Deck 13: Leisure and Media

Question 1

________ is/are the ultimate example of the commercialization of leisure.

A) Sports
B) Video games
C) Shopping
D) The Internet

Answer 1

C

Question 2

How have activities that were once necessities changed as they have become recreational activities?

A) They now come with a wide variety of commodities.
B) More people do them than in the past.
C) They require more skill than before.
D) They no longer require us to spend money.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

What does the sociologist Richard Sennett mean when he says that modernity has seen the "fall of public man"?

A) People increasingly spend time with their immediate families or close friends, and the home becomes the site of leisure activities.
B) The ideals of public service and civic duty are seen as much less important than they were in the past.
C) The government provides far fewer services than it has in the past.
D) There are far fewer celebrities than at any other time in history.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

In 2006, Nintendo released the Wii, which was its latest video game system. The system was credited for attracting demographic groups, including senior citizens, not often associated with video games. There were even reports of senior citizens forming leagues to play "Wii bowling" and other sports-related games. These leagues would represent

A) the fall of public man.
B) spontaneity in recreation and leisure.
C) a return to a less commodified style of recreational activities.
D) a return of public life.

Question 5

The difference between leisure and recreation is that

A) leisure is a kind of activity; recreation is a kind of time.
B) leisure requires money; recreation does not.
C) leisure is a kind of time; recreation is a kind of activity.
D) leisure does not require money; recreation does.

Question 6

Technological changes are transforming the nature of recreation because recreation

A) is moving into public spaces and away from the home.
B) is less likely to involve members of the immediate family.
C) has become safer.
D) is moving inside the home and away from public spaces.

Question 7

Leisure is increasingly dominated by ________, "the 800-pound gorilla of leisure time."

A) the Internet
B) video games
C) shopping
D) television

Question 8

If you go on a hike, how might it be considered part of the commercialization of leisure?

A) You do not use maps and instead navigate your way around a national park using a compass and the sun.
B) You buy a $500 backpack with a solar panel to allow you to recharge your electronics.
C) You use your BlackBerry to check your email every morning, even when you are away from buildings and computers.
D) You bring along a camera and document your hiking trip for your scrapbook.

Question 9

What is the MOST underappreciated aspect of the work that professional musicians do given that popular music is so strongly associated with leisure?

A) how much they get paid
B) the conditions under which they work, particularly on tour
C) how long a career most professional musicians have
D) that it is work

Question 10

Activities that can be considered recreation include

A) those that cannot be done for a wage.
B) those that involve friends and family.
C) those that are done on the weekend.
D) those that are enjoyable.

Question 11

Why was the line between work and play not clearly defined in the premodern world?

A) Religious beliefs prohibited this distinction.
B) Too many people died young.
C) People had fewer recreational options.
D) People did not have adequate technology for recreation.

Question 12

In what way has the Internet changed how people use leisure time?

A) Older people are more likely to be in touch with younger generations.
B) There is increasing contact between people in different areas of the world, but sometimes individuals from the same family spend less time with one another.
C) There is increasing contact between family members and less contact between people in different areas of the world.
D) There has been a radical increase in the amount of time people spend shopping.

Question 13

________ is the shift from people making their own fun to people purchasing it as goods and services.

A) The privatization of recreational activities
B) The commodification of recreational activities
C) Formalizing recreation
D) Conglomeration synergy

Question 14

Imagine that you have come across a woman rebuilding an engine. Which of the following questions would you need to ask to discover if this was a recreational activity as recreation is defined in your textbook?

A) if she had to take time off work to do it
B) if there was any way for her to benefit from the activity in an economic sense
C) how much time she spent on it each week
D) how rebuilding engines made her feel

Question 15

The increase in leisure time in the twentieth century was due to

A) changes in values and norms making leisure disappear.
B) increases in industrial productivity and time-saving technologies.
C) decreases in family size.
D) increases in life span and better health care.

Question 16

The rise of the suburbs affected the way people used their leisure time because it

A) encouraged them to join neighborhood groups and associations.
B) encouraged them to take more vacations.
C) encouraged them to spend their leisure time in their own homes.
D) led to an increase in outdoor activities.

Question 17

Based on your textbook's definition, which of the following sounds MOST like recreation?

A) a student's time between getting out of class and going to work
B) a guitarist on tour who sells T-shirts and CDs at a merchandise table after each show
C) the "recess" period given to children in primary school, when they can spend unstructured time on the playground
D) someone computing the amount and type of fuel needed to power a model rocket they want to launch in a park

Question 18

Historically, ________ had the time and resources necessary to pursue recreational activities.

A) only the wealthy
B) almost everyone
C) the middle class and the upper class
D) only the clergy

Question 19

The sociologist Richard Sennett argues that we have seen the "fall of public man" and have become much more likely to seek refuge in "ties of family or intimate association." Given this information, what else would you expect Sennett to believe?

A) Few people can take pleasure in great cities, which are full of strangers.
B) Religious ceremonies are a great source of pride and meaning.
C) More Americans are participating in local politics.
D) In the future, there will be far more people with mental health issues than there are today.

Question 20

The terms "recreation" and "leisure" are both defined by how they differ from

A) paid work.
B) family life.
C) sports and physical fitness.
D) shopping.

Question 21

Why might reading a book that you checked out from the library seem to be an example of a recreational activity that is totally uncommercialized but still be directly connected to commercial activity?

A) You had to eat and pay for utilities on the day you went to the library.
B) You might learn something valuable by reading.
C) Books from libraries are expensive, as they have expensive bindings.
D) People were paid to write, edit, print, ship, and shelve the book.

Question 22

________ have made it possible for politicians to bypass traditional media outlets.

A) Social media
B) Newspapers
C) TV channels
D) Radio stations

Question 23

The Mall of America has more than 10,000 workers, occupies more than 4,000,000 square feet, and receives more than 40,000,000 visitors each year. However, the mall offers more than just shopping. Concerts, plays, story times for children, flight simulators, and an indoor aquarium are just a few of the activities considered part of the "retail experience." What point does this illustrate?

A) Many forms of leisure and recreation seem to have shifted from organized and formal activities to spontaneous or informal activities.
B) Alternative media sources are driving Americans to consider new ideas and experience life differently.
C) Americans are increasingly less likely to go out for a dose of the arts and more likely to stay home and enjoy performances in front of their home entertainment centers.
D) Shopping is now as much about entertainment as it is about purchasing things.

Question 24

Americans seem to have much more choice about which media to consume than in the past. Why is this choice deceptive?

A) Many choices are owned by foreign companies.
B) Many choices are confined to small, marginal outlets.
C) Many choices are owned by the same company.
D) Many choices are not available in all areas.

Question 25

A company that manufactures alcoholic beverages bought and then sold two smaller companies that produce film, television, and music. What is this process called?

A) introducing new voices in the media
B) encoding
C) conglomeration
D) spectatorship

Question 26

How does free time (nonwork time) differ from leisure time?

A) It does not count as leisure time unless money is being spent.
B) Leisure activities can also earn money.
C) Leisure time implies the ability to make choices.
D) Leisure time often happens at work.

Question 27

On ESPN.com, men's college basketball is presented as "college basketball," while women's college basketball is called "women's college basketball." This is an example of

A) the concentration of media power.
B) inequality.
C) privatization.
D) commercialization.

Question 28

Seagram's is a company that is best known for its gin, but it also owns Universal Records. This is an example of what trend in the media industry?

A) regulation
B) monopoly
C) inequality
D) conglomeration

Question 29

Leisure is treated as a major and important topic in sociology because

A) leisure is the opposite of work.
B) leisure and recreation absorb a lot of time, energy, and resources.
C) the wealthy and powerful do different things with their leisure time than the poor do with theirs.
D) leisure and recreation increasingly involve technology and media.

Question 30

There were a number of "family" groups or family members who became professional musicians together in the early days of country music. This was a common occurrence partly because many families made music together for fun. The average family today is more likely to have each member put on a pair of headphones to listen to music alone. What does this say about contemporary recreation and leisure?

A) We define leisure time in terms of public life and interactions with strangers.
B) Material goods that we seem to require in order to have fun mediate our recreation and leisure.
C) Our leisure time is much more formally organized than it was in the past.
D) Changes in recreation and leisure have produced a great deal of inequality.

Question 31

The principle of the free press as a voice of the people has been complicated since the U.S. Constitution was crafted because of

A) blogs and zines.
B) conglomeration and media concentration.
C) the tabloid press.
D) the rise of celebrity gossip.

Question 32

A flash mob is a sudden assembly of strangers in a public place for the purpose of performing some unique action (clapping for no reason, singing a song together, dancing, etc.) and then rapidly dispersing. They appear to be spontaneous to outsiders, but, in reality, flash mobs are organized through emails, social networking sites, and text messages. This is a good example of how technology can

A) shift recreation to the private sphere.
B) promote self-regulation and censorship in the media.
C) make it easier to organize people.
D) commodify recreation and leisure.

Question 33

The wireless carrier Verizon bought the Internet provider Yahoo. What term best describes the combination of these two companies?

A) synergy
B) merger
C) conglomeration
D) high culture

Question 34

Leisure and work are complementary activities. What links them together?

A) food
B) consumption
C) the weekend
D) children and the family

Question 35

The average American spends more than half of their total leisure hours

A) exercising.
B) consuming media.
C) playing with children.
D) participating in organized activities.

Question 36

To which of the following trends is spectatorship MOST closely related given the ways it has changed in recent years?

A) increasing levels of conglomeration
B) the increase in third places
C) the decline of public life
D) the commercialization of leisure

Question 37

Which of the following is a typical media conglomerate MOST likely to include among its many divisions?

A) a restaurant chain
B) a dating app
C) a sports franchise
D) an international phone company

Question 38

A media conglomerate is said to have ________ when it is able to market its products across a wide range of media.

A) synergy
B) a monopoly
C) consumption
D) antitrust

Question 39

A president knows that a newspaper will fact-check a statement if he releases it to the newspaper. Consequently, he decides to post the statement on his Twitter account instead. This an example of a politician

A) benefiting from antitrust legislation.
B) deregulating laws regarding the Internet.
C) creating synergy.
D) bypassing traditional media outlets.

Question 40

Technology has facilitated the shift from spontaneous to organized recreation because it has

A) made organized recreation more fun.
B) made organized recreation more competitive.
C) produced the tools necessary for recreation to even exist.
D) made it easier to organize people.

Question 41

A sociologist who is concerned that people will uncritically accept political biases in the media they consume probably believes that audiences

A) are active.
B) seek out the same media to meet different needs.
C) can transform pieces of the media to suit their own needs.
D) are mostly passive.

Question 42

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

A) They uncritically accept the messages encoded in media.
B) They are passive viewers.
C) They take a media product and manipulate it to tell their own stories.
D) They are actively engaged.

Question 43

An advertisement company uses online data to determine that Kelly is a white twenty-two-year-old female who goes to church every week. The advertisement company uses that data to determine which media advertisements Kelly will see online. How is the company deciding which advertisements Kelly will like?

A) by fighting antitrust legislation
B) by sorting Kelly and others into taste publics
C) by promoting high culture over popular culture
D) by strengthening civil society and communal bonds

Question 44

Taste cultures are

A) groups of people who share similar literary, media, recreational, and intellectual interests
B) laws designed to maintain competition in the marketplace by prohibiting monopolies
C) any satisfying, amusing, and stimulating activity that is experienced as refreshing and renewing for body, mind, and spirit
D) areas of culture that share similar aesthetics and standards of taste

Question 45

What is the MOST likely reason for media outlets to impose self-censorship?

A) to compete with online blogs and underground publications
B) to avoid outside regulation by the government
C) to protect children
D) to increase subscriptions

Question 46

Some cell phone providers are now offering hardware such as small laptops. Phone companies believe that each product they offer will encourage and promote other products. For example, phones can easily send data to laptops, which can store media that can easily be watched on phones, and so on. What is this called?

A) media concentration
B) conglomeration
C) bandwidth
D) synergy

Question 47

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 reduced rules on cross ownership and allowed corporations to buy thousands of media outlets. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is an example of

A) antitrust legislation.
B) deregulation.
C) encoding and decoding.
D) textual poaching.

Question 48

Today, four companies sell more than 80 percent of the music purchased in the United States, although this fact is not obvious because the four companies have purchased many smaller record labels over the years. What is this called?

A) synergy
B) the media and democracy
C) a monopoly
D) concentration of media power

Question 49

Why do some argue in favor of increased censorship of the media?

A) They believe censorship will provide a voice for disenfranchised groups.
B) They believe it will protect American companies from foreign competition.
C) They believe it will increase sales overseas, especially in conservative societies.
D) They believe that violent and sexual media content has a negative impact on society.

Question 50

Early critics dismissed the work of director Alfred Hitchcock, but he later became one of the most revered filmmakers of all time. Why might the way we categorize the work of artists like Alfred Hitchcock change over time?

A) Artists go to third places to actively promote their work over long periods of time.
B) The boundaries between high culture and popular culture are often permeable.
C) How an artist's work is categorized changes when audiences engage in textual poaching.
D) Artists who promote communitarianism are always eventually revered.

Question 51

Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer believed that "the triumph of advertising . . . is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them." What might you conclude if this is all you know about Adorno and Horkheimer?

A) They accept that reinforcement theory explains the way advertising works.
B) They accept that audiences are nonexistent.
C) They believe in the hypodermic needle theory.
D) They rely on the uses and gratification paradigm to understand media.

Question 52

Some lawyers working for the Department of Justice worry that Google is abusing its power and behaving like a monopoly in the way it charges for ads. What type of lawsuit would it be if the Department of Justice filed one?

A) commodification
B) prima facie
C) antitrust
D) synergistic

Question 53

Jessica loves a new album for its message of female empowerment. Her friend Amal disagrees because she thinks the album objectifies women and doesn't do enough to condemn sexism. Which of the following describes Jessica and Amal's disagreement?

A) an example of a third place
B) an instance of textual poaching
C) an example of conflict theory
D) a split in the interpretation of a cultural text

Question 54

Which of the following is an example of net neutrality?

A) No Internet-based service or content can be privileged over another.
B) Internet providers reimbursing data use for certain services.
C) Internet providers allowing no data caps for certain services or means of streaming.
D) Internet providers queuing certain services or devices higher in priority.

Question 55

Sociologists tend to stop asking ________ and start asking ________ when they reject the hypodermic needle model.

A) what people do with media; what media does to people
B) what writers and critics do with media; what media does to people
C) what media does to people; what people do with media
D) what media does to people; what writers and critics do with media

Question 56

Net neutrality refers to the idea that

A) Internet speed should function differently depending on who is using it.
B) caps should be put on each person's data to limit their Internet use.
C) no Internet-based service or content should be privileged over another.
D) online content should only be available to customers who can pay for it.

Question 57

Communication researchers who follow media ownership saw a consistent trend of _________ characterized by mergers and buyouts through the 1980s and 1990s, resulting in fewer but larger media companies in the 2000s.

A) conglomeration
B) concentration
C) commodification
D) synergy

Question 58

Which Supreme Court case ruled on the criteria used to define obscenity?

A) Roe v. Wade
B) New York Times v. Sullivan
C) Loving v. Virginia
D) Roth v. United States

Question 59

What is implied about the meaning of media "texts" if scholars assume that audiences are active rather than passive?

A) Media producers manipulate audiences in order to sell goods.
B) Every media consumer experiences meanings in the same way.
C) The meaning of any particular media text is not important.
D) Consumers can alter and even invert meanings to suit their own purposes.

Question 60

The assumption that media consumers automatically accept whatever meaning is in the "texts" they consume is called

A) the active audience model.
B) the encoding/decoding model.
C) textual poaching.
D) the magic bullet theory.

Question 61

Which theory of media consumption combines elements of both the magic bullet theory and the uses and gratifications theory?

A) Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model
B) Henry Jenkins's textual poaching model
C) Stanley Fish's interpretive community model
D) Émile Durkheim's functionalist model

Question 62

There are an infinite number of potential meanings for any given text if, as Stanley Fish argues, an individual reader interprets a text and thereby gives it meaning. Why do so many people interpret things in the same ways?

A) People tend to look to a small number of critics to explain any particular piece of culture.
B) People have very little imagination and do not like to focus too much on any given text.
C) People who consume the same texts come from similar backgrounds and have similar interpretive frameworks.
D) People passively absorb meanings from the media that lead them to see the world in the same ways.

Question 63

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

A) agenda-setting
B) reinforcement
C) magic bullet
D) two-step flow

Question 64

Polysemy refers to the idea that

A) any given text may have multiple meanings.
B) foreign travel should minimize the environmental consequences of tourism.
C) celebrities should act as role models.
D) audience members are active participants in constructing the meaning of the media they consume.

Question 65

According to Henry Jenkins, what are audience members doing when they manipulate commercially produced media products, often to tell stories or express ideas very different from the original?

A) textual poaching
B) encoding
C) gratification consumption
D) hypodermic media consumption

Question 66

Which part of Stuart Hall's theory resembles the magic bullet model?

A) the assumption that specific ideological messages are loaded into cultural products
B) the assumption that individuals will respond to media messages in a wide variety of ways
C) the assumption that audience members manipulate cultural products for their own ends
D) the assumption that audience members will listen to "opinion leaders"

Question 67

Bloomsbury Academic Press hosted a competition called Remix the Remixer in 2008 to celebrate the release of Lawrence Lessig's book. Contest entrants were asked to find a video, interview, or written work of Lessig's, mash it up with another piece of Lessig's work, and create something new such as a video, photo, or text. What is this sort of artistic activity called?

A) a two-step flow model
B) textual poaching
C) magic bullets
D) uses and gratifications

Question 68

A series of polls in 2003 showed that people who primarily got their news from the Fox News Channel were significantly more likely to believe that Iraq had played a part in the 9/11 attacks. Many people saw this as evidence of the way the media shaped public opinion, but some believed that those who already believed this simply gravitated to Fox. This is an example of

A) textual poaching.
B) encoding/decoding.
C) reinforcement theory.
D) agenda-setting theory.

Question 69

According to the two-step flow model, which of the following would be MOST likely to sway public opinion concerning the ethical treatment of farm animals?

A) a billboard with a famous actress and a slogan on it
B) a news story that makes the front page of a national paper
C) a short clip on the local news
D) a documentary aired on cable television

Question 70

What are fans of the original Star Trek series doing when they edit recorded episodes of the TV show to make it appear that Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are passionate gay lovers?

A) textual poaching
B) reinforcing the meaning of the original product
C) being a passive audience
D) agenda setting

Question 71

In 2014, Pharrell Williams gave permission to fans to create their own "cover" videos using his song "Happy." This resulted in nearly 2,000 different versions of the music video produced by fans in more than 150 different countries. The model of ______ is highlighted by the example of Pharrell Williams's hit song "Happy."

A) decoding
B) deconstructing
C) cultural marking
D) textual poaching

Question 72

The positive response of music critics as well as the negative response from people like bell hooks to Beyoncé's Lemonade is an example of which model?

A) encoding/decoding
B) deconstructing
C) cultural marking
D) textual poaching

Question 73

A popular radio talk show host comments that mass shootings are increasing simply because people are consuming increasingly violent television shows and movies and doing so more often. Which theory is this talk show host espousing?

A) active audiences theory
B) reinforcement theory
C) hypodermic needle theory
D) agenda-setting theory

Question 74

Critics might see soap operas as brainwashing their viewers to accept a particular version of gender roles. Some sociologists would insist that the people who produce soap operas actually have to be constantly attentive to the desires of their audience and are, to some extent, responding to the audience. If you believe this, then you probably see soap opera viewers as

A) new voices in the media.
B) the bourgeoisie.
C) collectors.
D) an active audience.

Question 75

The producers, writers, and actors of Die Hard meant for the audience to cheer for the protagonist, a blue-collar hero who defeats a team of German terrorists single-handedly. If you met someone who instead was rooting for Hans Gruber, the murderous leader of the terrorists, you could say that they were

A) being used by the mass media to influence other members of the public.
B) being more or less "brainwashed" by the effects of the mass media.
C) being informed and educated by the media.
D) decoding the movie differently than it was encoded.

Question 76

The English music star Morrissey got his start in the band The Smiths, singing about radical vegetarianism and bisexuality in the 1980s. He was effeminate, bleak, and sarcastic. His fan base has expanded far beyond the disaffected English teenagers who bought his original records. In fact, some of his most devoted fans today are Hispanic millennials in Southern California. How is it possible that British teenagers in the 1980s and Hispanic Californians today can appreciate the same music?

A) There are few differences between these two groups.
B) Even though members of the two groups have different experiences and perspectives, they understand Morrissey's music in the same way.
C) They bring different interpretive strategies to the experience of listening to Morrissey's music.
D) Music is universal, and all people experience it in the same way; if one group can be moved by it, then any other group will feel the same way.

Question 77

Teenage boys sometimes watch football games on Sunday only because they wish to be able to make conversation with their classmates on Monday. Which theory best explains this?

A) textual poaching
B) structural functionalism
C) the magic bullet theory
D) the uses and gratifications paradigm

Question 78

Polysemy, or the idea that any given text may have multiple meanings, is most closely associated with which theory of media effects?

A) interpretive strategies
B) agenda-setting theory
C) two-step flow model
D) encoding/decoding model

Question 79

Stanley Fish argues against older understandings of media and literature, which held that a text is unchanging and universal. He argues that each member of an audience can interpret or "create" a work, but he does not claim that each audience member has absolute freedom to interpret in unique ways because

A) each member of an audience is part of a larger interpretive community.
B) the author or creator of a work imposes their own ideas on the audience.
C) the "texts" an audience consumes are transmitted unaltered and absorbed straight into their consciousness.
D) the mass media can influence the public by the way stories are presented.

Question 80

What is a group of like-minded individuals called if its members share a similar sensibility and enjoy cultural products in similar ways?

A) an interpretive community
B) textual poachers
C) an active audience
D) producers