Exam 1, Chapter 14, Week 6: Hedy Lamarr, Mass Communication Korpi, Exam #1

One explanation for our relative ignorance or naivete regarding media's impact on us is due to how common and pervasive it is—we simply tend not to think about it.

True

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.

Media research presents a convincing case that most of us are probably wrong in our estimates of how media affect other people and ourselves.

True

Most of us are convinced the mass media have tremendous impact on people, but when it comes to ourselves as individuals, we believe that we make free rational choices based on facts (and the media do not have much of an effect on us).

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

Our media technologies and environment are constantly changing.

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

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 impact of the media does NOT depend solely on what media gatekeepers send through the pipeline.

True

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

True

The world that you create in your head is a direct result of the actual content of the message; the medium itself is neutral.

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

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

True

Communication

the process of creating shared meaning

The mosaic model is based on the idea that:

the communication environment is like a vast mosaic of information bits

Fourth World

the world in your head

Third World

those available sights, sounds, and other experiences that you attend to or that, somehow, strike your senses

The third dimension of the communication mosaic is:

topics for which you have information

Culture

what we know about ourselves and our world

Oligopoly

with just a few companies controlling the industry

Competitive Market

with many companies vying for business (often referred to as a "free market,"

Monopoly

with one company clearly dominant in the industry.

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

False

Consistency theory:

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

Variety theory helps to explain why some people:

Seek new kinds of information.

History

a useful causal chronology

With the appropriate knowledge you can easily control media's uses and their effects on society as easily as you can your personal uses and their effects.

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

Each medium has unique traits (they are after all "different" media), but the media also share many important characteristics.

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

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.

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

>50%

The First World is the world in your head.

False

Time is an important dimension in the communication mosaic because:

Both you and the mosaic are constantly changing.

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

False

The creators of media messages—like journalists, producers, and advertisers—have far more control than you do over the information and meanings that you get from the media

False

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.

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.

False

The mass media often operate relatively independently of each other, and therefore your use of them and their influence on you operate independently as well.

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

A model can describe everything about communication.

False

According to technological determinism, society guides the media and its development.

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

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 the purpose of distinguishing between them, it is accurate to say that "communications" is a process that characterizes much of human interaction, and that "communication" is things, messages.

False

Having a complete idea requires complete information.

False

In order to control the impact of the media on us, we can ignore the media themselves and just focus on rhetorical strategies.

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

Information is a resource just like coal, oil, iron ore, timber, and hydro-electric power are resources.

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

Media technologies are converging (because of computers and digital), but media jobs and media businesses are not (because they are in the analog world).

False

Most people understand quite well the role media play in our lives and the lives of others.

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

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

How many dimensions are there in the mosaic model?

Four

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?

Four

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

Fourth World

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

True

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.

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

True

Why is ownership control probably more of a problem today than it was forty or fifty years ago?

More media have been taken over by giant, international corporations that have financial interests in many of the issues the media report on.

Which of the following is NOT considered by the authors of your textbook to be one of the four dominant institutions influencing people's lives?

NOT: Military IS: Government, Church, Business, Media

Which of the following is NOT true of models?

NOT: Tend to draw ones attention to specific instances. IS: Abstract descriptions of phenomena, All of the sciences use them, Judged by their utility

Economic determinists would take the position that:

Newspapers are organized the way they are because that form has been found to be most profitable.

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

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.

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

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

True

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

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.

The authors of your textbook argue that understanding media as a ________, and from the vantage point of a _________, will help you understand individual media in different and more useful ways than you did before.

System || Receiver

An "uncertain analogy" is:

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

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.

Why do large media firms produce commodities in large volumes?

To pursue economics of scale

Theory

a set of related explanatory statements

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

You have no expectations about the material.

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

You.

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

Your fourth world

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.

Society

a large people group sharing the same geographical or social territory

Enabling technologies:

are the inventions or innovations that make a new communication medium possible

Communications

are things, messages, like articles, books, movies, and so on

The filled in squares in the mosaic model represent:

either our third or fourth world

Communication Media

employ mechanical, chemical, or electronic channels

Mass Communication

employs technology to produce and distribute symbols to large numbers of people; to whom it may concern

First World

every bit of information there is to know—for all time and throughout the entire universe

Second World

everything around that you could see, hear, or otherwise experience if you chose to do so

The authors of your textbook consider all of the following to be reasons to study media communication. Which do they argue is the most important?

media greatly influence you and your life

In the mosaic model, the mosaic represents:

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