Gov Chapter 8
The Telegraph and Texas Register is remembered as the originator of what rallying cry?
"Remember the Alamo!"
At the time of the founding of the nation, journalists were called
"newsmongers."
Focus groups usually include fewer than _____ individuals at a time.
10
As of 2016, about _____ percent of the adult population in the United States subscribed to satellite radio.
19
How many broad definitions of public opinion are there?
5
In 2017, a UT/Texas Tribune poll found that what percent of Texans favor legalization of marijuana for medical purposes?
80%
What is a potential pitfall for candidates who use digital campaigning?
Any problematic statement or action, if digitally recorded, can come back to haunt them.
The impact that round-the-clock news coverage has had on the media is called the _____ effect.
CNN
In its 2017 polling, the UT/Tribune survey determined what about Texans' approval of the U.S. Supreme Court?
Democrats have a much higher rate of approval.
_____ are carefully planned discussions designed to obtain perceptions on a defined area of interest in a permissive, non-threatening environment.
Focus groups
is the media's attempts to focus attention on certain events and place them in context for meaning.
Framing
Public Opinion: interest group conflict
Groups are constantly engaged in a struggle to define social problems and provide solutions for them
What is the most widely circulated newspaper in Texas today?
Houston Chronicle
What was the location of the earliest radio stations in Texas?
In the early 1910s, UT Austin and Texas A&M had the earliest radio stations in Texas.
How did the 2014 decision in Verizon v. FCC affect net neutrality?
It effectively ended it by disallowing the FCC to issue rules regulating ISP behavior that can result in ISPs blocking or interfering with traffic on the web.
Which of the following is a problematic aspect of citizen journalism?
It may not be based upon facts.
The 1996 Telecommunications Act did what?
It relaxed the limit on how many radio and TV stations one company could own.
Why is Texas a state in which digital media can be especially cost-saving for statewide campaigns?
It's very large and costly to travel to all areas in person.
Though over 10 billion tweets go out on Twitter every day, what did researchers at Carnegie Mellon University discover about people's opinions of many of those tweets?
Less than one-third of the tweets reflected information worth reading.
The most popular podcasts reflect content hosted by
National Public Radio.
_____ is the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites.
Net neutrality
What type of survey reinterviews people to determine changes in opinion over time?
Panel
Which of the following contributed to changes in polling in the 1970s?
Politicians began taking polling more seriously. The relative complexity of political issues in the U.S. increased.
Public Opinion: media/elite opinion
Projection of what journalist, politicians, and other elite believes
Public Opinion: fiction
Rhetorical construction freely used in our newspaper and on television as to be meaningless
_____ are perhaps the greatest threat to traditional media's longevity.
Streaming services
In its 2017 polling, the UT/Tribune survey determined what about Texans' support for ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, as outlined by the Trump administration?
Texas Republicans are split over DACA.
In its 2016 polling, the UT/Tribune survey determined what about support for Republican Governor Abbot?
Texas Republicans supported him overwhelmingly.
Public Opinion: Aggregation
The simple sum of many individual opinions
Public Opinion: majoritarian
The values and belies of the majority of citizens; and people tend to conform to the majority belief
How many notable news magazines are published in Texas?
There are only two: Texas Monthly and The Texas Observer.
What is one problem associated with focus groups?
They are less quantitatively measured.
In the 2016 election cycle, campaigns were expected to spend over $4 billion on television advertisements. How effective, generally, are these ads?
They don't seem to have much impact.
In which of the following ways have social media proven to be disruptive to the traditional forms of media?
They expose many to news outside of mainstream sources. They have made people part of the news as it happens. They allow citizens to shape the news agenda.
How do social media sites like Facebook and Twitter deal with posting problematic material, including sexually violent or criminal activity?
They list prohibitions in their terms of service.
Which of the following correctly describes how the news media treat negative ads?
They often denounce them on air.
What role did Twitter play in the 2016 Dallas Black Lives Matter protest march shootings?
Tweets helped proved that a suspected shooter was actually innocent
According to Harold Lasswell's model, what questions should we ask in order to better understand "the media"?
Who is the sender? What is the message? What is the method? Who is the audience?
Public Sphere
a place where society discuses the issues that affect everyone
What are the three broad functions the media serve within their communities?
acting as linkage institutions shaping perception providing information
A fundamental function of the media is to decide what is news. This is called
agenda setting
The power of the media to bring issues and problems to the public's attention is called
agenda setting
In the example of the news coverage of Texas's Child Protective Services and its severe problems, the issue finally received attention only after it was covered in the media. This is an example of
agenda setting.
In the 1990 GOPAC push to get Republican candidates elected, Newt Gingrich helped develop _____ into a fine art.
attack ads
David's Law, passed in Texas in 2017, attempts to mitigate what issue?
bullying on social media
Which of the following are among the influences that affect individual Texans' opinions?
conservatively biased media coverage a traditionalistic culture
The 2016 simulcast of presidential debates in Spanish is an example of how
consumers drive media content.
The purpose of mass media gatekeeping is
determining newsworthiness.
political socialization
development of political attitudes and beliefs through agents of socialization (family, religion, school, community, media)
The echo chamber effect results in
diminished exposure to conflicting information.
When users self-select information on social media, the result is a(n)
echo chamber.
In terms of medium, which of the following are categorizations we use?
electronic print
Soft news's purpose is to
entertain.
Facebook, especially after it changed its algorithms, has _____ the echo chamber effect.
exacerbated
True or false: Only the federal government, not the states, may pass laws to regulate the Internet.
false
True or false: The use of attack ads is decreasing because they often backfire and harm the sponsoring candidate rather than the intended target.
false
The category of public opinion that is defined as "rhetorical construction used so freely in our newspapers and on television as to be meaningless" is called
fiction
Research has shown that newspapers from counties near the U.S.-Mexico border tend to have an overall negative slant toward immigrants. This "slant" is an example of
framing
What did "freedom of the press" mean at the time of the founding of the U.S.?
freedom to use an actual printing press
Mass media filter down all of what is happening in a given community into a specific set of news that is then transmitted to an audience. This is called
gatekeeping.
What is the first step in the survey process?
identifying the population
In his 1992 presidential campaign, Ross Perot spent $34.8 billion of his own money on a series of
infomercials
Deeply researched stories that uncover serious crime, corruption, or corporate wrongdoing are called _____ journalism, something in which notable news magazines engage.
investigative
Which of the following best characterizes a "public"?
its communicative nature
The role that media bias plays in the development of public opinion is
large
The Founders named the _____ as preeminent in American democracy.
legislature
_____ is a published false statement that is damaging to a private individual's reputation.
libel
The actual or perceived failure of the media to report news objectively is called
media bias
The category of public opinion that is defined as "a projection of what journalists, politicians, and 'elites' believe" is called
media/elite opinion.
As of 2013, approximately what percentage of Americans rely upon television broadcasts for their news?
more than 50 percent
According to Jan E. Leighley's research, when the mass media are watchdogs on government and on the political elite, they are following the _____ model.
neutral adversaries
A digital audio file made available on the Internet for downloading to a computer or portable media player, typically available as a series, is a
podcast.
The process through which we learn political attitudes and opinions is called
political socialization
_____ provides a specific context and background through which audiences engage with a particular topic or story.
priming
is the ability of the media to help shape public opinion respecting an event or a person in the public sphere.
priming
The right of rebuttal does not apply to
print media
What type of survey interviews a scientifically determined sampling of people within a population?
probability sample survey
According to Jan E. Leighley's research, when the mass media are pushers of a particular individual/politician, product, or idea, they are following the _____ model.
propagandist
The news media, in particular, operate as an institution within the _____ sphere.
public
Political scientist Thomas Patterson argues that the _____ that citizens can access affects their interest in the news.
quality of information
Texas's government is predominantly
republican
The media cultivate and influence the public's social reality and mirror society's culture back to the viewer through
resonance
The reinforcement and magnification of existing beliefs about the reality and commonality of events due to the presentation of reality by the media is called
resonance.
What is the literal meaning of "democracy"?
rule by the people
One big advantage of the use of digital media for political campaigns is that it
saves money
The systematic selection of particular news that presents a distorted view of reality is called _____ bias.
selection
_____ factors include things like income, education, race, and ethnicity; they can affect voter turnout.
socioeconomic
The earliest form of public opinion polling (as we know it today) consisted of newspapers setting up outside polling places and interviewing voters after they cast their ballots. These polls are called
straw poles
Recent research shows that _____ remain(s) the most effective single medium available for the acquisition of political information.
television news
What entity is responsible for issuing regulations concerning broadcast media?
the Federal Communications Commission
According to anthropologist Thomas de Zengotita, what 1963 event, which was widely covered in the media, changed people's perception of the news?
the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas
During what era of American history did almost 95 percent of U.S. households own radios?
the end of World War II
What requires that a broadcaster permitting one political candidate access to the airwaves must afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates seeking the same office?
the equal time rule
public opinion
the sum of attitudes and opinions of individuals and groups on a particular topic
Citizens consider information they receive directly from the media in light of _____, exacerbating media bias.
their own ideological biases.
Today, we use "press" and "media" somewhat interchangeably. At the founding of the nation,
these two words had more nuanced meanings.
What is the point of a push poll?
to attack a candidate or issue
True or false: Connecting with the public directly is the most important advantage that the Internet offers political campaigns.
true
Approximately what portion of American adults use at least one form of social media to share information?
two-thirds
Citizen journalism is especially problematic on _____, as described in the text, because people generally ignore the site's guidelines about attribution.
youtube
