Deck 10: Public Opinion and the News Media

Question 1

Literary Digest incorrectly predicted that Alfred M.Landon would sweep the 1936 presidential election.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Many American ideals,including hard work and personal responsibility,are rooted in our nation's

A)ethnic diversity.
B)political parties.
C)belief in pure capitalism.
D)Protestant heritage.
E)ideas toward welfare.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

A child's peer group is most politically influential in

A)preschool.
B)early elementary school.
C)late elementary school.
D)middle and high school.
E)the early college years.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

The press has a much greater impact on public opinion on certain topics,such as

A)domestic politics.
B)events in foreign countries.
C)elections and campaigns.
D)crime.
E)campaign finance reform.

Question 5

Tracking polls were first used in

A)1936.
B)1952.
C)1992.
D)1996.
E)2004.

Question 6

The lion's share of the media's coverage of Congress is concentrated on

A)the leadership of both houses.
B)key committee chairs.
C)local senators and representatives.
D)the most senior members of each body.
E)newcomers to Congress.

Question 7

Why is the welfare state in the United States less developed than many other industrialized democracies?

A)Democrats continually prevent the expansion of the welfare state.
B)The Constitution severely limits the ability of the welfare state to exist.
C)It sometimes comes into conflict with American ideals such as hard work and responsibility.
D)President Franklin D. Roosevelt quashed any possibility of a welfare state.
E)Americans value pure capitalism over any sort of government intervention.

Question 8

Which of the following is a major weakness of public opinion polls?

A)Only elite opinion is measured.
B)Polls are unable to measure the intensity of feelings about issues.
C)All polls contain far too many errors to ever be reliable.
D)Most polls have too many respondent options.
E)Social scientists have not perfected the sampling process.

Question 9

Ordinary individuals who collect,report,and analyze news content are most accurately called

A)embedded journalists.
B)political reporters.
C)citizen journalists.
D)residential reporters.
E)amateur anchors.

Question 10

A form of journalism popular in the late nineteenth century that featured pictures,comics,color,and sensationalized,oversimplified news coverage was called

A)muckraking.
B)"populist" journalism.
C)penny journalism.
D)blue dog journalism.
E)yellow journalism.

Question 11

For much of the 1980s and 1990s,many citizens believed that the media were

A)biased to the left.
B)biased to the right.
C)completely objective.?
D)Reagan sympathizers.
E)communists.

Question 12

The equal time rule

A)means that all political candidates must be covered by news stations for roughly the same amount of time.
B)applies to all political candidates.
C)is not enforced during debates.
D)means that stations cannot charge one candidate more than another for air time.
E)means that at debates, candidates must have equal time to speak.

Question 13

The major news source for Republicans is

A)FOX News.
B)ABC.
C)C-SPAN.
D)CNN.
E)CBS News.

Question 14

Television and radio are regulated by the federal government because

A)there is an unlimited supply of broadcast stations.
B)television and radio are considered dangerous to the spirit of democracy.
C)the airwaves are public property.
D)it is specifically allowed by the Constitution.
E)media profits are not legally allowed to exceed certain levels.

Question 15

Polls show that women and men

A)hold identical views on 99 percent of issues.
B)hold different views on a variety of social issues.
C)hold identical views on social issues.
D)hold identical views on foreign policy issues.
E)hold different views on only one or two minor issues.

Question 16

Unscientific surveys used to gauge public opinion on a variety of issues are called

A)exit polls.
B)push polls.
C)tracking polls.
D)deliberative polls.
E)straw polls.

Question 17

_____ is considered the founder of modern-day public opinion polling.

A)Walter Lippmann
B)Alfred M. Landon
C)George Gallup
D)John Zogby
E)William E. Harris

Question 18

The Progressive movement brought with it the dawn of ________,a form of newspaper publishing concerned with reforming government and business conduct.

A)the penny press
B)yellow journalism
C)muckraking
D)partisan journalism
E)objective journalism

Question 19

Americans' views on the news media have become

A)more favorable in the past few decades.?
B)more ambivalent.
C)more neutral, especially with regard to television news.
D)increasingly unfavorable in recent years.
E)polarized in the last ten years.

Question 20

George Gallup believed politicians should rely entirely on public opinion polling.

Question 21

ARPANET,developed by the Department of Defense,was a precursor to the Internet.

Question 22

What did George Gallup mean when he said that public opinion polls "speed up the process of democracy" in the United States?

A)Polls can cue politicians to consider important political issues.
B)Polls can make elections run more smoothly.
C)Laws will always sail through the legislative process if public opinion supports them.
D)All politics is driven by public opinion.
E)Public opinion polls accurately predict election outcomes so the public actually knows the winners months in advance.

Question 23

Democrats are more likely than Republicans to listen to National Public Radio.

Question 24

________ correctly predicted every presidential election from 1920 to 1932.

A)Time
B)The New Yorker
C)The Gallup Report
D)Literary Digest
E)Newsweek

Question 25

During the 2008 Iowa Caucuses,the major television and cable networks as well as the Associated Press banded together to collect information in an association known as the

A)American Election Studies.
B)National Election Pool.
C)Press Guild.
D)United Press Pool.
E)General Social Survey.

Question 26

Literary Digest used ________ polls to predict the popular vote in presidential elections.

A)exit
B)straw
C)tracking
D)deliberative
E)representative

Question 27

A gender gap exists in views toward the military and security.

Question 28

Literary Digest's prediction of the winner in the 1936 presidential election suffered from which common polling errors?
I)Wealthy Republicans were oversampled.
II)Polls were taken in early September,and voters changed their minds by November.
III)Only property owners were included in the sample.
IV)The polling relied heavily on self-selected respondents.

A)I and II
B)II and III
C)III and IV
D)I, II, and IV
E)II, III, and IV

Question 29

The results of the Iowa caucuses were different from those of the ultimate outcome of the primary election campaign in that

A)Democrat Barack Obama did not win the Democratic caucus.
B)Republican Mike Huckabee won his party's caucus.
C)Republican John McCain was not on the ballot in Iowa at all.
D)Republican Mitt Romney swept the Iowa caucuses.
E)Democrat Hillary Clinton won the Democratic caucus.

Question 30

George Gallup was so confident about his polling methodology that he

A)offered his first-born child if he was incorrect about the winner of the 1936 election.
B)had a money-back guarantee if his results were not closer than those of the Literary Digest.
C)claimed he would retire if he was wrong about election results by more than a 5-point margin.
D)wrote several books about using public opinion polling in politics.
E)offered $10,000 to any pollster who could come closer than him.

Question 31

The 1936 election was predicted correctly by

A)George Gallup.
B)the Literary Digest.
C)the National Election Study.
D)Harris Interactive.
E)Zogby International.

Question 32

The president is given more media attention than any other official in the national government.

Question 33

The effect of polling on public policy has decreased in recent years.

Question 34

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 regulated large segments of the electronic media.

Question 35

Political knowledge is unrelated to political participation.

Question 36

Random-digit dialing is when polling firms ask phone bank operators to push seven random numbers on a telephone in order to contact a scientifically random sample.

Question 37

The media has little effect on overall public opinion during election cycles.

Question 38

All journalists are biased.

Question 39

The Supreme Court has found that the president has "inherent power" to halt the publication of news.

Question 40

A polling question with limited respondent options sometimes paints an inaccurate picture of the true sentiments of the general public.

Question 41

Which of the following must be considered when conducting serious,scientific public opinion polls?
I)Question phrasing
II)Sample selection
III)Method of contacting respondents
IV)Timing of polls

A)III only
B)I and III
C)III and IV
D)I, III, and IV
E)I, II, III, and IV

Question 42

Most first-year college students identify themselves as

A)conservative.
B)middle-of-the-road.
C)liberal.
D)libertarian.
E)radicals.

Question 43

The process through which an individual acquires particular political orientations is most accurately called

A)juvenile politicization.
B)political acclimation.
C)acquisition.
D)public opinion.
E)political socialization.

Question 44

According to the data presented in the tracking poll in the text,a growing gap in support for John McCain and Barack Obama occurred in ________ of 2008.

A)August
B)September
C)October
D)November
E)December

Question 45

If a scientific poll with a 3-percent margin of error reveals that 60 percent of respondents support a policy,the actual number of people in a population who support the policy could be anywhere between ____ and ____ percent.

A)51/ 69
B)54 / 66
C)57 / 63
D)59 / 61
E)59.7 / 60.3

Question 46

Government-sponsored health insurance for the working poor is a hot-button issue for _________,with 61 percent of the demographic group supporting reform.

A)Hispanics
B)African Americans
C)whites
D)Asian and Pacific Island Americans?
E)American Indians

Question 47

Political scientist V.O.Key was among the first to note which of the following examples of shortcomings of polling?

A)A survey about presidential approval had a sample size of ten respondents.
B)A survey asked only African Americans about the Iraq War.
C)When asking if a respondent likes ice cream, it gave only two options for a response: yes or no.
D)A survey asked 350 different questions.
E)A survey about an issue which the public has little information did not screen respondents about familiarity.

Question 48

Political socialization within the family can be traced to two factors:

A)communication and parenting skills.
B)receptivity and parents' party identification.
C)size of family and religiosity.
D)communication and receptivity.
E)sibling relationships and parental intelligence.

Question 49

Our earliest views of political matters come from

A)kindergarten.
B)The Weekly Reader.
C)parents.
D)church, temple, or synagogue.
E)friends.

Question 50

During the 2008 presidential elections,one study estimated that Americans learned _____________ about the presidential campaign from alternative sources such as The Daily Show as they did from traditional sources such as CNN or the New York Times.

A)significantly less
B)significantly more
C)about the same amount
D)slightly less
E) slightly more

Question 51

When we look at colleges and universities as a source of political socialization,we find that most students become,on average,

A)more conservative as they near graduation.
B)more middle-of-the-road as they near graduation.
C)more extremist as they near graduation.
D)more libertarian as they near graduation.
E)more liberal as they near graduation.

Question 52

The polling industry suffered a setback in 1948 when it predicted that ________ would win the presidential election.

A)Harry S Truman
B)Strom Thurmond
C)Henry Wallace
D)Thomas Dewey
E)Franklin D. Roosevelt

Question 53

Studies about the role of schools in the political process find
I)mixed results.
II)teaching about symbols to be important.
III)reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is critical to instilling patriotism.
IV)that yellow ribbons have particular significance to children.

A)I and IV
B)II and III
C)I and II
D)II and IV
E)I and III

Question 54

Historically,some of the biggest gender differences in political attitudes have been on

A)gun control.
B)gay rights.
C)economic issues.
D)abortion.
E)military issues.

Question 55

A proposed tax increase that would assist in funding nursing homes would MOST likely be supported by people in

A)Massachusetts.
B)North Carolina.
C)Florida.
D)Kansas.
E)Minnesota.

Question 56

Polling firms

A)have varying objectives, even when conducting similar surveys.
B)manufacture data to achieve political ends.?
C)rely on straw poll data.
D)use the Internet as a primary means to distribute surveys.
E)are always partisan.

Question 57

A significant discrepancy between Gallup's prediction and the election outcome occurred in which year?

A)1960
B)1964
C)1984
D)1992
E)2004

Question 58

Generally,the percentage of people who believe sending troops to Iraq was a mistake has __________ over time.

A)decreased significantly
B)decreased only slightly?
C)remained stagnant
D)increased
E)fluctuated

Question 59

According to the text,________ is considered a critical component of political socialization.

A)newspaper reading
B)civic education
C)watching the news
D)being bilingual
E)Internet surfing

Question 60

Which of the following are NOT agents of political socialization for children in their formative years?

A)books and magazines
B)parents
C)peers
D)children's programming on channels such as Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network
E)the Pledge of Allegiance

Question 61

Gavel-to-gavel coverage of House and Senate sessions is provided by

A)Community Access Cable.
B)CNBC.
C)C-SPAN.
D)PBS.
E)NPR.

Question 62

The freedom of the press is a concept rooted in the _____ Amendment of the U.S.Constitution.?

A)First
B)Second?
C)Third
D)Fourth
E)Fifth

Question 63

It is surprising that the Framers included freedom of the press in the First Amendment because

A)at the time, newspapers were run by disreputable people.
B)they disliked the idea of the media covering their every move.
C)they could not have anticipated the advent of the Internet.
D)there were few newspapers at the time.
E)they advocated government censorship during the Revolutionary War.

Question 64

President ________ was the first to use radio as a medium to connect with the American public.

A)Theodore Roosevelt
B)Franklin D. Roosevelt
C)Calvin Coolidge
D)John F. Kennedy
E)Ronald Reagan

Question 65

Partisan newspapers gave way to

A)The Federalist Papers.
B)the penny press.
C)radio.
D)television.
E)the "tabloid" press.

Question 66

Modern tabloids are MOST similar to

A)populist journalism.
B)blue dog journalism.
C)the penny press.
D)yellow journalism.
E)The Morning Star.

Question 67

As a whole,Americans' knowledge about history and politics is

A)concentrated in the era after the Vietnam War.
B)lower than it used to be.
C)higher than it was fifty years ago due to the advent of the Internet and cable television.
D)higher in foreign policy than in domestic policy.
E)lower in federal government than in state government.

Question 68

In 2008,____ was instrumental in the fundraising success of the 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama.

A)MySpace
B)the Huffington Post
C)Facebook
D)Twitter
E)the Daily Kos.

Question 69

The first penny press paper was called the

A)New York Post.
B)Globe.
C)National Gazette.
D)New York Sun.
E)Buffalo Evening Telegraph.

Question 70

The mass media include
I)print sources.
II)movies and television.
III)radio.
IV)Web-based material.

A)II only
B)I and III
C)II and IV
D)I, II, and III
E)I, II, III, and IV

Question 71

A recent study conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that

A)The O'Reilly Factor has little redeeming news value.
B)Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show provide most Americans with their source of political news.
C)national satire shows such as The Colbert Report have only entertainment value.
D)those who watch The Daily Show regularly know more about current events than non-viewers.
E)those who watch The O'Reilly Factor also tend to watch The Colbert Report.

Question 72

Most people get their information about politics from

A)the radio.
B)newspapers and news magazines.
C)scholarly journals.
D)the Internet.
E)television.

Question 73

One of the earliest blogs,which pioneered spreading newsworthy rumors during the Clinton administration,is

A)the Drudge Report.
B)the Daily Kos.
C)the Huffington Post.
D)Red State.
E)Townhall.

Question 74

Political knowledge and political participation

A)are directly related to each other.
B)have little to do with one another.
C)are at all-time highs.
D)have no sex-based differences.
E)are highest among young Americans.

Question 75

Which of the following is an example of a president using the bully pulpit to influence public opinion?
?

A)Bringing together Israeli and Palestinian leaders for a peace summit
B)Publicly ridiculing political opponents by emphasizing their weaknesses
C)Signing a controversial bill into law
D)Attending an Earth Day rally
E)Speaking at an EMILY's List function

Question 76

Muckraking journalism is MOST similar to

A)YouTube.
B)The Onion.
C)The Daily Show.
D)National Enquirer.
E)CNN.com.

Question 77

The Internet

A)has been around since the mid-1950s, when fears of Communism caused the government to network defense computers.
B)was not in widespread use until the late 1960s.
C)is, despite its prevalence, in a minority of homes in the United States.
D)had its roots in the ARPANET project.
E)is quickly becoming American's exclusive source of news.

Question 78

Evening news shows on the major networks experienced decreased viewership beginning

A)in 1980.
B)with the retirement of Walter Cronkite.
C)in 1990.
D)with the advent of the Internet.
E)after their length increased from fifteen to thirty minutes.

Question 79

Suppose you are a politician who wants to disseminate a brief statement to reach the public at large,including news networks.Which of the following is the quickest,easiest,and most effective way to receive a near-instant response?
?

A)Hold a press conference
B)Grant an interview to CNN or FOX News
C)Post a status on Facebook
D)Post a tweet on Twitter
E)Send an e-mail to your closest supporters

Question 80

What is a potential danger of television shows such as The Colbert Report and The Daily Show?

A)Though news shows, they provide only half-truths.
B)They are run by political pundits, so they lack objectivity.
C)Like Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The O'Reilly Factor, they are "hard news" shows.
D)The shows are meant for entertainment and social commentary, not as a substitute for news.
E)They ask citizens to question the actions of their government.