Chapter 11

Question 1

How would you describe the agenda setting theory?

Answer 1

Mass media exerted a significant influence on what voters considered to be major issues of (for example) a presidential campaign

Question 2

What are the assumptions of the agenda setting theory?

Answer 2

1. News media have an agenda: they tell audiences what ‘news’ to consider as important
2. Most people would like help when trying to understand and evaluate things such as politics

Question 3

What is framing?

Answer 3

How the media tell a story influences the way we think

Question 4

What are gatekeepers?

Answer 4

Select, emphasize, elaborate and even exclude news stories or parts of news stories to create a certain effect on what should be considered important in the news message.

Question 5

What is the process of framing the news?

Answer 5

1. Selection: what stories are chosen
2. Emphasis: what focus is taken
3. Elaboration: what is added to beef up the story
4. Exclusion: what aspects of the situation are left out

Question 6

How would you describe the cultivation theory?

Answer 6

Predicts that viewers who watch lots of TV will overestimate the occurrence of real-life violence, thereby perceiving the world as a “mean and scary” place (mean world syndrome)

Question 7

What are the assumptions of the cultivation theory?

Answer 7

1. TV is central to life and culture in USA
2. TV influences audiences’ perception of reality, thereby shaping how people interact with others
3. TV’s effects are limited: more factors than TV alone influence people’s view of social reality

Question 8

In what ways are viewer’s attitudes cultivated?

Answer 8

1. Mainstreaming: viewers develop a common view of social reality based on frequent exposure
2. Resonance: when what people see on television is what they experienced in life

Question 9

What is the symbolic double jeopardy?

Answer 9

• Minority persons are less visible on TV than in real life

- Minority TV characters are much more likely to be related to acts of violence

Question 10

How would you describe the social cognitive theory of mass communication?

Answer 10

Studies media’s influence on behavior, especially media usage and violent behavior

Question 11

What are the assumptions of the social cognitive theory of mass communication?

Answer 11

1. Mass media are tremendously influential in shaping our view of what is normal
2. Humans are not only actors, but also self-examiners of their behavior
3. Learning can occur through observational modeling

Question 12

What are the four process of observational learning?

Answer 12

1. Attention: necessary in order for any learning to take place
2. Retention: we don’t have to experience something to learn it, but we must store the information
3. Reproduction: we must have skills that are necessary to enact behavior.
4. Motivation: we must have the desire to enact the behavior

Question 13

Name the three types of motivation

Answer 13

1. Direct motivation
2. Vicarious motivation
3. Self-produced motivation

Question 14

How would you describe encoding/decoding theory?

Answer 14

Decodings do not follow inevitably from encodings

Question 15

What are the assumptions of encoding/decoding theory?

Answer 15

1. Media is just one mechanism for disseminating cultural ideologies
2. The meaning of a message is not fixed or determined entirely by the sender
3. All messages are encoded using an ideology
4. Active audiences can challenge ideologies

Question 16

What are the three ways to interpret a message?

Answer 16

1. Preferred position: when the audience member fully shares the media’s code and reproduces the preferred interpretation.
2. Negotiated position: the audience member partly shares the media’s code and broadly accepts the preferred position, but sometimes resists and modifies it in a way that reflects his own position.
3. Oppositional position: the audience member is in direct opposition to the media’s code. He or she understands the preferred position, but does not share it and rejects it.

Question 17

What is denotative meaning?

Answer 17

The literal meaning (dictionary)

Question 18

What is connotative meaning?

Answer 18

All associated meaning (you can’t separate the meaning of the concept from feelings about that concept) like terrorism