Deck 7: News and Public Opinion

Question 1

In comparing the persuadability of the most and least politically informed people, which of the following holds true?

A) They are equally unaffected by persuasive messages.
B) The less informed are more persuadable than the more informed.
C) They are both persuadable to the same degree.
D) None of these are correct.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

A recent instance of priming comes from the post-9/11 era. Which of these statements is consistent with the priming argument?

A) Evaluations of President Bush were more heavily influenced by party identification following the Iraq War.
B) Postwar evaluations of Bush overall were more heavily influenced by evaluations of his performance on combating terrorism.
C) Postwar evaluations of Bush were no different from prewar evaluations.
D) Evaluations of Bush's overall performance were tied more to his performance on the economy.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

In considering the evolution of media effects research, which of the following is true?

A) Studies based on surveys typically found minimal effects, but studies based on experiments found the opposite.
B) Studies based on experiments typically found minimal effects, but survey studies found the opposite.
C) Both survey-based and experimental studies reached the same conclusion of minimal effects.
D) The type of research methodology is unrelated to the results.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

A study by Bailenson et al. suggests that nonverbal framing of candidates can influence voting preferences even in the most visible of races. The frames used in this study concerned

A) the candidates' positions on the issues.
B) the genders of the candidates.
C) the candidates' faces.
D) the candidates' party affiliations.

Question 5

During the height of the Gulf War, President George H. W. Bush's popularity exceeded 90 percent. Three months later it dropped below 50 percent. The standard explanation for this drop is

A) agenda-setting effects.
B) persuasion effects.
C) priming effects.
D) framing effects.

Question 6

News coverage is said to interact with personal circumstances in setting an individual's agenda. Which of the following demonstrates this?

A) Lead stories are more powerful than ordinary stories in setting the agenda.
B) Elderly people are more responsive to news coverage of Social Security.
C) Unemployed people are less responsive to news coverage of outsourcing.
D) More informed viewers of TV news are most likely to have their agendas set.

Question 7

In explaining the process of attitude change in response to a persuasive message, you would expect which of the following?

A) Highly informed and involved people will be more likely to change.
B) Lower levels of information and involvement correlate with a greater likelihood of attitude change.
C) Attitude change is greatest among people with moderate levels of information and involvement.
D) Information and involvement are unrelated to an individual's susceptibility to persuasion.

Question 8

In what way did the 1980 presidential campaign provide a test of priming?

A) by showing significant effects of party identification on vote choice
B) by demonstrating that public evaluations of Carter on the hostage issue had significant effects on vote choice
C) by showing that people pessimistic about the economy were more likely to vote for Carter
D) None of these are correct.

Question 9

Hovland's idea of methodological pluralism refers to

A) using multiple data sets.
B) using multiple treatment conditions.
C) using both surveys and experiments.
D) None of these are correct.

Question 10

In tracing the evolution of media effects research, which of the following sequences is correct?

A) framing, persuasion, priming
B) persuasion, agenda setting, priming
C) agenda setting, persuasion, framing
D) priming, agenda setting, persuasion

Question 11

The principal effect of episodic framing on viewers' attributions of responsibility is

A) to increase their reliance on dispositional or individualistic accounts of political problems (e.g., to conclude that crime is caused by immoral people).
B) to make them more likely to cite societal accounts of political problems (e.g., to conclude that crime is caused by inequality and racial discrimination).
C) to make viewers less prepared to offer any causal account of political problems.
D) to increase their reliance on both individualistic and societal accounts.

Question 12

Episodic framing of crime is thought to encourage which of the following?

A) attributing responsibility for crime to individuals
B) attributing responsibility for crime to government
C) sympathy for criminal suspects
D) reduced support for punitive measures such as the death penalty