Anthony Giddens • Sociology 6th edition

Student Resources

Chapter 17 — The Media

1. New communications technologies have revolutionized social life in the last 30 years or so. Which of the following is not one of the four most significant technological trends making this revolution possible?
   a) robotics
   b) the capability of computers
   c) the digitization of data
   d) satellite communications
   e) fibre optics
2. ‘… social aggregations that emerge from the [Inter]Net when enough people carry on … public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships …’. What is Rheingold (2000) describing here?
   a) cyberspace
   b) the worldwide web
   c) virtual communities
   d) chatrooms
3. As at 2007, how many of the ten top-grossing films of all time (worldwide) were made in the USA?
   a) 5
   b) 3
   c) 10
   d) 7
4. In his 1986 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, what is Neil Postman’s main thesis?
   a) television has lost out to computer games as an entertainment provider
   b) television is incapable of sustaining serious content
   c) television produces imitative violence amongst young viewers
   d) television is watched less by younger generations
5. Noam Chomsky’s work is an example of which theoretical approach to the media?
   a) functionalism
   b) symbolic interactionism
   c) postmodernism
   d) political economy
6. Which one of the following points is not a criticism of Habermas’s account of the decline of a thriving public sphere?
   a) the promise of the early public sphere has not yet been fully realized
   b) women were intentionally excluded from participation in public debate
   c) the public sphere allowed middle-class men to present their ideas as universal
   d) many ‘private’ issues of key importance for women were excluded
7. Monological interaction stretched across time and space, but not linking individuals directly’. What does John Thompson (1995) call such interaction?
   a) Face-to-face interaction
   b) mediated quasi-interaction
   c) mediated interaction
   d) digitized interaction
8. According to Jean Baudrillard, what is hyperreality?
   a) modern theme parks such as Disneyland
   b) the merging of reality and media representations
   c) the virtual world made possible by the Internet
   d) people’s affinity with soap characters rather than real people
9. In his analysis of over 1,000 Hollywood films with Arab characters, how many did Jack Shaheen (2001) find with positive depictions of Arabs?
   a) 150
   b) 88
   c) 12
   d) 1
10. In 2004, one newspaper sold an average of 3.4 million copies per day, the highest circulation of any English language newspaper in the world. Which one?
    a) New York Post (USA)
    b) The Sun (UK)
    c) Wall Street Journal (USA)
    d) Daily Mail (UK)
11. According to Marshall McLuhan, which of the following is being created by the electronic media?
    a) global village
    b) global network
    c) global flows
    d) global cities
12. Which of the following was not identified by John Reith, the first Director General of the BBC, as a purpose of the Corporation?
    a) to inform
    b) to educate
    c) to entertain
    d) to amuse
13. A decline in which of the following does Putnam link to the spread of television?
    a) rational thought
    b) social capital
    c) cultural capital
    d) political awareness
14. When was the World Wide Web invented at a Swiss physics laboratory?
    a) 1980
    b) 1985
    c) 1990
    d) 1995
15. According to Manuel Castells, which is the defining organizational structure of our age?
    a) bureaucracy
    b) networks
    c) hierarchy
    d) conglomerates
16. The Frankfurt School built upon the work of Marx but the importance of which of the following did its members argue that he underemphasized?
    a) globalization
    b) work
    c) economics
    d) culture
17. In Habermas's account, where did the public sphere as an arena of public debate first develop? In:
    a) salons
    b) newspapers
    c) universities
    d) television
18. Which of the following is not a characteristic of ideology according to the critical conception of ideology?
    a) neutral
    b) misleading
    c) illusory
    d) distorting
19. Which area of television output has been the main concern of the researchers at the Glasgow Media Group?
    a) drama
    b) entertainment
    c) news
    d) sport
20. Which approach to audience studies emphasizes the ways in which different audiences use the media to meet their needs?
    a) hypodermic model
    b) gratification model
    c) reception theory
    d) interpretative model
21. Critics of the spread of Western cultural products across the globe argue that a cultural empire has been created. What term do they use to describe this?
    a) media saturation
    b) media globalization
    c) media penetration
    d) media imperialism
22. Which of the following is owned by Rupert Murdoch?
    a) Disney
    b) Time Warner
    c) News International
    d) Viacom
23. When was the Arabic News Channel Aljazeera founded?
    a) 1992
    b) 1994
    c) 1996
    d) 1998

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