Chapter 6 American Government
A country where the government heavily censors Internet news and search engines is
China
When all media outlets are covering the same story and virtually every other issue gets ignored, the media is said to be operating in _____ mode.
alarm
Early TV network news programs focused their evening news programs on ______ as a way to inspire trust in viewers.
an "anchorman"
The phrase "on background" means that media are permitted to
anonymously quote material without identifying the source
In Congressional elections, it is quite possible that campaign coverage is affected by a(n) _______ among journalists
anti-incumbent bias
When the media regularly focus public attention on violent crime, political corruption, or economic woes, they are engaged in
apathy management
Group leaders who follow news in specific areas are called _______ policy elites.
attentive
In the 2012 presidential campaign, newspaper coverage of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney was
considered neutral in tone
The process of transmitting information from one individual to another is called
communication
The 2015 terrorist attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in France sparked a worldwide debate about the importance of
a free press
More and more, cable news channels like MSNBC and Fox News seem analogous to
early partisan newspapers
Local television covers crime more than any other topic. As one journalist said, "Crime coverage is not editorially driven; it's _______ driven"
economically
The ______ required any broadcast station that gave or sold time to a candidate for a public office to make an equal amount of time available under the same conditions to all other candidates for that office
equal opportunities rule
The Federal Communication Commission is a(n) ______ that is insulated from political control by the Congress or president
independent regulatory commission
A story that contains no policy content and is not related to the day's events but that commonly discuss popular personalities and is designed to draw greater viewer interest is called
infotainment
Research on the impact of soft news finds all of the following EXCEPT
it can decrease people's levels of political knowledge
Journalistic norms of objectivity and accuracy grew, some say, because of
lack of competition, allowing focus on quality rather than sensationalism.
Available evidence seems to indicate that there are _________ among journalists and reporters.
liberal learnings
The most commonly used source for news in America is
local news shows on television
A fiery quote that is picked up by the media, which then generates a spike in fundraising for the speaker, has been termed a
money blurt
Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the text as an important function of the news media in our political system?
polarizing the news
In 2016, Beyonce made headlines with her single "Formation," which conveyed a political commentary on the recent
police shootings
The traditional division of mass media into ________ has been made problematic by the internet.
print and broadcast
Edward R Murrow earned his fame via ______ as he broadcast news of German air raids on London.
radio
The first media technology to make broadcast journalists into household names was
radio
General entertainment programming that often includes discussions of political affairs, such as The Daily Show, The Today Show, and The View is called
soft news
When journalists consider if their jobs to be critical of politicians, searching for inaccuracies in fact and weakness in argument, this is called
watchdog journalism
Despite new technological options, and despite criticism that in its current form it polarizes politics in an unhealthy way, _____ of Americans listen to traditional AM/FM radio weekly.
90%
The internet was started in
1969, with support from the U.S. Department of Defense
Microphones and cameras were banned from Congressional chambers until ______ when the House permitted live coverage
1979
Content analysis of the 2012 presidential campaign, suggests that more "good press" focused on
Barack Obama
Which of the following statements is most accurate
The media in the United States have played an important role in advancing equality.
______ occurs when a media outlet such as a magazine informs a relatively small number of group leaders who follow news in a specific area, and those leaders in turn mobilize their followers to put pressure on public officials.
The two-step flow of communication
Which president first provided space in the White House for reporters?
Theodore Roosevelt
How do the mass media influence the socialization process?
They play contradictory roles, sometimes promoting popular support for government and sometimes eroding public confidence in it
Much like newspaper circulation, news magazine circulation has declined in recent years. Today, only _________ magazine enjoys big circulation numbers.
Time
Advocates of dropping all FCC content regulations believe that
broadcast media should be treated the same as other media
The fairness doctrine required
broadcast stations to provide fair coverage of all views on public issues
Most news printed about Congress comes from
congressional press releases and prepared reports
Available evidence seems to indicate that there are _________ among editors and owners of the major news media
conservative learnings
Private ownership of the media in the United States makes the American news industry
dependent on advertising revenues
The first newspapers in the United States were
financed by political parties that advocated party causes.
The media executives, news editors, and prominent reporters who decide which events to report and how to report them are known as
gatekeepers
Communication in a democracy must move from government to citizens and from citizens to
government
During a presidential election, the tendency of journalists to limit coverage of campaigns to the candidates who is leading or behind in the polls at the time, rater than chiefly covering the issues, is known as
horse race journalism
The text that suggests that in the early days of radio, owners sought government regulation of the airways to
impose order on the use of airways
To stay in business in the digital age, many newspapers have __________ their online content, with varying degrees of success
instituted paywalls for
The "television hypothesis" is the belief that television
is to blame for the low level of citizens' knowledge about public affairs
counting both print and online users, news readership of newspapers
is up overall
A poll of Americans who had seen or heard of Michael Moore's 2007 documentary Sicko found that _________ changed their mind and said health-care reform was more necessary
nearly half
In response to financial stress, some have suggested that newspapers operate as _________, allowing them to be funded though endowments, donations, and perhaps government support.
nonprofits
The phrase "off the record" means that the media are
not allowed to print the information
Towards the end of the 19th century, competition for readers among the big-city dailies grew so fierce, that publishers started entertaining them with all of the following EXCEPT
objective news stories
Representatives of the mass media frequently defined the importance of freedom of the press, even if it comes at the expense of
order
Newspapers that did not move toward independent ownership and large circulation until the 1830s when publishers realized they could
raise revenue through advertising
In response to government control of the news flow in China, Chinese political activists have used inflatable ducks and Legos to
recreate the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in a way that will avoid censors
The fairness doctrine, the equal opportunities rule, and the reasonable access rule are all ways the FCC has
regulated broadcast media content
The main focus of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was to
relax the rules of government-owned media outlets
newspapers owned by publicly-traded chains are more likely to
resort to negative or positive spin on the news
Most politicians and many scholars believe that the media's greatest influence on politics is its ability to
set the political agenda
The courts usually strike down government attempts to restrain the press from disseminating information, reports, or opinions it finds newsworthy, one notable exception concerns
strategic information during wartime.
According to campaign scholars, the more attention traditional news outlets pay to a political candidate's (such as Donald Trump's) Twitter activity
the better he/she will do
The amount of information online is so vast that most people rely on ___________ to help them determine which news is real and important
the mainstream media
Mass media refers to
the means of communicating to audiences
While most of the mass media in the U.S. is privately owned,
they do not operate free of government regulation
