Deck 4: Hegemony - by James Lull

Question 1

For all its popularity, the shopping mania provokes considerable disease: ______.

A) many Americans worry about our preoccupation with getting and spending
B) all Americans are obsessed with self-expression and presentation
C) some Americans devote all their income to be seen as higher in the social standing
D) Americans in general are not concerned with the effects of their actions but instead are only interested in experiencing the newest trend

Answer 1

A

Question 2

The new consumerism has also set in motion another dynamic: ______.

A) it leads resources into other sources that could be used for social change
B) it takes monetary resources from the rich and sends that to programs for lower class Americans
C) it diverts economic resources that could be used for government consumption
D) it siphons off resources that could be used for alternatives to private consumption

Answer 2

D

Question 3

In the article, the author expresses that the fact that Ms. was asking companies to do business in a different way meant their saleswomen had to make many times the usual number of calls--first to convince agencies and then client companies besides--and to ______.

A) provide exceptional customer service
B) constantly validate their credentials to new clients
C) present endless amounts of research
D) seek out only high-profile clients.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Postfeminism is a term made up of multiple and conflicting meanings, and in this context, the author refers to Rosalind Gill's conception of postfeminism as ______.

A) a nondescript blending of various post-civil rights ideologies
B) a distinctive sensibility consisting of a number of interrelated themes
C) a very specific hybrid of modern femininity and postindustrial work values
D) none of these

Question 5

Midriff advertising is notable not only for its success in selling brands but also--much more significantly--for its effective rebranding or reconstruction of ______.

A) the ideas and the work involved in creating the objectifiable through the visuals of sex and power
B) the anxieties and the labor involved in making the body beautiful, through a discourse of fun, pleasure, and power
C) the pleasures and the intensity involved in making a body powerful through a campaign of images and visuals
D) the experiences and the process in making the body visually stimulating through advertising and media

Question 6

In the article, the author talks about how the ironic, contra Coke GIFs couldn't help but become transformed back into brand-compatible Coca-Cola messaging. This issue shows that ______.

A) capitalism is an immensely resilient institution
B) economics rarely behaves predictably
C) capitalism only produces increasingly powerful corporations
D) advertising can have unexpected outcomes

Question 7

With its emphasis on luxury, expensiveness, exclusivity, rarity, uniqueness, and distinction, "new consumerism" reflects and perpetuates structures of ______.

A) empowerment
B) economics and capitalism
C) inequality and power
D) class relations

Question 8

According to the article, without a privately controlled industry jockeying to compete with one another for consumer dollars, there's no need for ______.

A) large corporations
B) advertising
C) consumerism
D) the study of economics

Question 9

Like cause marketing, this cause branding strategy "is merely a cleverly disguised ploy to mask some of the fundamental problems for which the very same marketing forces are directly or indirectly responsible." Within this consumer context, commercial connotations are attached to ______.

A) pop culture messages
B) cultural heritage and commercial pandering
C) subtext and topical philosophy
D) popular messages and practices of philanthropy

Question 10

Popular discourses surrounding female celebrities and cosmetic surgery most often emerge from ______.

A) a post-feminist perspective
B) a heteronormative perspective
C) a cross-cultural perspective
D) a postindustrial perspective

Question 11

Gloria Steinem states that when Ms. began, they didn't consider not taking ads. She says the most important reason was keeping the price of a feminist magazine low enough for most women to afford. But the second and almost equal reason was ______.

A) getting the magazine seen by the maximum number of women
B) creating an advertising dependent reader base that relied on the ads for discovering new products and services
C) providing a forum where women and advertisers could talk to each other and improve advertising itself
D) to make as much money off the magazine quickly so they could expand

Question 12

According to the author, individuals use celebrities as a nexus of ______.

A) social judgments
B) identity negotiation
C) self-evaluation
D) moral role models

Question 13

As the author describes, for some, the answer comes in dreaming of a near future in which all that anxiety melts away, but for others, the answer to such distress is ______.

A) anger and revolt
B) doing nothing
C) calm discussion of the issues
D) protest and agitation

Question 14

As the author states, no matter how much never-to-be-recovered cash is poured into starting a magazine or keeping one going, _______ seem to be all that matter.

A) appearances
B) finances
C) readers
D) corporate backers

Question 15

As described in the article, speed and fragmentation are not particularly conducive to thinking because they induce feeling. The speed and fragmentation that characterize the commodity image-system may have a similar effect on ______.

A) the formation of morals
B) the construction of consciousness
C) the ability to judge right from wrong
D) the interpretation of received messages

Question 16

A feminist semiotic analysis suggests that, under a guise of corporate altruism that democratizes female beauty, Campaign for Real Beauty endorses ______.

A) culturally accurate representations of women
B) progressive pop culture views toward women
C) socially responsible ideas of womanhood
D) global postfeminist citizenship

Question 17

When the author says that in the contemporary world messages about goods are all pervasive, he means that ______.

A) advertising has increasingly filled up the spaces of our daily existence
B) consumerism is not as important as it once was
C) advertising has become less important than the actual product being sold
D) the dominant culture of the country has shifted and is focused more on quality of products than availability

Question 18

It is sometimes difficult to locate the origins of our most cherished values and assumptions because ______.A. we as a cultural value the whole, rather than the individual
B) we live inside the consumer culture, and most of us have done so for most of our lives
C) we tend to focus on the values of others more than ourselves
D) we get caught in the influencing force of society, which tells subconsciously that our values don't matter

Question 19

Objectification's centrality to the feminist critical lexicon lay in its ability to speak to the ways in which media representations help to justify and sustain relations of ______.

A) equity between men and women
B) romantic involvement between men and women
C) partnership and codependence between men
D) domination and inequality between men and women

Question 20

This article advances that the Campaign for Real Beauty is a cause branding strategy that merges messages of corporate ______.

A) "concern and commitment for a cause"
B) "worry but don't lose money"
C) "care as long as it benefits the company"
D) "care only about the cause, keep the people first"

Question 21

The transformation of the Olympics into a ______ event affects the authenticity of the athletes who literally embody the positive aspects of "Olympism"--the ideals that underpin the event and movement or, in more commercial terms, the meaning of the Olympic brand.

A) culturally iconic
B) social spectacle
C) global politics
D) media entertainment

Question 22

Commercial intertextuality is used to describe the production and interlinking of texts like blockbuster films or TV series with______ and products.

A) subplots and side narratives
B) underlying messages
C) allied paratexts
D) additional online content

Question 23

True Blood is a television show based on novels, The Southern Vampire Mysteries, by Charlaine Harris. The stories, the 10th of which was published in 2010, were best sellers, providing a rich source of (intercorporate) intertextuality.

Question 24

True Blood illustrates the increasing diversity of ______.

A) transmedia intertextual space and its tensions and contradictions
B) broadcast television and its plots and stories
C) HBO and its shows and characters
D) the vampire genre and its meanings and effects

Question 25

What does Jhally mean when he says, "Advertising is part of a 'discourse through and about objects'"?

Question 26

The premise of the threat of branding is that commercialization is not a negative aspect of contemporary sports industries because it doesn't render sports as just another indistinct form of consumerism and does not remove any enthusiasm from its audience.

Question 27

This commercialization has been inevitable, largely because of the wider development of sport as a commercialized leisure and entertainment industry that is dependent on both ________ and ____________.

A) corporate media; commodity corporate finances
B) consumers; producers
C) technology; economics
D) high-profile players; every-day fans

Question 28

What are two strategies for attracting audiences covered in part IV of the readings?

Question 29

What are some changes in media culture over the last 50 years as discussed in part IV of the readings?