during the recession.

Question 2

Until the 2008 elections, it was almost universally believed that no one could accurately predict election outcomes, but now that view is being challenged by amazingly accurate predictions from

A) George Gallup.
B) Leslie Nielsen.
C) Nate Silver.
D) Fred Silverman.

Answer 2

Nate Silver.

Question 3

For the most part, who do surveys serve?

A) mass media audiences
B) private clients, like advertisers and office-seekers
C) the Census Bureau
D) schoolteachers

Answer 3

private clients, like advertisers and office-seekers

Question 4

What intellectual interests did George Gallup bring together in his mother-in-law's run for secretary of state in Iowa?

A) feminism, history and agriculture
B) survey research, public opinion and politics
C) mathematics, sociology and communication
D) organizational management, human resources, accounting

Question 5

Which of the following used quota sampling techniques to predict presidential election outcomes in the 1930s?

A) Andy Kohut
B) Arbitron
C) AC Nielsen
D) George Gallup

Question 6

Why did George Gallup abandon quota sampling?

A) too time-consuming
B) pressure from the political correctness movement
C) difficulty in pinpointing public opinion closer than 4 points
D) too expensive

Question 7

What is the bandwagon effect?

A) Decided voters change their minds and begin to support the front-runner.
B) Pollsters phrase questions that lead people to answer them in pre-determined ways.
C) Poorly phrased questions encourage respondents to give the same answers others do.
D) Poll results drive undecided voters towards the current front-runner.

Question 8

What organization is best known for its television ratings evaluations?

A) Nielsen
B) Gallup
C) Harris
D) Arbitron

Question 9

Arbitron is known for

A) tracking television network audiences.
B) measuring radio audiences in local broadcast markets.
C) using people meters.
D) tracking audience members who cross-over from one medium to another.

Question 10

What does the Gallup Organization usually measure?

A) human nature and behavior
B) television audience size
C) magazine circulation
D) radio audience size

Question 11

The Pew Research Center studies

A) television and radio audiences.
B) attitudes toward politics and public policy issues.
C) print-media audiences.
D) local television audiences.

Question 12

Probability sampling requires

A) questioning as many people as possible.
B) mostly guesswork.
C) a precise cross-section of the population.
D) that every member of the population have an equal chance to be interviewed.

Question 13

In polling for a population of 500,000 or greater, how many people are needed for 95 percent confidence with less than 5 percent error margin?

A) 384
B) 1,483
C) 3,840
D) 18,340

Question 14

A good probability sample selection for polling

A) requires polling one in every six people.
B) gives every member of the population being sampled an equal chance.
C) will include an equal number of males and females.
D) will vary depending on the topic.

Question 15

The margin of error for a survey is

A) insignificant if enough people are surveyed.
B) critical to determine accuracy.
C) good enough as long as it's near 5 percent.
D) needs to be 2 percent or lower for any level of confidence.

Question 16

What kind of sampling matches the demographics of the people polled?

A) probability sampling
B) geo-demographic sampling
C) quota sampling
D) measured-interval sampling

Question 17

Why is it important to know when a poll was taken?

A) Opinions shift over time.
B) Weather impacts people's emotions
C) People are more alert in the morning, less so in the evening
D) Most people aren't home during the day, thus skewing the sample

Question 18

It is important to know who paid for a poll because the people who pay

A) may determine what a pollster will understand.
B) will be more open-minded about the results.
C) have a vested interest in the outcome.
D) restrict what other work a pollster may be able to do.

Question 19

Which of the following is NOT true regarding how a poll is conducted?

A) Polls conducted on street corners are not worth much statistically.
B) Mail surveys are flawed unless pollsters follow up on those who didn't answer.
C) Surveys taken in shopping malls are statistically flawed.
D) It makes no difference whether the poll is done on the telephone or face to face.

Question 20

When developing a survey instrument, it is important to pay attention to the wording of survey questions because

A) people remember polysyllabic words best.
B) people remember the words they heard first.
C) wording can skew responses.
D) people will reject a pollster who uses slang.

Question 21

Who selects the participants in a straw poll?

A) pollster
B) respondents themselves
C) pollster's client
D) interviewer

Question 22

900-number phone surveys are an example of

A) straw polling.
B) low-budget polling.
C) electronic sampling.
D) random sampling.

Question 23

Newspapers conduct people-on-the-street interviews because

A) they are efficient and accurate.
B) studies have shown them to be accurate.
C) they represent the average person in their communities.
D) they are circulation builders.

Question 24

What organization checks circulation claims?

A) Arbitron Circulation Bureau
B) American Research Bureau
C) A.C. Nielsen Co
D) Audit Bureau of Circulations

Question 25

Who was the first pollster to measure how many people listened to network radio programs?

A) George Gallop
B) A.C. Nielsen
C) Archibald Crossley
D) Rupert Murdoch

Question 26

Congressional investigations into false and inflated claims about broadcast ratings prompted networks to create the

A) Audit Bureau of Ratings.
B) Pew Research Center.
C) Broadcast Ratings Council.
D) Institute of American Public Opinion.

Question 27

The Broadcast Ratings Council

A) surveys broadcasters.
B) accredits ratings companies.
C) rates television networks.
D) confirms audience size.

Question 28

When events such as giveaways coincide with sweeps weeks, it is an example of

A) slanted results.
B) a black week.
C) flushing.
D) hyping.

Question 29

Which is a television ratings sweeps month?

A) January
B) March
C) June
D) February

Question 30

When polled with handwritten diaries, many people overstate the time they spend watching

A) steamy programs.
B) sophisticated programs.
C) prime time cartoons.
D) sitcoms.

Question 31

The flush factor is a term to describe

A) the elimination of television shows with low ratings.
B) firing a television personality after sweeps week.
C) viewers leaving their television sets during commercials to go the bathroom.
D) discarding embarrassing results from a flawed poll.

Question 32

When viewers avoid commercials by changing from channel to channel, it is called

A) zapping.
B) flipping.
C) flushing.
D) zipping.

Question 33

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.

Question 34

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.

Question 35

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

Question 36

Media Metrix is a leading audience measuring company for

A) television.
B) satellite radio.
C) terrestrial radio.
D) the Internet.

Question 37

A2/M2 is a ratings measurement system created by

A) Arbitron.
B) Nielsen.
C) Gallup.
D) Pew.

Question 38

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.

Question 39

Which of the following is an interview-based research method?

A) overnights
B) demographic breakdowns
C) sweeps
D) focus groups

Question 40

Which research method is called the "heartthrob approach"?

A) galvanic skin checks
B) heart monitors
C) heatmapping
D) viewer letters and phone calls

Question 41

Galvanic skin checks favor

A) ugly news anchors.
B) adrenaline-activating news stories.
C) dull news scripting.
D) routine video of public meetings.

Question 42

Which of the following is an example of prototype research?

A) screening a television pilot
B) conducting a focus group on a long-running show
C) Nielsen overnights
D) a portable people meter

Question 43

What is a sample of a possible new sitcom called?

A) galvanic check
B) focus group
C) focus cluster
D) pilot episode

Question 44

Cohort analysis has studied and classified the demographic characteristics of people so they can be targeted for marketing and other communication efforts based on

A) the company they work for or organization they belong to.
B) the industry in which they or their family members work.
C) the generation to which they belong based on when they were born.
D) the region and type of housing in which they live.

Question 45

One finding of cohort analysis is that

A) as people get older, they adopt their parents' values.
B) people who grew up on Coke switch to coffee.
C) many people, as they get older, stick to the habits of their youth.
D) baby boomers prefer Cadillacs as much as their parents did.

Question 46

Who created PRIZM?

A) George Gallup
B) Lou Harris
C) Al Neuharth
D) Jonathan Robbin

Question 47

What does geodemography do?

A) It describes why people live in different topographies.
B) It describes the influence of weather on buying habits.
C) It describes the effect of global warming on people's interest in media.
D) It describes lifestyle breakdowns based on demographic characteristics and regions.

Question 48

Which of the following is a psychographic analysis by values, lifestyle and life stage?

A) VIRIS
B) PALZ
C) PRISM
D) VALS

Question 49

The prosperous people comprising about 20 percent of the U.S. population, according to VALS, are the

A) achievers.
B) emulators.
C) experientials.
D) integrateds.

Question 50

Nate Silver correctly predicted the outcomes of the Presidential election and U.S. Senate elections in 49 out of 50 states during the 2008 elections.

Question 51

Newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer is believed to have done some of the first audience research by looking over people's shoulders to see what they were reading

Question 52

George Gallup conducted the first serious poll for a political candidate when his mother-in-law ran for office.

Question 53

George Gallup's accurate predictions of Franklin Roosevelt's election as President established his reputation as a pollster and quickly attracted clients.

Question 54

Gallup was convinced that public opinion surveys helped to make democracy work.

Question 55

By the 1940s, Gallup had switched from quota sampling to probability sampling because it provided more accuracy and reliability in predicting election outcomes.

Question 56

Susan Whiting founded the Institute of American Public Opinion.

Question 57

Arbitron is a company that is primarily known for measuring television audiences.

Question 58

If a political candidate is interested in results of a poll about public policy issues, the candidate likely would consult one done by the Pew Research Center.

Question 59

One serious flaw in probability sampling is that not everyone in the population being sampled has an equal chance to be selected.

Question 60

Statisticians consider 834 to be the minimum number of people needed to guarantee a margin of error lower than 5 percent.

Question 61

If you want to increase the confidence level in a poll and, at the same time, reduce the margin of error, you need to use a larger sample.

Question 62

Quota sampling seeks demographically representative samples.

Question 63

Call-in polls with 800 or 900 numbers test the views only of people who are aware of the poll and who have sufficiently strong opinions to want to be heard.

Question 64

When a poll is taken makes little difference in the results because opinions rarely change.

Question 65

Responsible and cautious journalists will thoroughly question the methodology of polls before running stories about their findings.

Question 66

Interview polls conducted in shopping malls are just as accurate as other methods of polling.

Question 67

There is at great risk of exposure and public embarrassment if a polling company's client misrepresents survey results.

Question 68

Polling companies relinquish all rights to their findings when they issue the results to their clients.

Question 69

The sampling behind straw polls is usually carefully constructed.

Question 70

Sidewalk interviews conducted by newspapers accurately reflect the views of the population.

Question 71

Press runs are part of the data used to determine magazine circulation figures.

Question 72

Radio and television audiences are just as easy to measure as are the readers of print publications.

Question 73

Demographic information included in Nielsen's rating system includes a number of age brackets.

Question 74

Networks created the Broadcast Ratings Council after a 1963 congressional investigation.

Question 75

The Broadcast Ratings Council reviews ads to keep racy ones off TV.

Question 76

Significant discrepancies in ratings services findings point to flawed methodology or execution.

Question 77

Black weeks are often hyped by networks.

Question 78

Sweeps weeks are conducted during eight months of the year.

Question 79

The flush factor was first noticed during halftime of televised football games.

Question 80

Engagement ratings measure how attentive people are to programs and ads.