Comms 101 Midterm

Question 1

What are Gladstone’s 7 biases?

Answer 1

Commercial Bias
Bad News Bias
Status Quo Bias
Access Bias
Visual Bias
Narrative Bias
Fairness Bias

Question 2

What is Commercial Bias?

Answer 2

New need conflict and momentum. It needs to be new.

Question 3

What is Bad News Bias?

Answer 3

We are wired to care about anything that remotely threatens us–emphasizing bad news is god business.

Question 4

What is Status Quo Bias?

Answer 4

Our preference, all other things being equal, for things to stay the same. Typically opposed to change. Media ignores anything that advocates a radical change.

Question 5

What is Access Bias?

Answer 5

Journalists held captive by their sources, empathizing with the jailer…???

Question 6

What is Visual Bias

Answer 6

Pictures make us notice; news with a “visual hook”

Question 7

What is Narrative Bias?

Answer 7

Similar to framing. Same story, different point of view. .

Question 8

What is Fairness Bias?

Answer 8

Both sides of the story getting the same amount of coverage (but not equal coverage). Media tries to balance by offering equal time to viewpoints even when they aren’t equal. Wants to seem fair when it clearly isn’t.

Question 9

What is media literacy?

Answer 9

Process of critically analyzing media content by considering its particular presentation, its underlying political or social messages, and ownership and regulation issues.
high levels- question media/ low levels- accept media

Question 10

What is the Gutenberg Parenthesis Model?

Answer 10

A model that shows how the creative process has transformed with respect to the invention of the Gutenberg printing press.

Question 11

What are the characteristics of the Pre-Parenthetical Era?

Answer 11

Orality
recreative
collective
contextual
unstable
traditional
PREFORMANCE

Question 12

What are the characteristics of the Gutenberg Parenthesis era?

Answer 12

Literacy
original
individual
autonomous
stable
canonical
COMPOSITION.

Question 13

What are the characteristics of the Post-Parenthetical Era?

Answer 13

Digital
Sampling
remixing
borrowing
reshaping
appropriating
recontextualizing.

Question 14

What is covered in the First Amendment?

Answer 14

Allows

• freedom of religion
• right to assemble
• right to petition the government
• free and open speech.

obscenity: not protected by first amendment and subject to censorship
(ie offensive sexual content, lack serious artistic/literary/political/scientific value)

Question 15

What is the Patriot Act

Answer 15

2001: Government can wiretap and access data. Infringes privacy and 1st amendment for safety of everyone else.

Question 16

Define Libel and the 3 elements of that legally constitute libel.

Answer 16

a type of written defamation such as false attack on a person’s character, which damages a person’s reputation (extended to broadcasting and television).

• Defamation: Is it damaging to a person’s reputation in some way?
• Identification: Can other people recognize the person in the story, even if a name isn’t used?
• Publication: Is the story published, seen by a third party?

Question 17

What is the Transmission Model of mass communication? Who is it associated with?

Answer 17

Shannon and Weaver: noise (psychological, physical— opinions, thoughts, beliefs, culture,) preventing the message from being [fully] delivered. considers each element of how mass media is sent/received.
Transmission: the newspaper is a tool of distributing news, and thus, knowledge

Question 18

What is the Ritual model of mass communication? Who is it associated with?

Answer 18

Schramm and James Carey
media use is an interactive ritual by audience members, where they come up with individual levels of meaning and ascribe those meanings to the media they consume. How and why the audiences consume messages. Ex. Reading newspaper is like attending mass

Question 19

What is the Direct Effects model of mass communication? Who is it associated with?

Answer 19

Model of mass communication that claims media have direct and measurable effects on audiences, such as encouraging them to buy products or become violent

· Propaganda - the regular dissemination of a belief, a doctrine, a cause, or information, with the intent to mold public opinion.

· direct effects:
o media messages lead to consistent effects in audience
o scientific (positivistic) approach
o “magic bullet” / Hypodermic needle - a model of media effects, largely derived from learning theory and simple stimulus-response models in behavioral psychology, that states that media messages have a profound, direct, and uniform impact on the public.
o media messages have a direct and uniform impact on the public

· indirect effects:
o people are heterogenous
o respond to messages differently

Question 20

The idea behind propoganda adopts which mass communication model?

Answer 20

Direct Effects model

Question 21

What are the 4 types of communication?

Answer 21

Intrapersonal
Interpersonal
Group
Mass

Question 22

What is Intrapersonal communication?

Answer 22

.one to one’s self

Question 23

What is interpersonal communication?

Answer 23

Face to face (nonverbal communication), one to one, immediate response/feedback, both parties are interactive

Between two or more individuals, interactive, flowing two ways, not anonymous

Question 24

What is Group communication?

Answer 24

.one to a few

Question 25

What is mass communication?

Answer 25

.one to many. annonymous.

Question 26

Explain the Critical Model of communication?

Answer 26

Crit/Cult approach deals largely with ideologies and power structures in media

Critical Theory: “Broadly influenced by Marxist notions of the role of ideology, exploitation, capitalism, and the economy in understanding and eventually transforming society”

Question 27

What are cultural studies?

Answer 27

framework in studying theories of communication that shuns the scientific approach used by scholars in the empirical school and that tries to examine the symbolic environment created by mass media and the role mass media play in culture and society. challenges positivist perspectives on media.

Question 28

What are the main theories of Media and Society? And who are the theorists who coined the phrases?

Answer 28

Theories of Media and Society

Agenda Setting (Maxwell McCombs)
Media decides who and what is important— tells audience what to think about
The more we see them, the more important they seem

Uses and Gratifications - (by Elihu Katz) - The idea that it’s what people DO with the media, not what the media does to us. (We as an audience are active, not passive) people use media (1) for their own purpose, (2) to articulate purpose, and (3) to sense common patterns.

Spiral of Silence - ​(Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann in Nazi Germany) If people oppose a popular opinion, they won’t voice it, and have a 6th sense of the public opinion.

Cultivation Theory (and “Mean World Syndrome”) - (George Gerbner) - Theory that television causes us as an audience to cultivate a reality similar to its world. (Mean World Syndrome is where we specifically think of the world as a more dangerous and evil place because of what we see on the media).

Question 29

What is Media Ecology? Who came up with this idea?

Answer 29

.Media Ecology
· the study of media environments and their affect people and society

· Marshall McLuhan: the medium is the message.
McLuhan was a communication scholar who wrote “Understanding Media” and “The Gutenberg Galaxy.” He was most famous for creating the “global village” metaphor regarding electronic media and his often misunderstood phrase “the medium is the message.” (Ch. 3)

Question 30

What are the Alien and Sedition Laws?

Answer 30

Created in 1798.
· four acts passed by congress that prohibited sedition (spoken or written criticism of the gov’t) and imposed penalties of a fine or imprisonment
· expired in 1801, though other acts have been passed periodically especially in times of war
· Jefferson eventually pardoned everyone charged under it

Question 31

What are the main defenses for journalists against accusations of libel? What does each entail?

Answer 31

Shield Laws–law intended to protect them from legal challenges to their freedom to report the news, enacted by the states

Truth–

Privilege–

Opinion–

Question 32

Descibe the
New York Times V. Sullivan
court case in light of libel.

Answer 32

· Sullivan was Montgomery police commissioner
· Sullivan claimed he was libeled by errors in NY Times ad (indirectly) about him
· Alabama courts ruled Sullivan was libeled, awarded him 500k
· Supreme court reversed ruling
· public officials cannot sue unless they can prove the media acted with “actual malice” (a reckless disregard for the truth) to win libel suit
· generally ethical standards for journalism far surpass the actual malice standard

Question 33

What were the characteristics of early American Newspapers?

Answer 33

Focused on opinion, not news
· First American newspaper: 1690 in Boston, only published once (Partisan Press)
· Prior to 1830’s: readers were the elite
· Published by political parties

Question 34

What was the Penny Press? and how did it change mass media?

Answer 34

.Made possible by steam-powered presses (larger circulation than ever before)
· effect was analogous to Gutenberg’s press
· News became more egalitarian (focused less on matter of business for elite, but for diverse groups of people b/c readership was increasing and therefore coverage)
· Papers began employing more reporters
· New marketing function (supported by advertisers, not subscriptions)
· promoted democratic society (growing number of working people, growing number of papers)
Objectivity: Associated Press

Question 35

What six values do CNN reporters use to pick the stories they report on?

Answer 35

.Timeliness
Proximity
Prominence-how important the subject of the piece is
-Consequence- High stakes, (ex. Life or Death is more important than kitten stuck in a tree)
Rarity
Human Interest

Question 36

What were the main points from the Bruce L. Christensen devotional?

Answer 36

.Church members and journalists misunderstand mistrust each other. clashing worldviews-- Pluto vs Kolob. 
	Pluto
Democracy
Sensationalism
Junkyard watch dogs
Pluto's 13th article of faith: “Anything hateful, despicable shameful, or rotten, we seek after these things”
Immediate
 facts, not faith
 success, wealth, power
 downplays community obligations
 self-interest:  what's in it for me? 
 	Kolob
Theocracy
Uplifting 
Revelation from prophet
Church’s 13 article: “praiseworthy, virtuous, lovely, good report” 
God's time table
 faith, believe, revelation
 obedience to commandments
 church callings ensure service to others
 self-sacrifice: nothing in return 
Media Myths
No repentance
 make lots of money
 twist basic needs into carnal, sensual desires
 self esteem as commodity that can be purchased 
Gospel Values
Cleansing power of atonement
 money is down played
 self-esteem, peace of mind, joy
 self-worth comes from Divine Worth

Question 37

What are the current trends in Magazines?

Answer 37

Targeting narrower audiences
articles are shorter
presentation matters

Question 38

What was the development of Writing? What does each stage entail?

Answer 38

Pictographs (Symbols stand for ideas) to
Ideographs to
Phonographs (Symbols stand for sounds) to
Alphabet (Letters stand for sounds)

Question 39

How did writing utensils develop into modern paper?

Answer 39

3100 BC: Papyrus scrolls used in Egyptian writing.
Made from reeds (papyrus)
disintegrate easily, but very portable
earliest books were papyrus scrolls
Parchment: skin of goats and sheep. much more durable. started by Chinese, moved to Europe
·240-105 BC: chinese developed paper.

Question 40

How did Aristotle view ethics?

Answer 40

Golden Mean–moral virtue is appropriate location between two extremes.

Question 41

How did Immanuel Kant view ethics?

Answer 41

Categorical Imperative–Unconditional moral obligation to act in a way which we would want to have everyone else act. “what’s right for one is right for all.”

Question 42

How did John Stuart Mill view ethics?

Answer 42

Principle of Utility–Most ethical is what does the most good for the greatest number of people, or least pain for the least number.

Question 43

How did John Rawls view ethics?

Answer 43

Veil of Ignorance–Social Justice–Justice comes from making decisions that maximize liberty for all people w/out considering which outcome benefits you personally. Most fairness for everyone– behind the veil, everyone is equal.

Question 44

What ethical controversies are seen in the news?

Answer 44

Sensationalism–Exaggerated and/or highly emotional stories of crime, sex, violence and celebrities.

• Yellow journalism: stories sensationalized. Partly or wholly made up to be dramatic
• News

Question 45

What is the FCC and what are its duties?

Answer 45

Federal Communications Commission

• To give stations licenses to operate
• Licenses last for 8 years before they need to be renewed
• Licenses are bought at a nation auction
• When a station gets a license they agree to operate by FCC standards

Question 46

Explain the major people and inventions involved in the development of audio.

Answer 46

Invention of the telegraph: Overcoming Space

1844: Samuel Morse’s Telegraph sent messages over wires

1866 transatlantic cable

· Invention of the radio:
1890 Guglielomo Marconi developed wireless Telegraph:Often considered inventor of radio

1905 Fessenden uses radio waves to transmit messages: First to use radio as mass communication

· Storing Sound: Overcoming Death

1877 Edison invents phonograph ( tinfoil cylinder)

1886 Bell makes graphophone ( wax)

1888 Berliner makes gramophone (discs): Mass-produced Recordings

Question 47

What did the gramophone do?

Answer 47

.makes vinyl records

Question 48

What do new music playback technologies do?

Answer 48

.

Question 49

What is social music? What is bringing about the death of social music?

Answer 49

.

Question 50

Who is Edward R. Murrow? Why is he important?

Answer 50

A radio and later television journalist and announcer who set the standard for journalistic excellence during TV’s golden age. (Can hear bombs in the background –first to incorporate ambient sound in broadcasts)

Radio Broadcast news –WWII: Edward R. Murrow brings the war home for listeners (Can hear bombs in the background –first to incorporate ambient sound in broadcasts)

Question 51

What is the difference between slander and libel?

Answer 51

Slander: spoken and accusational.
Libel: written/broadcasted

Question 52

What is sensationalism?

Answer 52

Exaggerated and/or highly emotional stories of crime, sex, violence and celebrities.

Question 53

What is the Chilling effect?

Answer 53

Government crackdown on journalists. Journalist jailed / silenced from fear of punishment???

Question 54

According to the Direct Effects model, what are the predicted effects of media on the audience?

Answer 54

· direct effects:
o media messages lead to consistent effects in audience
o scientific (positivistic) approach
o “magic bullet” / Hypodermic needle - a model of media effects, largely derived from learning theory and simple stimulus-response models in behavioral psychology, that states that media messages have a profound, direct, and uniform impact on the public.
o media messages have a direct and uniform impact on the public

Question 55

What are some holes in the direct effects theory?

Answer 55

people are heterogeneous

respond to messages differently

Question 56

What are the five main realms of ethics?

Answer 56

Virture Ethics--Christian, Aristotle
Duty Ethics--Kant
Consequence Ethics--John Stuart Mill, John Rawls
Dialogical (relationship) Ethics
Moral Relativism-Situational Ethics

Question 57

Show the brief history and popularity of CNN.

Answer 57

1980: CNN airs, won’t sign off “until the end of the world”
1991: Gulf War makes CNN station of choice