Deck 13: Leisure and Media

Question 1

What does your textbook cite as the ultimate example of the commercialization of leisure?

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

Answer 1

C

Question 2

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,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 and 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.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

How has the Internet changed the way 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.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

A small child asks his babysitter if he can play "tag." The child means the simple outdoor game wherein one player chases the other players until he or she can "tag" one of them with his or her hand to trade roles.However,the babysitter is confused and goes to the entertainment center to look for a DVD or a video game named "Tag." What phenomenon could be responsible for this confusion?

A) the increase in leisure time spontaneity
B) the popularity of simple outdoor activities
C) the commercialization of leisure
D) the decline of public life

Question 5

Because popular music is so strongly associated with leisure,what is the most UNDERAPPRECIATED aspect of the work that professional musicians do?

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 6

The terms "recreation" and "leisure" are both defined by their difference from:

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

Question 7

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 8

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 those with whom they have intimate associations, 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) Government provides far fewer services than it has in the past.
D) There are far fewer celebrities than at any other time in history.

Question 9

In the premodern world,the line between work and play was NOT very clearly defined.Why was this the case?

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 10

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

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

Question 11

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.

Question 12

What led to the increase in leisure time in the twentieth century?

A) Changes in values and norms made 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 13

What sort of activities can be considered recreation?

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 14

What is the shift from people making their own fun to people purchasing it as goods and services called?

A) the privatization of recreational activities
B) the commodification of recreational activities
C) formalizing recreation
D) conglomeration synergy

Question 15

In the past,which group of people had the time and resources necessary to pursue recreational activity?

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

Question 16

Which of the following sounds most like recreation,as your textbook defines it?

A) a student's time between getting out of class and going to work
B) a guitarist on tour who has to sell T-shirts and CDs at the 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 learning the calculus required to compute the amount and type of fuel needed to power a model rocket he wants to launch in a park

Question 17

What is the difference between recreation and leisure?

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) Recreation requires money; leisure does not.

Question 18

In 2006 Nintendo released the Wii,its latest video game system.The system was widely noted for attracting demographic groups,including senior citizens,not often associated with video games.In fact,there were even reports of senior citizens forming leagues to play "Wii bowling" and other sports-related games.If true,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 19

How are changes in technology changing the nature of recreation?

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

Question 20

How did the rise of the suburbs affect the way people used their leisure time?

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

Question 21

Your hike might be considered part of the commercialization of leisure if you:

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

Question 22

The Mall of America has more than ten thousand workers,occupies more than four million square feet,and receives more than forty million 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 elements of what the mall calls its "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 23

A flash mob is a sudden assembly of strangers in a public place for the purpose of performing some novel action (clapping for no reason,singing a song together,dancing,etc.)and then rapidly dispersing.Although they appear to be spontaneous to outsiders,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 24

On ESPN.com,men's college basketball is presented as "college basketball," while women's college basketball is called "women's college basketball" and shares a web page with women's professional basketball.This is an example of:

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

Question 25

Why should leisure NOT be treated as a minor and unimportant topic?

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 26

Why is free time (nonwork time)NOT necessarily 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

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

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

Question 28

When one media conglomerate is able to market its products across a wide range of media,it is said to have:

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

Question 29

Little League baseball and other organized community sports are examples of what phenomenon?

A) the use of technology in recreation
B) expressions of inequality in leisure activities
C) the formalization of recreation
D) spontaneous recreation

Question 30

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

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

Question 31

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 32

During the first decade of the twenty-first century,daily newspapers were in trouble all across the country,many having closed and many others poised to do so.This worried some scholars who believed that newspapers are vital for maintaining:

A) volunteerism.
B) censorship.
C) interpretive communities.
D) democracy.

Question 33

Reading a book you checked out from the library might seem to be an example of a recreational activity that is totally uncommercialized,but it is still directly connected to commercial activity and work because:

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 34

How has the principle of the free press as a voice of the people been watered down since the founders guaranteed it in the Constitution?

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

Question 35

Given the ways spectatorship has changed in recent years,which of the following trends is it most closely related to?

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

Question 36

In August 2009,the Newbury Astronomical Society held a "Twitter Meteorwatch," posting photographs of the Perseid meteor shower as well as tweets about what was going on in the night sky as it happened.This represented a remarkable new expansion of:

A) democracy.
B) hegemony.
C) spectatorship.
D) commodification.

Question 37

In 2001 Sirius and XM started offering satellite radio services,but both struggled to make a profit.In 2007 Sirius acquired XM,part of a process called:

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

Question 38

How has technology enabled the shift from spontaneous to organized recreation?

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

Question 39

In the early days of country music,there were a number of "family" groups,or families who became professional musicians together.This happened often,in part because many families made music together for fun.Today,far from singing together,the average family is more likely to have each member put on a pair of headphones and use an mp3 player 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) Our recreation and leisure is mediated by material goods that we seem to "require" in order to have fun.
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 40

A typical media conglomerate is most likely to include which of the following?

A) a restaurant chain
B) a personals ad
C) a sports franchise
D) an international phone card

Question 41

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 42

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 43

Thomas Beatie,a transsexual man who got pregnant,went on the Oprah Winfrey Show and let Oprah's camera crew tape his ultrasound.This is an example of:

A) a nonmainstream individual gaining access to a mass audience.
B) bloggers and zines circumventing the constraints of the mainstream media.
C) the effect of deregulation.
D) one of the insidious effects of media concentration.

Question 44

In 1996 Congress passed telecommunications legislation that fundamentally altered the way the radio business worked,removing most of the barriers that prevented a single company from owning large numbers of stations.What is this called?

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

Question 45

Why would media outlets 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

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 47

Some cell phone providers are now offering hardware,like small laptops,and media to play on it,like songs and TV shows.Phone companies believe that each product they offer will encourage and promote other products,as 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 48

Why are blogs,zines,and podcasts valuable?

A) They provide an opportunity for disenfranchised, nonmainstream individuals to be heard.
B) They provide daytime entertainment.
C) They provide a window into an alternate lifestyle.
D) They provide news and opinion from non-Western societies.

Question 49

When sociologists reject the hypodermic needle model,they tend to stop asking ________ and start asking ________.

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 50

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 51

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 52

What does the uses and gratifications paradigm of media consumption assume about 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 53

Sometimes teenage boys 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 54

Given what you know about David Harvey and the postmodern economy,how does our society manage to consume all of the additional goods produced as a result of the incredible increases in efficiency?

A) Many more products last longer and work more efficiently, thus ensuring consumer loyalty.
B) Many more types of products will be subject to fashion and will go out of style.
C) Media deregulation and the concentration of media power have decreased the persuasive quality of advertising.
D) Passing stronger antitrust legislation has led to variety as well as quantity.

Question 55

Every year Project Censored posts a list of the twenty-five most censored news stories.These stories are "censored" not in the sense that the media are legally prohibited from covering them but rather in the sense that 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 theory
B) reinforcement theory
C) the magic bullet theory
D) the two-step flow theory

Question 56

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 57

If scholars assume that audiences are active rather than passive,what does this imply about the meaning of media "texts"?

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 very important.
D) Consumers can alter and even invert meanings to suit their own purposes.

Question 58

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." If this is all you know about Adorno and Horkheimer,you might conclude that they:

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

Question 59

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.If the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit,what type of suit would it be?

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

Question 60

Why does it make sense that mp3 players,like iPods,would replace the compact disc in a postmodern economy?

A) There are limits to the number of CDs one can sell to any one person, but more "ephemeral" products like mp3s and downloaded movies can be sold faster and more often.
B) Mp3 players are better designed than CDs and make use of the same technologies (the computer chip) that are driving the information economy.
C) Mp3 players allow more control of the dissemination of information, which undermines the constitutional rights of the average citizen to have his or her voice heard.
D) Mp3 players could only exist after the removal of government restrictions on the media industry allowed companies to gain control of ever-larger chunks of the media market.

Question 61

The movement that attempts to rebuild group values and a sense of collective responsibility is called:

A) capitalism.
B) communitarianism.
C) textual poaching.
D) utilitarianism.

Question 62

In the 1990s,kids who chanted,"I want to be like Mike!" to express their admiration for Michael Jordan had:

A) an overidentification with media figures.
B) all been paid by Nike to do so.
C) a role model relationship with a celebrity.
D) a serious consumption addiction.

Question 63

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

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

Question 64

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 he or she was:

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 65

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.Today,his fan base has expanded far beyond the disaffected English teenagers who bought his original records.In fact,some of his most devoted fans are Hispanics in Southern California.How is it possible that British teenagers in the 1980s and Hispanic Californians can appreciate the same music?

A) There are very few differences between these two groups.
B) Even though members of the two groups have very 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 66

for whom could celebrity stalking be seen as an obligation?

A) for fans who are particularly devoted to a celebrity
B) for fans who want to steal a physical object from a celebrity
C) for members of the press
D) for members of a fan club

Question 67

Does Robert Bellah believe that bonds based on shared leisure interests are enough to develop a sense of collective responsibility?

A) yes
B) only when the shared leisure interests involve contact with a wide variety of people
C) no
D) only in the United States

Question 68

According to John Caughey,what is the contemporary American equivalent of interacting with gods,spirits,or ancestors?

A) taking vacations
B) visiting tourist sites associated with nature and ecotourism
C) relationships between fans and celebrities
D) going to church on Sunday

Question 69

If,as Stanley fish argues,an individual reader interprets a text and thereby gives it meaning,then there are an infinite number of potential meanings for any given text.Why,then,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 70

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) Emile Durkheim's functionalist model

Question 71

Which of the following activities is part of a fan's relationship with a celebrity?

A) reading celebrity gossip magazines
B) attending a book signing or other event
C) masterminding a fan-staged encounter with a celebrity
D) chatting about a movie

Question 72

What is a group of like-minded individuals called that shares a similar sensibility and enjoys cultural products in similar ways?

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

Question 73

What 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 74

Although 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

When fans of the original Star Trek series edit recorded episodes of the TV show to make it appear that Captain Kirk and Mr.Spock are passionate gay lovers,they are doing all the following EXCEPT:

A) textual poaching.
B) subverting the meaning of the original product.
C) being an active audience.
D) agenda setting.

Question 76

Stanley fish argues against older understandings of media and literature,which held that a text is unchanging and universal.But although he argues that each member of an audience can interpret and so "create" a work,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 his or her 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 77

In his study of British television,The Nationwide Audience,David Morley argued that the success or failure of a television program "in transmitting the preferred or dominant meaning will depend on whether it encounters readers" with "codes and ideologies derived from other institutional areas (e.g.,churches or schools)which correspond to and work in parallel with those of the program or whether it encounters readers" with beliefs "drawn from other areas or institutions (e.g.,trade unions or 'deviant' subcultures)which conflict to a greater or lesser extent with those of the program." Which theory of mass media consumption is Morley using?

A) the hypodermic needle theory
B) the uses and gratifications paradigm
C) the spectatorship paradigm
D) the encoding/decoding model

Question 78

How does Robert Bellah believe that style enclaves are different from "real communities"?

A) They tend to remain focused on shared interests rather than on the larger community.
B) They usually lead to more altruistic behaviors and an interest in others.
C) They have greater community spirit.
D) They hold meetings in the "third place."

Question 79

In 2008,to celebrate the release of Lawrence Lessig's book,Bloomsbury Academic Press hosted a competition called Remix the Remixer.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-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 80

The ancient Greeks understood this well: A person who is completely private is lost to civic life.The exclusive pursuit of one's self-interest is not even a good prescription for conduct in the marketplace;for no social,political,economic,or moral order can survive that way.
What idea or belief system is being described in this quote?

A) structural functionalism
B) media and democracy
C) anomie
D) communitarianism