Sociology Final

c. each member of an audience is part of a larger interpretive community.

Stanley Fish argues against older understandings of media and literature, which held that a text is unchanging and universal. But although he argues that each member of an audience can interpret and so "create" a work, he doesn't claim that each audience member has absolute freedom to interpret in unique ways because:

b. Stanley Fish, interpretive communities

"...whatever the theoretical possibility of an infinite number of readings, in fact, there are patterns or regularities to what viewers and readers brings to texts in large part because they acquire specific cultural competencies as a consequence of their particular social location. Similar readings are produced, I argue, because similarly located readers lean a similar set of reading strategies and interpreteive codes that they bring to bear upon the texts they encounter." This is from Janice Radway's classic Reading the Romance: Women, Literature, and Popular Literature. What term or concept from the chapter do you suspect also showed up in the paragraph I'm quoting from here?

not d. encoding/decoding theory

"Contrary to the rumors I have been trying to spread for some time, Disney Princess products are not contaminated with lead. But the entire product line is saturated with a particularly potent time-release form of the date rape drug. Seen from the witchy end of the female life cycle, the Princesses exert their pull through a dark and undeniable eroticism. They're sexy little wenches, for one thing. Snow White has gotten slimmer and bustier over the years; Ariel wears nothing but a bikini top. In faithful imitation, the three-year old in my life flounces around with her tiara askew and her Princess gown sliding off her shoulder, looking for all the world like a London socialite after a hard night of cocaine and booze. Then she demands a poison apple and falls to the floor in a beautiful swoon. Pass the Rohypnol-laced margarita, please." In this critique, connecting media consumption to behaviors and attitudes later in life, Barbara Ehenreich sounds most like:no

e. individuals must give something to a collective resource without necessarily taking anything in return.

A public goods dilemma occurs when:

not a. by increasing the resources available for exploitation

According to Garrett Hardin, how can social dilemmas be solved?

a. a tragedy of the commons.

According to a study published in Conservation Letters, a research team led by the biologist Brian MacKenzie ran computer models of the population dynamics of the bluefin tuna that suggest that, even if fishing were banned immediately, the population of bluefin in the Atlantic and Mediterranean Oceans will most likely collapse. This is a serious issue for sushi lovers everywhere, and some sociologists call it:

a. a free rider.

According to the text, when someone listens to public radio but never contributes during pledge drives, that person would be considered by sociologists:

biodiversity

Aldo Leopold, an ecologist, wrote about his home state of Wisconsin in The Sand County Almanac. In one moving section, he described a triangular cemetery, founded in the nineteenth century, that, because of its unusual shape, contained a tiny patch of prairie, unmowed and undisturbed. Every year, sometime in July, Leopold would watch a single silphium plant bloom there, the only one he found in that part of the state. He used this example to discuss the many plants native to the prairie that have been replaced by a few commercial plants grown by farmers. The disappearance of native plants is an issue of:

e. environmental racism.

Although Los Angeles is famous for its air pollution and smog, there are many parts of LA where the air is quite nice, especially in the mountains and by the sea. However, the people who live in these places are disproportionately white, while the people who live in the places with the worst air quality are disproportionately likely to be racial and ethnic minorities. This is an example of:

e. a tragedy of the commons

Although it might cause a great deal of harm in the long run, individual companies have an economic interest in fossil fuels. What is it called when the pursuit of individual gain leads to loss for a larger group?

c. free rider.

An office has a "coffee fund," an old coffee can where people can toss change anytime they pour a cup of coffee. The fund can be used to buy new coffee for the office when the supply runs out. However, one individual always takes coffee and never puts any money in the fund, making him a:

a. agenda-setting theory

Every year Project Censored posts a list of the twenty-five most censored news stories. These stories are "censored" not in the sense that the media are legally prohibited from covering them, but rather in the sense that most major media outlets have systematically ignored them and, in the process, determined what the public will think about. What theory explains this?

c. for members of the press

For whom could celebrity stalking be seen as an obligation?

a. All of these sound like environmentalists

If lots and lots of people who are active in the environmental movement saw this sign, what might they say?

b. his ecological footprint.

If someone starts taking public transportation and riding a bicycle, he would be reducing:

c. natural resources, like water, air, forests, and plants

In 1968 Garrett Hardin described the tragedy of the commons. The classic example of the commons is a pasture where any community member can graze his livestock. What would be the modern equivalent of the commons?

true

Media are one of the United States' most profitable exports.

b. free riders.

People who take advantage of a public good without contributing to it are called:

b. human exemptionalism

The belief that humans will find ways to overcome any problems posed by pollution and waste is consistent with what attitude?

c. affiliation with powerful social groups

The history of American popular music is replete with examples of appropriation "from below," popular adaptations of classical music...But before examining the classical influence upon heavy metal, I must clarify my understanding of the term "classical music". The prestige of classical music encompasses both its constructed aura of transcendent profundity and its _____________________. Although the potency of its aura depends upon the widespread assumption that classical music is somehow timeless and universal, we know that "classical music" is a relatively recent cultural construct. The canon of the music now known as "the great works of the classical tradition" began to form early in the nineteenth century, with revivals of "ancient" music (Bach and Mozart).

a. pursue their interests in media content across various types of media

The industry increasingly refers to Star Trek or Star Wars as "franchises," using a term that makes clear the commercial stakes in these transactions. This new "franchise" system actively encourages viewers to:

c. the new ecological paradigm

The nature writer Barry Lopez spent time with the Inuit of the Arctic and concluded that hunting societies had different attitudes about the land than industrial ones because "the focus of a hunter in a hunting society was not killing animals but attending to the myriad relationships he understood bound him into the world he occupied with them." What kind of attitude do hunting societies have?

c. They are actively engaged.

What does the uses and gratifications paradigm of media consumption assume about audiences?

not environmental attitude

What sort of environmental attitude is behind this image?

b. the grassroots organizing efforts of environmental movements

What sort of human activities does not pose a threat to biodiversity?

b. as a social problem

When environmental sociologists study the problems of waste and consumption, how are they understanding the environment?

not c. a public goods dilemma.

When individual fishing boats harvest more fish each year in order to maximize profits while, as a result, threatening the fish population with extinction, it is called:

e. They help people make connections.

Why is the sociologist Roy Oldenburg worried that the United States seems to have so few third places, or hangouts?