01 Your Four Worlds

In what sense is the world in your head a "fiction"?

In the sense that it is an interpretation of reality; it is not reality.

What do we mean when we say that meanings are not in words or pictures, that meanings are in people?

Individuals do not receive meanings, they construct them.

Variety theory helps to explain why some people:

Seek new kinds of information.

Which of the following best describes "scripts" or "schemata"?

Stereotyped sequences of events in memory that are activated by observations or experiences in the present.

According to the authors of your text, none of the traditional models of mass communication provides an adequate picture of the contemporary world of communication that you and others experience.

True

By a combination of circumstance and choice, you are exposed to a highly selective sample of the bits of information about any particular topic.

True

Except in extremely unusual cases, any one bit of information about a topic has only an imperceptible effect on the world in your head.

True

Expectations generally help you process, comprehend, and remember the bits of information you sense from your communication mosaic.

True

Few, if any, of your meanings were constructed on the basis of information from a single message in isolation.

True

Human perception has always had to deal with "information overload," it is NOT a new phenomenon caused by so many new forms of media communication.

True

In spite of the incomplete information we sense from our communication mosaics, the worlds we create in our heads are whole.

True

Memory is an important factor in helping us fill gaps in the information we grasp from our communication mosaics.

True

No two people go through their environments in precisely the same way; therefore, no two people encounter or attend to all of the same bits of information.

True

On almost any important issue, as time goes on you are exposed to a steadily increasing number and variety of bits of information, as well as encountering some of the same bits many times.

True

People tend to process or perceive the information they encounter in a way that is relevant to the needs they feel most strongly at that moment.

True

The Source-Message-Channel-Receiver model of communication grossly distorts the great differences among individuals in patterns of exposure and ways of processing the information they receive.

True

Becker and Roberts describe four worlds in which each of us lives. Which of the following is NOT one of those worlds?

Your social world, the world made up of what the people with whom you associate know and believe.

The statement "You can't step into the same river twice," applies to communication in what way?

both you and the communication mosaic are constantly changing

In the mosaic model, the mosaic represents:

one topic, and the bits of information and sources of information available for this topic

The tendency to interpret or perceive information in a way that makes it consistent with one's prior knowledge, attitudes, and behavior is called:

selective perception

What are the "unintended bits of information" in the mosaic?

Bits of information from a source with which we construct a message not intended by the source.

Time is an important dimension in the communication mosaic because:

Both you and the mosaic are constantly changing.

The First World is the world in your head.

False

The Source-Message-Channel-Receiver model and the Westley-MacLean model are essentially the same.

False

The docudrama is a unique phenomenon in television; it is the only time we get a mix of fact and fiction in one program.

False

The media industries do nothing without reason. Therefore, it is unlikely that you will find unintended bits of information in your communication mosaic.

False

The particular path you take through the mosaic is related to which bits of information you encounter, but it has little to nothing to do with the context for these bits.

False

The scientific study of communication is alone in its dependence on models.

False

You must have complete information in order to have a complete idea about something.

False

Your understanding of war has a one-to-one relationship with all of the bits of information about war you have encountered in your lifetime, since these are the bits that make up your fourth world.

False

Which one of the following worlds varies the most from one person to another?

Fourth World

The most important function of feedback is to:

Help sources adjust their communication to their audience.

What are "gaps" in the mosaic?

Important information about a topic that we did not notice or that was not in any of the messages we received.

The third dimension of the communication mosaic is:

topics for which you have information

Match the best definition to each of Barthes' reading styles. - grabbing bits at random - savoring the best you encounter - concentrating on every detail and missing the overall picture - taking in everything without priority - relax and let it happen

- grabbing bits at random - spearer - savoring the best you encounter - gourmet - concentrating on every detail and missing the overall picture - rooter - taking in everything without priority - rolldown - relax and let it happen - suntan

How many dimensions are there in the mosaic model?

4

Variety-seeking and conflict-avoidance behaviors can interact. Considering high vs. low variety-seeking and high vs. low conflict-avoidance results in how many possible categories of behavior?

4

On average, about what percentage of their leisure time do Americans spend with the mass media?

>50%

The degree to which people are unable to perceive or evaluate information independent of their prior attitudes, beliefs, and needs is labelled by communication scholars as:

Dogmatism

In what sense do the sources to which you are exposed in your communication mosaic interact?

Each affects your interpretation of information from the others.

Consistency theory:

Explains why people are uncomfortable if their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors disagree

A model can describe everything about communication.

False

Because most of us in America have had relatively similar experiences, we will tend to construct the same meanings from news stories we encounter in the media.

False

Each bit of information that you sense affects your response to later information, UNLESS you have completely forgotten the related, similar, or "identical" information.

False

Each of the stories on the front page of the newspaper function independently -- that is, each stands on its own and is not affected by the others.

False

Even though most adults in our society spend a tremendous portion of their lives watching television, they can easily reduce this consumption dramatically or eliminate it altogether.

False

For retention and persuasion, the primacy effect is consistently more powerful than the recency effect.

False

Having a complete idea requires complete information.

False

In assessing scientific models, we are primarily concerned with simplicity.

False

In recent years total daily media use has been decreasing slightly.

False

In the mosaic model, each row represents a bit of information.

False

It is nearly impossible for creators of media to distinguish between what is supposed to be interpreted as symbolic and what should be interpreted as natural. This is completely subject to the "eye of the beholder."

False

It takes less effort to perceive a message that is contrary to the way you see the world or that is different than what you expect.

False

Once you have constructed a meaning for something, it would be highly unusual for you to change it.

False

One important effect of time is its tendency to make our perceptions of issues, events, and people simpler and clearer.

False

Our interpretations of information are primarily topic dependent. That is, the meaning we construct for one topic is independent of our interpretations of other topics.

False

Repetition is important, but you must also include persuasion if you want to change attitudes.

False

Research shows that too much exposure to a commercial has a boomerang effect, that is, people are less likely to buy the product.

False

Scripts or schemata are the structures of the newspaper stories, television programs, or other media products to which you are exposed.

False

Since your fourth world is your mental representation of the real world, you build it almost exclusively from facts.

False

According to the theory of intersubjective reality:

Our beliefs about the world are shaped in part by comparing them to the beliefs of other people.

If one accepts the validity of the mosaic model of communication, which of the following best describes the role in the communication process of people who read newspapers, watch television, listen to the radio, and so forth?

Participants

In what sense is it valid to say that you cannot tell people anything they do not already know?

People cannot perceive or understand anything unless they can relate it in some way to prior experience.

Which of the following is NOT true of models?

Tend to draw ones attention to specific instances.

Seeing or focusing on largely one particular theme in the news, such as recession or sexism, so that everything else becomes simply background, is similar to what perception phenomenon?

The figure-ground phenomenon.

An "uncertain analogy" is:

The most interesting property of a model because it leads to new predictions that can be tested.

"Chunking style" refers to:

The size of the information bits or the number of information bits you attend to at a time when reading or viewing.

Our beliefs and interpretation of information, even our definitions of words and other symbols, are influenced by the people with whom we interact. Communication scholars refer to this phenomenon as:

The social construction of reality.

If people are watching a television news story, set or expectation tends to have the greatest effect on their perception when:

They have a well-established script or schema for that type of situation.

"Iconicity" is the degree to which a symbol is similar to what it represents.

True

The Source-Message-Channel-Receiver model of communication suggests that a source sends a message through some channel to a receiver who absorbs it in just the way in which it was sent. In other words, the source or sender is in control of what the receiver learns.

True

The Westley-MacLean model points up the fact that, in any form of mass communication, information goes through a series of gatekeepers.

True

The differences between entertainment content in the media and news or information content is not nearly as important as most people believe in explaining how and why people construct the worlds in their heads.

True

The mosaic model can be seen as representing our second world, that is, our entire communication environment.

True

We have a great deal of control over our exposure to bits of information, but we cannot control all of it.

True

We routinely fill information gaps without even being aware that we are doing so.

True

What you perceive depends in part on your psychological needs.

True

Whether you experience fear, anger, or excitement depends on your interpretation of your physical state.

True

In what sense are our perception processes like the processes of a scientist?

We constantly test the validity of our perceptions, like a scientist testing hypotheses, and then adjust them when they are not confirmed.

The authors of your text argue that the boundaries between fact and fiction, or news and entertainment, have broken down so that the news we get is almost always, in some sense, partly fiction, while fiction is, in some sense, partly fact, or even news. What is the most important implication of this for the world you construct in your head?

We get important bits of information for that world from the fiction and entertainment to which we are exposed, as well as from news and so-called informational media.

How do reference groups affect our processing of information?

We tend to test our interpretations of what we read, hear, and see on our family, friends, and others with whom we associated.

In what sense does language "fill our lives with meaningful objects"?

Without names or labels that we can apply, objects or experiences are less likely to have meaning for us.

Who or what is most responsible for the kinds of information to which you are exposed?

You

Assuming you read with equal care, you are most likely to spot typographical errors when:

You have no expectations about the material.

Which of the four worlds has the greatest influence on the way you vote in national elections?

Your fourth world

The filled in squares in the mosaic model represent:

either our third or fourth world

The mosaic model is based on the idea that:

the communication environment is like a vast mosaic of information bits