Deck 13: Media Theory and Research

Question 1

The __________ studies were conducted in the 1950s to show that children exposed to violent television programming were prone to commit acts of violence themselves.

A) War of the Worlds
B) Magic Bullet
C) Payne Fund
D) Bobo doll

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Qualitative studies are often used to provide quantitative studies with more __________.

A) framework research
B) statistical data
C) depth or texture
D) empirical authority

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Which qualitative research technique allows a researcher to take part in the study as a member of the group being studied?

A) Cultivation analysis
B) Participant-observation
C) Pragmatism
D) Focus group

Answer 3

B

Question 4

__________ are widely used by media researchers and marketers to help them draw conclusions about media behavior.

A) Epistemologies
B) Political economies
C) Focus groups
D) Digital divides

Question 5

You want to learn more about how Facebook use has changed or evolved since it first became available to a larger online community. What kind of study should you conduct?

A) Cross-sectional
B) Longitudinal
C) Social constructionist
D) Postmodernist

Question 6

The notion of __________ was a rationale for why elites should lead and others should follow?

A) the masses
B) pluralism
C) the digital divide
D) the public sphere

Question 7

The hypodermic-needle theory has also been called the __________ model of mass communication.

A) third-person effect
B) agenda setting
C) ethnographic
D) magic bullet

Question 8

Prompting widespread panic, Orson Welles's broadcast of __________ convinced many listeners that Martians were invading the East Coast.

A) War of the Worlds
B) Red Planet
C) Citizen Kane
D) Hello, Martians!

Question 9

George Gerbner's research on the long-term impact of television watching generated which theory?

A) Spiral of silence
B) Positivism
C) Cultivation analysis
D) Postpositivism

Question 10

__________ is a school of thought affirming truths found in actions that work and rejecting the possibility of overarching or purely objective notions of truth.

A) Social constructionism
B) Positivism
C) Ethnography
D) Pragmatism

Question 11

Complete the following quotation about agenda setting from political scientist Bernard Cohen: "The press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers __________."

A) what to think about
B) what to tell others
C) how to consider both sides of an issues
D) how to pick the best political candidate

Question 12

Media ecology examines how our media __________ influences our thinking and how specific types of media affect our __________.

A) convergence/opinions
B) education/encoding
C) use/politics
D) environment/perceptions

Question 13

The belief first-person shooter video games, ones that provide interactive and immersive action, cause gamers to act more violently in real life is an example of __________.

A) postpositivsm
B) third-person effect
C) technological determinism
D) mean-world syndrome

Question 14

Early theorizing on mass communication occurred against a backdrop of dramatic societal and political upheaval in Europe and the United States. These changes that occurred during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries resulted from __________.

A) world wars
B) industrialization
C) free-market expansion
D) the growth of the middle class

Question 15

The most famous proponent of medium theory, __________ coined the phrase "the medium is the message."

A) Stuart Hall
B) Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann
C) Marshall McLuhan
D) George Gerbner

Question 16

Media researcher Jeffrey Cole led a team study on TV violence in the 1990s that found U.S. network television programming was becoming somewhat less violent, while the number of __________ had increased dramatically.

A) talk shows
B) cooking shows
C) game shows
D) "shockumentary" reality-based specials

Question 17

The uses-and-gratifications branch of research makes which of the following claims?

A) People use the media actively for their own purposes.
B) Although people use media purposefully, they have difficulty articulating reasons for their behavior.
C) Media activity is highly individual, making it difficult to discern any patterns of use.
D) Media users tend to seek immediate gratification.

Question 18

In the 1970s, media scholar Stuart Hall developed the encoding/decoding model as a response to the dissatisfying findings of __________ research.

A) postmodern
B) popular culture
C) media-effects
D) ethnographic

Question 19

Reception analysis has been criticized for __________.

A) the patriarchal viewpoint it promotes
B) the active nature it ascribes to audiences
C) its postmodern jargon
D) its feminist conclusions

Question 20

__________ usually involves total control of the transmission of information, often without the audience knowing who is controlling the message.

A) Framing
B) Branding
C) Propaganda
D) Cultural imperialism

Question 21

The __________ studies conducted in the United States between 1928 and 1933 concluded that the same film would influence children differently depending on such factors as age, sex, life experience, predispositions, and social environment.

A) Participant-Observation
B) Hypodermic Needle
C) Bobo doll
D) Payne Fund

Question 22

Shania is a fan of slasher films and other movies rated R for violent content. After viewing the evening news to keep apprised of local crime in her area, she spends several hours watching TV and Netflix with similarly violent themes. Given Shania's media consumption, the fact that she never leaves home without her handgun could be attributed to __________.

A) pragmatism
B) mean-world syndrome
C) media bias
D) third-person effect

Question 23

Dr. Reed conducted a quantitative study whose findings generalized about journalists across the United States; however, the data upon which she based her conclusions was derived exclusively from an examination of newspaper reporters in Chicago, a problem known as a __________.

A) cross-sectional bias
B) random sample
C) third-person effect
D) sampling error

Question 24

Which theoretical approach is broadly influenced by Marxist notions of the role of ideology, exploitation, capitalism, and the economy in understanding and eventually transforming society?

A) Social constructionism
B) Postpositivism
C) Positivism
D) Critical theory

Question 25

Which pioneering journalist specializes in immersive forms of storytelling such as virtual reality (VR) and is known for "Project Syria"?

A) Trinh Minh-ha
B) Nonny de la Peña
C) Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann
D) Christiane Amanpour

Question 26

Which view of media research agrees largely with positivism but acknowledges that scientific inquiry may not help us understand certain aspects of life?

A) Poststructuralism
B) Postmodernism
C) Postcolonialism
D) Postpositivism

Question 27

Most quantitative research strives for __________ samples intended to represent the entire population of the subject of study.

A) purposive
B) selective
C) random
D) cluster

Question 28

Which epistemology has been dominant throughout the 20^th century?

A) Positivism
B) Social constructionism
C) Cultural studies
D) Critical theory

Question 29

Political scientist Harold Lasswell in his study of World War I propaganda used the metaphor of a hypodermic needle to highlight the __________.

A) addictive nature of the audience
B) healing nature of the media
C) passive nature of the audience
D) contagious nature of certain types of news against which audiences need to be inoculated

Question 30

Which theory was derived from a German scholar's observations of behavior during the Nazi regime in the 1930s and 1940s?

A) Third-person effect
B) Spiral of silence
C) Golden Rule
D) Tyranny of the majority

Question 31

Hundreds of studies have been conducted and millions of dollars spent to investigate how TV violence affects children. Among the first of these studies was a study that claimed television had become the new __________.

A) Holy Grail
B) opiate of the masses
C) babysitter
D) Pied Piper

Question 32

Which theoretical framework views media as a component in a much larger and more fundamental system of influences to which we are all subject?

A) Encoding/Decoding
B) Reception analysis
C) Limited effects
D) Uses and gratifications

Question 33

Which of the following statements about the digital divide in the United States is correct?

A) It is expected that disparities in access to online media will be eliminated by 2035.
B) Men make up the majority of Internet users-across economic lines.
C) Nearly two-thirds of adults have broadband access.
D) 80 percent of adults own a smartphone.

Question 34

Approximately __________ percent of U.S. adults have no regular access to the Internet at home or elsewhere.

A) 6
B) 13
C) 24
D) 37

Question 35

Which of the following theories is derived from a sociohistorical framework?

A) Media ecology
B) Uses-and-gratifications
C) Encoding/Decoding
D) Spiral of silence

Question 36

Message __________ can have a profound effect on behavior, whether a scenario is depicted as a gain or a loss, for example.

A) genres
B) correlation
C) epistemology
D) framing

Question 37

Critical theorists see the drive to predict and better control society as one more form of __________.

A) ecology
B) advancement
C) oppression
D) innate behavior

Question 38

The __________ is sometimes also labeled the network, knowledge, or postindustrial society.

A) wired world
B) information society
C) public sphere
D) fourth estate

Question 39

Which theory posits that people rely on a sixth sense to gauge the prevailing climate of opinion?

A) Third-person effect
B) Spiral-of-silence
C) Cultivation analysis
D) Uses-and-gratifications

Question 40

What research theory is most aligned with the ethical approach of moral relativism?

A) Postmodernism
B) Positivism
C) Uses-and-gratifications
D) Cultivation analysis

Question 41

__________ is the study or theory of the limitations and validity of knowledge.

A) Epistemology
B) Media ecology
C) Positivism
D) Pragmatism

Question 42

When a group of people talk about the news of the day, media play a(n) __________ role in this conversation.

A) branding
B) crowdsourcing
C) agenda-setting
D) behavioral targeting

Question 43

What is a widespread complaint about the published research in cultural studies?

A) The research findings are highly political.
B) Corporations with a vested interest in the results finance the research.
C) Cultural studies is no longer relevant for today's academics.
D) The writing style is jargon-laden and difficult to understand.

Question 44

Which of the following research models emphasizes the active role of the audience in the production of meaning?

A) Encoding/decoding
B) Positivism
C) Agenda setting
D) Cultivation analysis

Question 45

The operation of a telephone helps explain a(n) __________ model of communication.

A) cultivation
B) transmission
C) ritualistic
D) agenda setting

Question 46

The Frankfurt School advanced the political argument that the culture industry propagates a(n) __________ that helps maintain the status quo.

A) technological determinism
B) digital divide
C) ideology
D) semiotics

Question 47

Which of the following methods is primarily a form of qualitative inquiry?

A) Statistical analyses
B) Ethnography
C) Surveys
D) Experiments

Question 48

Malik steers the conversation at the family dinner table away from negative news events he assumes will upset his grandmother. What research theory might explain this scenario?

A) Third-person effect
B) Agenda setting
C) Social constructionism
D) Positivism

Question 49

Which research model argues that language is not a transparent medium that simply describes the world but one that actually creates the world as we know it?

A) Pragmatism
B) Media ecology
C) Postpositivism
D) Social constructionism

Question 50

The political economy is an area of study inspired by __________.

A) social constructionism
B) Marxism
C) postmodernism
D) populism

Question 51

Briefly explain the spiral-of-silence hypothesis.

Question 52

What is a focus group, and why is this technique widely employed by media researchers?

Question 53

Describe the limitations of the Shannon and Weaver model of communication.

Question 54

What are the three options audience members have when decoding?

Question 55

Why do critical theorists criticize positivist researchers?

Question 56

Describe the War of the Worlds debacle and explain why it was so significant for the study of media effects.

Question 57

Discuss American theorist George Gerbner's research on violence and the media.

Question 58

Describe the major, new directions in media research.

Question 59

Discuss the major criticisms of media-effects research.

Question 60

Compare and contrast the major features and methods of qualitative and quantitative research.