Deck 12: The Media

Question 1

Which of the following is not one of the reasons behind the notion that Canadians receive "third-hand" information about political news?

A) News stories about Canadian politics are produced by American news sources, then re-sold to Canadian news outlets, then rewritten for Canadian audiences.
B) News stories are re-told by the reporters who are describing them and using carefully selected imagery and language.
C) Reporters' accounts of what happened are shaped by the decisions of others involved in packaging the story for television news.
D) Viewers are ultimately influenced by a number of people whose choices contribute to what we call "the news."
E) Viewers are not personally witnesses to the action or occurrence covered in the story.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Which of the following does not contribute to the "seductions and manipulative powers of image-based media"?

A) The possibilities for the dissemination of accurate and understandable data
B) The possibilities for undermining democratic politics by limiting access to independent media
C) The possibilities for manipulation in the process of news reporting
D) The possibilities for distortion in news reporting
E) The possibilities for selection in news reporting

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Which of the following demonstrates that the media are crucial to the health of democracy?

A) Freedom of the press is mentioned in the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
B) Canada's founders assumed freedom of the press would be respected under the system of parliamentary government they adopted from Britain.
C) Prior to the US Constitution, freedom of the press was mentioned in state constitutions.
D) All of the above
E) None of the above

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Which of the following has been said to be the main threat(s) to freedom of the press?

A) State regulation of the media
B) Economic freedom that results from media ownership and concentration
C) The dependence of mass media organs on advertising
D) The military
E) Telecommunications

Question 5

Which of the following is not an agent of social learning for Canadians?

A) Informal organizations
B) Educational institutions
C) The media
D) Peer groups
E) All of the above are agents of social learning.

Question 6

Which of the following scenarios demonstrates the media's importance to political agendas?

A) During a coup d'état, a new regime seizes control of broadcasting.
B) During a coup d'état, a new regime shuts down or muzzles newspapers not sympathetic to the new regime.
C) During a coup d'état, a new regime models its broadcast and print media on that of democratic regimes.
D) During a coup d'état, a new regime seeks to gain the sympathy and support of the public using soft power and persuasive argument disseminated via media.
E) Both A and B

Question 7

In eighteenth-century Britain, what was the fourth estate?

A) The press
B) The clergy
C) The nobility
D) The common people
E) None of the above

Question 8

Which of the following rationales explains why a "free press" has been viewed as necessary to democratic politics since the American Revolution?

A) Affordable access to unlimited information by all classes of people is a key feature of democratic politics because of the influence of the Internet.
B) Only a free press will be likely to represent the stories of power minorities such as women, people of colour, and persons with disabilities.
C) Individuals are entitled to freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression. Freedom of the press and free speech are included in this group of rights.
D) All other groups and individuals are self-interested and cannot be counted on to give an objective assessment of their goals and actions.
E) Concealment, deception, and manipulation best serves the interests of those who seek to attain their goals through media exposure.

Question 9

Which of the following may espouse a particular ideology or policy through the public dissemination of selected information and/or misinformation?

A) Private correspondence
B) Propaganda
C) Public agendas
D) Political party platforms
E) Pamphlets distributed by political parties

Question 10

How do the media deliver imperfectly on their interest in presenting the facts?

A) Particular media organs may have political biases that reflect the prejudices of their readership.
B) Particular media organs may have political biases that reflect the values of their readership.
C) Particular media organs may have political biases that reflect the values of their editors, producers, or journalists.
D) Particular media organs may have political biases that reflect the views of their owners.
E) All of the above

Question 11

The overwhelming domination of which region's programming in the English-Canadian market has always existed?

A) Australian
B) European
C) French
D) American
E) Spanish

Question 12

Which of the following is the broadcast industry's regulatory watchdog?

A) Canadian Television Network
B) Canadian Broadcasting Regulatory Board
C) Can-Am Telecommunications Commission
D) Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
E) Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

Question 13

Which of the following is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's French-language counterpart?

A) Radio-Francophonique
B) Radio-Français
C) Radio-Montréal
D) Radio-Québec
E) Radio-Canada

Question 14

In an MIT study how much longer did it take true stories to reach people than false stories?

A) Three times as long
B) Five times as long
C) Four times as long
D) Twice as long
E) Six times as long

Question 15

In 2018, how much time did Canadians over the age of 18 spend per day watching, listening and reading various media?

A) Seven hours
B) Three hours
C) One hour
D) Nine hours
E) Five hours

Question 16

In 2018, what was the most popular medium for how Canadians consumed media?

A) Television
B) Magazines
C) Radio
D) Newspapers
E) Online

Question 17

How much television consumption is devoted to news and documentary programming?

A) 47 per cent
B) 17 per cent
C) 27 per cent
D) 7 per cent
E) 37 per cent

Question 18

Which of the following have newspaper critics cited as concerns relating to the industry structure?

A) Too many different editorial positions
B) Connections to government
C) Concentrated ownership
D) Free tablets with subscriptions
E) Wikipedia's role as a source

Question 19

What is the major political issue with magazines?

A) Patriarchal ownership
B) Domestic ownership
C) Foreign ownership
D) Local ownership
E) Concentrated ownership

Question 20

Based on a 2017 study how many estimated active Facebook users were there in Canada every day?

A) 17 million
B) 1.7 million
C) 170,000
D) 1,700
E) 17,000

Question 21

Which of the following is a state-owned film maker?

A) Canada's National Film Board
B) Canada's National Film Institute
C) Canada's National Film Review Committee
D) Canada's National Film Company
E) Canada's National Film Association

Question 22

Based on a 2017 study, how many visitors did the news sites of CBC and Radio Canada have per month?

A) 15 million
B) 150,000
C) 1,500
D) 1.5 million
E) 15,000

Question 23

How many Canadian households had newspaper subscriptions in 1975?

A) 80 per cent
B) 20 per cent
C) 40 per cent
D) 60 per cent
E) 100 per cent

Question 24

How many Canadian households had newspaper subscriptions in 2014?

A) 20 per cent
B) 80 per cent
C) 60 per cent
D) 100 per cent
E) 40 per cent

Question 25

By 2016, how much of the value of all online advertising was controlled by Google and Facebook in the Canadian market?

A) 40 per cent
B) 60 per cent
C) 80 per cent
D) 100 per cent
E) 20 per cent

Question 26

Reflecting the once booming small and medium sized daily newspaper industry, how many employees did the Tulsa Tribune have in 1954?

A) 200
B) 1,000
C) 500
D) 100
E) 50

Question 27

Which American president observed that television was becoming a more important source for understanding public issues than newspaper?

A) Richard Nixon
B) John Kennedy
C) Harry Truman
D) Dwight Eisenhower
E) Ronald Reagan

Question 28

In a 2018 survey, how many Canadians said they checked Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram at least once a day for the news?

A) 32 per cent
B) 22 per cent
C) 42 per cent
D) 12 per cent
E) 2 per cent

Question 29

Which of the following is a state-owned media organ?

A) Radio-Québec
B) CBC
C) TV Ontario
D) Public Broadcasting System
E) All of the above

Question 30

What are characteristics of news organizations such as costs, deadlines, and the processes by which stories are assigned and edited?

A) Extra-organization or professional factors
B) Media factors
C) Story-level factors
D) Organization-level factors
E) Political factors

Question 31

Which term refers to news that is packaged using an entertainment, celebrity journalist format?

A) News media
B) Entertainment programming
C) Infotainment
D) Hard news
E) Reality television

Question 32

What are characteristics of the news that includes the location of the story, the visual aspects of the story and how complicated or unfamiliar the content of the story is?

A) Story-level factors
B) Organization-level factors
C) Media factors
D) Political factors
E) Extra-organization or professional factors

Question 33

What are characteristics of the news include how stories are told and the reality of whatever is being explained?

A) Organization-level factors
B) Story-level factors
C) Media factors
D) Extra-organization or professional factors
E) Political factors

Question 34

In 2018 how many Canadian newspaper journalists covered American politics and Canada-US relations from Washington?

A) 3
B) 300
C) 3,000
D) 33
E) 13

Question 35

In 2018, what percentage of Canadians surveyed said they followed American news?

A) 18 per cent
B) 8 per cent
C) 38 per cent
D) 28 per cent
E) 48 per cent

Question 36

Public broadcasters must be particularly sensitive to charges of which of the following?

A) Ideological favouritism
B) Patronage
C) Bias
D) Nepotism
E) Both A and C

Question 37

Which of the following is not an accusation made against the media by those on the ideological right?

A) The media have a liberal-left bias.
B) The media have strongly anti-democratic tendencies.
C) The media partake in irresponsible scandal-mongering.
D) The media are unfairly opposed to established authority.
E) All of the above are accusations made against the media.

Question 38

In September 2018, how many monthly visitors did the political news website Politico have?

A) Zero
B) 25,000
C) 250,000
D) 2.5 million
E) 25 million

Question 39

In 2018, what amount did the federal Liberal government announce in subsidies for Canada's media sector for five years?

A) $60 million
B) $600,000
C) $6 million
D) $600 million
E) Zero

Question 40

In a 2017 poll, how many Canadians surveyed still believed they could get the news they need if their local paper went out of business?

A) 66 per cent
B) 0 per cent
C) 26 per cent
D) 46 per cent
E) 86 per cent

Question 41

In a 2017 poll, how many Canadians surveyed believed the federal government had a responsibility in supporting the media industry?

A) 86 per cent
B) 0 per cent
C) 56 per cent
D) 26 per cent
E) 36 per cent

Question 42

In 2017, how much did Netflix agree to invest in producing Canadian content over five years?

A) $50 million
B) $500 million
C) $5 billion
D) $5 million
E) $25 million

Question 43

What did a survey of 270 Canadian electronic and print journalists find?

A) French-Canadian journalists tend to be more right-of-centre than the general public.
B) English-Canadian journalists tend to be more right-of-centre than the general public.
C) English-Canadian journalists tend to be more left-of-centre than the general public.
D) Reporters were well paid.
E) All Canadian journalists tend to be more right-of-centre than the general public.

Question 44

According to a 2015 study of Twitter behaviour, what party did members of the parliamentary press corps in Ottawa skew toward?

A) New Democratic Party
B) Conservative Party
C) Bloc Quebecois Party
D) Green Party
E) Liberal Party

Question 45

Who coined the phrase "the medium is the message"?

A) Marshall McLuhan
B) Edward Jay Epstein
C) Barry Cooper
D) Walter Lippmann
E) Morris Wolfe

Question 46

In a 2016 study, what journalistic roles did 352 Canadian journalists identify as important?

A) Tell stories about the world
B) Be a detached observer
C) Report things as they are
D) Educate the audience
E) All of the above

Question 47

In a 2016 study, how many journalists surveyed expressed a great deal or complete trust in the military and the police?

A) 50 per cent
B) 25 per cent
C) 72 per cent
D) 12 per cent
E) 95 per cent

Question 48

In a 2016 study, how many journalists surveyed expressed a great deal or complete trust in religious leaders?

A) 25 per cent
B) 95 per cent
C) 72 per cent
D) 12 per cent
E) 50 per cent

Question 49

Which of the following is not a way in which the views of English-Canadian journalists differ from the views of their audiences and readerships?

A) Journalists are more likely to believe that LGBT issues receive too much coverage.
B) The public is more conservative on social issues than people working in the media.
C) The views of CBC journalists on issues of capital are further to the left than the public.
D) Journalists are more likely than the general public to vote for the NDP.
E) Journalists are less religious than the public.

Question 50

In a 1970s study of French- and English-news in Canada how much overlap did researchers find?

A) 80 per cent
B) 40 per cent
C) 100 per cent
D) 20 per cent
E) 60 per cent

Question 51

What phrase on reporting was selected as the 2017 "Word of the year" by Collins Dictionary?

A) Fake news
B) Social media
C) Tweet storm
D) 24-hour news
E) Infotainment

Question 52

When does the idea of the "free press" generally date back to?

A) American Revolution
B) Y2K
C) The Depression
D) 1960s
E) World War II

Question 53

What does CPAC stand for?

A) Canadian Public Access Channel
B) Canadian Political Affairs Channel
C) Cable Political Access Channel
D) Canadian Parliamentary Affairs Channel
E) Cable Public Affairs Channel

Question 54

How many viewers watch Tout le monde en parle each week?

A) 50,000
B) 1 million
C) 5 million
D) 250,000
E) 100,000

Question 55

According to a 2018 survey, how many Canadians had a great deal of trust and confidence in traditional news media?

A) 91 per cent
B) 51 per cent
C) 11 per cent
D) 31 per cent
E) 71 per cent

Question 56

According to a 2018 survey, how many Canadians had a positive opinion of journalists?

A) 10 out of 10
B) Six out of 10
C) Four out of 10
D) Eight out of 10
E) Two out of 10

Question 57

In a 2019 survey, how many Canadians expressed fear that disinformation and fake news could be used as a weapon of propaganda?

A) 10 out of 10
B) One out of 10
C) Three out of 10
D) Five out of 10
E) Seven out of 10

Question 58

What was the coverage of Idle No More, the Arab Spring, and the Black Lives Matter movement all evidence of?

A) Traditional media
B) Infotainment
C) Citizen journalism
D) Strong print journalism
E) Going viral

Question 59

In a 2018 survey, how many Canadians claimed to pay for online news?

A) One in 10
B) Five in 10
C) 10 in 10
D) Seven in 10
E) Three in 10

Question 60

Which news outlet(s) established paywalls requiring readers to purchase a subscription for access to all or some of their content?

A) The Globe and Mail
B) The Washington Post
C) Maclean's
D) The New York Times
E) All of the above

Question 61

Most Canadians distrust third-hand information, preferring to rely on their own interpretations of the facts.

Question 62

A "free press" has been viewed as an unnecessary ingredient of democratic politics.

Question 63

Most Canadians believe that television is the most important and trustworthy news source.

Question 64

Infotainment, or soft news, while popular in the United States, is not as popular in Canadian media.

Question 65

Print media in Canada are unregulated and do not require a license like radio and television companies do.

Question 66

Canada regulates its radio and television media through the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.

Question 67

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is run by the federal government to counteract the critical viewpoint of the new private news companies.

Question 68

News management is where the government uses legislation to control the news agenda.

Question 69

Canadian journalists tend to be more left-leaning than the rest of Canadians, giving the news an inherent leftist bias.

Question 70

Economic censorship is a more serious threat than state control.

Question 71

The Economist and The Atlantic are entirely free online.

Question 72

The 1970 Special Senate Committee on Mass Media was categorical in its condemnation of concentrated media ownership.

Question 73

Few Canadians express fear that disinformation and fake news could be used as a weapon of propaganda.

Question 74

Job losses among traditional journalists, particularly in the newspaper and local television and radio broadcasting sectors, have contributed to worries that the quality of news and public affairs coverage will suffer.

Question 75

The degree of ideological dispersion between major sources of news and public affairs coverage in Canada is considerably less than in the United States.

Question 76

Most of the news stories on Facebook and Google come from print media sources.

Question 77

The public is less conservative on social issues than those in the media.

Question 78

Journalists are less religious than the public.

Question 79

YouTube, Netflix, Spotify, and all the other media that rely on the Internet will easily fit into Canada's traditional media regulatory model.

Question 80

In November 2018, the federal government announced subsidies of roughly $600 million over five years for Canada's media sector.