Deck 11: Media Literacy

Question 1

The actors on TV shows like Pretty Little Liars and in movies like Transformers are carefully chosen, just as much for their looks as their acting ability. This demonstrates the often unacknowledged truth about media texts that they are all someone's presentation of reality, or in other words, _______________.

A) media messages are manufactured
B) commercial media are businesses
C) all media content is value-neutral
D) audiences are products in the mass communication process
E) the audience is the medium in the mass communication process

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Most media content is ___________; that is, it is legitimately open to different interpretations.

A) polysemic
B) polyspective
C) multisemic
D) multispective
E) transformational

Answer 2

A

Question 3

When the meaning we make from a piece of content is the same one the producer hoped we would make, we have made a(n) ___________ reading.

A) actual
B) negotiated
C) consistent
D) preferred
E) transformational

Answer 3

D

Question 4

When the meaning we make from a piece of content differs from the one the producer encourages, we have made a(n) ___________ reading.

A) actual
B) negotiated
C) consistent
D) preferred
E) transformational

Question 5

At a time when bad actors traffic in fake news to disrupt our democracy, an important element of news literacy is _________, judging the trustworthiness of a partisan news outlet .

A) article evaluation
B) claim verification
C) determination of source reliability
D) judging claims on social media
E) separating fact from fiction

Question 6

At what age do people typically become media literate?

A) We are born that way.
B) Usually by the ages of 13-16.
C) Usually by the ages of 17-20.
D) Over 20.
E) At no specific age; we educate ourselves about it and practice it.

Question 7

Among other things, media literacy encourages the understanding of ????????_____________, that is, things like lighting, cinematography, and script writing.

A) media conventions
B) production values
C) economic constraints
D) media mechanics
E) media ethics

Question 8

Media literate people believe that media can affect people cognitively, attitudinally, and emotionally, physiologically, and ________________.

A) Behaviorally
B) politically
C) educationally
D) unknowingly
E) unethically

Question 9

Which of the following is true about media literacy?

A) Media can have both positive and negative effects on individuals.
B) Media literacy and possible media effects are unrelated.
C) Media literacy is best taught in schools by trained professionals.
D) Say what you want about media literacy, but parents are the best guides to good TV watching.
E) Say what you want about media literacy, but schools are the best guides to good TV watching

Question 10

Parents, through __________, can help reduce their children's level of materialism potentially generated by media advertisements.

A) active mediation
B) concept-oriented communication
C) monitored media viewing
D) encouragement of non-media related activities
E) teaching ethics

Question 11

The ___________ of the content creators should always be taken into account when interpreting media messages.

A) political leanings
B) accountability
C) prominence
D) motives
E) nationality

Question 12

You watch a TV commercial in which two women sit around giggling at how "fizzy" new Spritzy Wine in a Box makes their mouths feel. Rather than be moved to try the new beverage, you think the ad demeans women and the makers of Spritzy Wine should be ashamed of themselves. You have made a(n) _________ reading.

A) actual
B) negotiated
C) consistent
D) authorized
E) preferred

Question 13

Which of the following is among the skills of media-literate individuals?

A) Knowing when to use TV as opposed to other media.
B) The development of strategies for analyzing and discussing media messages.
C) An understanding of the meaning of media messages through listening and interpreting.
D) The cultivation of a mainstreamed view of culture.
E) The ability to tell when content is produced in the US versus overseas.

Question 14

Which of the following is true about all media texts?

A) Media messages are designed to entertain.
B) Commercial media are businesses but they put civic duty above profit.
C) All media content contains value messages.
D) Media have no negative impact upon audiences.
E) Media messages are designed to inform.

Question 15

It is the __________ values that are most often presented in media content.

A) consumers'
B) actors'
C) content producers'
D) government's
E) elite's

Question 16

Participants in a single-shooter video game play from ___________ .

A) a personal point of view
B) the victim's point of view
C) the security camera's point of view
D) the witness's point of view
E) multiple points of view

Question 17

Which of the following is best characterized as a hard news story?

A) The local school board is proposing a new math curriculum for high school students.
B) Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie adopt their 14th child from Africa.
C) Actor Bill Cosby admits buying and using drugs to seduce women.
D) Lenny Kravitz made enough money from The Hunger Games to buy a new house.
E) Dr. Oz recommends plastic surgery is the way to go if you want to look young.

Question 18

An important skill of media-literate individuals is paying close attention to media messages and being able to separate valued content from _________.

A) propaganda
B) news
C) entertainment
D) advertising
E) noise

Question 19

Questions about content and credibility are questions of ____________.

A) representations and reality
B) messages and meanings
C) audience and authorship
D) agenda-setting theory
E) the dialectic

Question 20

Questions about content, techniques, and interpretations are questions of ____________.

A) representations and reality
B) messages and meanings
C) audience and authorship
D) agenda-setting theory
E) the dialectic

Question 21

___________ represents a world of adultified and commodified children.

A) Polysemy
B) Kinderculture
C) Millenials
D) Age theory
E) Media multi-tasking

Question 22

Media literate people believe that media content producers have a responsibility to produce ____________ and _____________media messages.

A) effective/responsible
B) efficient/appropriate
C) profitable/enjoyable
D) accurate/negative
E) profitable/elite-based

Question 23

An important part of being media literate is being aware of the impact of the media on both the individual (the __________) and on society (the ________).

A) macro-level/micro-level
B) person/people
C) micro-level/macro-level
D) people/person
E) home level/away level

Question 24

___________ are content that comes from an ever-growing array of communication technologies such as the Internet, television, radio, video games, and smartphones and tablets.

A) Representations
B) Media literacies
C) Media texts
D) Realities
E) Soundbites

Question 25

Media literacy is the ability to read, interpret, ____________, and productively use media texts.

A) respond to
B) critically assess
C) intellectually challenge
D) selectively ignore
E) find argument with

Question 26

__________ is/are formal or structured efforts to build specific media literacy skills.

A) Media education
B) Negotiated meanings
C) Kinderventions
D) Media training
E) Media literacy interventions

Question 27

Tonya's parents are quite concerned about how much TV she watches and what she's taking away from all its commercials. So they devise a scheme where they actively discuss what's going on in those commercials and how they promote materialism, even away from the TV, helping her become a more critical viewer of those commercial messages and what they represent. Tonya's parents are engaging in ____________.

A) active mediation
B) concept-oriented communication
C) restrictive mediation
D) co-viewing
E) laissez-faire parenting

Question 28

___________ means setting rules on a child's media use to control how much screen time he can have in a given day and limiting which programs he can watch.

A) Active mediation
B) Concept-oriented communication
C) Restrictive mediation
D) Co-viewing
E) Laissez-faire parenting

Question 29

Restrictive mediation and concept-oriented communication are drawn from___________, which stresses taking an active role in managing and regulating children's interactions with media.

A) media education efforts
B) representations and reality
C) messages and meanings
D) parental mediation theory
E) social cognitive theory

Question 30

Agenda-setting theory argues that media may not always tell us___________, but they certainly tell us __________.

A) what to think about/what to think
B) what's good/what's bad
C) what to think/what to think about
D) what's bad/what's good
E) who's in/who's out

Question 31

You watch a lot of media violence but you don't go out and commit crime or hurt people, but you live in a world that is possibly more accepting of violence as a means of problem solving. These larger, cultural-level effects of media are ________ effects.

A) micro-level
B) macro-level
C) Kinderculture
D) assimilated
E) benign

Question 32

When media content producers construct narratives, those narratives say something about the culture in which they are created, disseminated, and consumed. In other words, they are ___________ that provide insight into our contemporary culture and ourselves.

A) models
B) representations
C) artifacts
D) texts
E) presentations

Question 33

You read online that your favorite candidate for governor was kicked out of college for painting racist slogans on a classmate's car. But as a ___________ media consumer you ask questions that reach beyond the information provided in that story, looking at the author's and site's motives, interpretations, and credibility.

A) suspicious
B) critical
C) well-educated
D) jaded
E) multi-tasking

Question 34

Critics of advertising to children argue that kids' brains are still developing, so they do not possess the same critical-thinking capacities as adults. They believe that advertising to children is inherently unethical because _______________.

A) parents, not media, should be raising those kids
B) school is the best place to learn about consumption
C) of children's inability to distinguish fact from fiction
D) kids aren't yet media literate
E) schools, not media should be teaching kids about products

Question 35

When parenting expert HYPERLINK "http://www.slate.com/authors.kj_dellantonia.html" KJ Dell'Antonia laments that "Disney has colonized your 3-year-old's brain. McDonald's has planted a flag in there, too, along with My Little Pony and Pepsi and even Toyota," she is worried about the effects of children's lifelong exposure to advertisements, in other words______________.

A) media literacy interventions
B) womb-to-tomb marketing
C) childhood obesity
D) parental mediation
E) hypercommercialism

Question 36

Of the following countries, only one, __________, refuses to prohibit or seriously restrict advertising to children.

A) the United States
B) Australia
C) Sweden
D) Great Britain
E) Norway

Question 37

Your Mom is seriously addicted to reality TV shows, especially those of the Real Housewives variety, the ones with the fighting, spitting, and wine-glass hurling. So you take it upon yourself to explain to her that these shows aren't "reality" in any real sense. You tell her they are scripted; the so-called talent must audition; and the actors must all play their assigned role. By this act of intervention, you have become a(n) __________ media consumer.

A) active
B) proactive
C) meddling
D) critical
E) parental

Question 38

You're reading a magazine story about the now-debunked link between inoculations and autism and you ask yourself if the piece is fact, opinion, or something else, how credible it is, and what are its sources. You are asking questions of _____________.

A) representations and reality
B) messages and meanings
C) audience and authorship
D) agenda-setting theory
E) credibility and authority

Question 39

Grey's Anatomy is a pretty good TV show, you think, but you also find yourself thinking about the ideas, values, and points of view about hospitals and health care that it overtly and even implicitly expresses. You also wonder what is being left out of how it shows hospital life that might be important to know. You are asking questions of _____________.

A) representations and reality
B) messages and meanings
C) audience and authorship
D) agenda-setting theory
E) credibility and authority

Question 40

You just love to play Candy Crush. It's the one mobile game that keeps you glued to your phone for the entire bus ride to school. But you start to think, "Who made this game? Why was it made? How's is it paid for?" You are asking questions of _____________.

A) representations and reality
B) messages and meanings
C) audience and authorship
D) agenda-setting theory
E) credibility and authority

Question 41

Research has shown that asking adolescent media consumers to ____________ after watching content featuring prosocial media characters can move them to show higher levels of empathy and a greater inclination toward altruism.

A) talk to media experts
B) talk to media literacy coaches
C) simply reflect
D) engage in critical viewing
E) question the text

Question 42

The Internet-specific form of parental mediation, ____________, argues that parents, by joining their kids in Internet use and other activities such as searching for information, gaming, and social networking, can strengthened their relationship with their kids while teaching them better Internet habits.

A) active mediation
B) participatory learning
C) restrictive mediation
D) co-viewing
E) digital directing

Question 43

"Media literacy" is often used interchangeably with__________, which involves incorporating media analysis skills into learning environments such as school curricula or parenting.

A) media education
B) intervention
C) literacy instruction
D) school mediation
E) teacher tutoring

Question 44

Because media messages frequently tell females in particular that they must be thin and beautiful to achieve social acceptability, social science has been able to demonstrate a relationship between media, __________, and eating disorders.

A) bulimia
B) dating
C) negative body image
D) parental involvement
E) lack of popularity

Question 45

At a time when anyone with an Internet connection can report "the news," real or fake, an important element of news literacy is _________, determining the trustworthiness of a news source.

A) article evaluation
B) claim verification
C) determination of source reliability
D) judging claims on social media
E) separating fact from fiction

Question 46

Because no one is born media literate, it's clear that media literacy is a skill that __________.

A) might be hereditary
B) is developed
C) is best left to older media consumers
D) should be taught in schools
E) should be taught by parents and family

Question 47

The undeniable fact that an antagonistic foreign power, Russia, used fake news on the Internet to disrupt our democracy, has given great urgency to the importance of a specialized form of media literacy, _____________.

A) literacy of journalism
B) Internet literacy
C) news literacy
D) restrictive mediation
E) consciousness training

Question 48

Media literacy researchers have demonstrated the ___________ effect, that is, the cognitive and emotional assumption of idealism that can occur after reflection on media content featuring prosocial characters which closes the gap between identifying with fictional characters and emulating them in real life.

A) Patch Adams
B) E.R.
C) Dead Poets Society
D) Don Quixote
E) Marshall McLuhan

Question 49

Critics contend that one reason that Americans are largely unaware of the number of kids in their country living in poverty is because media tend not to make it a story. If true, this is an example of the operation of ___________.

A) representations and reality
B) messages and meanings
C) audience and authorship
D) agenda-setting theory
E) relational dialectics theory

Question 50

Recognizing that commercial media are businesses, media literate individuals understand that the media's first priority is ______________.

A) operating according to the precepts of Social Responsibility Theory
B) turning a profit, not informing or entertaining their audiences
C) meeting the regulatory demands of various government agencies
D) attracting the largest possible audiences possible

Question 51

Explain the agenda-setting theory and offer an example of its operation using an issue in the news today.

Question 52

Define and distinguish between preferred reading and negotiated reading. Offer how a single piece of content can produce both types.

Question 53

What is the difference between a passive, active, and proactive consumer? Take a single piece of content and show how someone at each level might deal with it.

Question 54

Distinguish between micro-level and macro-level media effects. Offer an example of each. Why do media literate individuals make this distinction?

Question 55

Explain why it makes sense for the Mass Communication chapter to precede the Media Literacy chapter in your textbook.

Question 56

Media literacy advocates argue that understanding media should be must for all citizens in a democratic society. If so, how does our understanding of media allow us to participate as citizens in a democratic society? How does our understanding of media affect the decisions we make regarding how we believe our society operates and how it should operate? Use examples to support your answer.

Question 57

The term kinderculture "describes a world of adultified and commodified children." But is it really such a big deal? Don't parents have some say in how and how fast their kids grow up? Defenders of advertising to children make these very arguments. Now you weigh in. Is advertising to children fair? Does it pose an ethical dilemma? How would you deal with advertising to your kids should you be or ever become a parent?

Question 58

Communication scholar James Potter identified four common themes where there was general agreement about media literacy and its purpose. What were those four areas of agreement? Offer an example of each.

Question 59

The National Association for Media Literacy Education outlines several core principles of media literacy and in doing so, suggests a number of key questions we should ask when we analyze media messages. What are those key questions? What issues does each entail? Take a piece of content (not a video game) and subject it to this recommended analysis.

Question 60

Communication scholar Art Silverblatt identified seven elements necessary for true media literacy. List all seven and then choose the one you think is most necessary for true media literacy. Defend your answer.