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Higher Education

Sociology: A Canadian Perspective, Third Edition — Chapter 23

Instructions: For each question, click on the radio button beside your answer. When you have completed the entire quiz, click the 'Submit my answers' button at the bottom of the page to receive your results.

Question 1:


a) mass communication is similar to other forms of communication because it also provides an opportunity for mutual exchange of verbal and nonverbal cues between the initiator of a message and the recipients of that message
b) the media are a primary source of indirect experience and for that reason they have an impact on the construction of social reality
c) media institutions are connected to power in American society
d) the media promote order and stability in society
e) the media do a good job in depicting various sides of conflicts

Question 2:


a) Construction of social reality
b) Surveillance of the environment
c) Correlation of the parts of society
d) Transmission of the social heritage
e) Entertainment

Question 3:


a) interpretation of information about the environment and prescription for behaviour in response to events
b) communicating information, norms, and values from one generation to another or from the members of a group to new members
c) communication mainly intended to provide amusement or diversion
d) the collection and distribution of information about events that occur inside and outside a particular society
e) ensuring that the culture of a society or group will continue across time

Question 4:


a) Difference, which refers to the notion of differences between women and men
b) Voice, which refers to the degree to which women are denied an opportunity to speak in various forms of communication
c) Communication, which refers to the degree to which women’s ideas are ignored
d) Representation, which draws attention to the way women are depicted in media content
e) Representation, which draws attention to how media portrayals negatively affects women

Question 5:


a) Political economy
b) Cultural studies
c) Symbolic interactionist
d) Functionalist
e) Postmodern

Question 6:


a) Examples of public media ownership include the National Film Board (NFB) and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
b) Its objective is to provide media that are freely available to citizens.
c) Its objective is to use the media for educational purposes.
d) Its objective is to ensure an equal representation of voices from different countries in the media.
e) It is often supported by government funding.

Question 7:


a) Owners of a media company confine themselves to one company that is not involved in the ownership of other firms.
b) A media company is often closely associated with a local community and aims to serve that community.
c) A newspaper, radio station, or television station in a small town or city might be owned by an entrepreneur who lives in the area.
d) It occurs when large companies buy out small media firms.
e) Independent ownership was once quite common in the Canadian media.

Question 8:


a) one company owns a number of media organizations in different locations that are doing the same type of business
b) one firm owns media enterprises that link processes such as production, distribution and exhibition or retail
c) one company owns organizations that are associated with different types of media
d) one company contains many firms engaged in a variety of usually unrelated businesses
e) owners of a media company confine themselves to one company and are not involved in the ownership of other firms

Question 9:


a) owns a number of media organizations in different locations that are doing the same type of business
b) contains many firms engaged in a variety of unusually unrelated businesses
c) owns media enterprises that link processes such as production, distribution, and exhibition or retail
d) owns organizations that are associated with different types of media
e) owns one media firm and is not involved in the ownership of other firms

Question 10:


a) if a company owns a chain of newspapers, it could cut costs by using syndicated news stories across the chain and reduce the number of journalists and local stories at each of the newspapers
b) cross-ownership can limit the diversity of journalistic opinions or media messages that are presented
c) news media owned by a conglomerate may be required to carry promotional material for other parts of the company
d) news stories are only suppressed as a result of orders from the top of a conglomerate
e) all of the above

Question 11:


a) the 1991 Broadcasting Act paved the way for companies to own and program television channels
b) the 1991 Broadcasting Act was effective in promoting Canadian programming on the radio and television
c) regulatory agencies, such as the CRTC, have been effective in ensuring that media organizations comply with media legislation by setting specific rules for the organization to follow
d) in relation to the 1991 Broadcasting Act, the requirement that radio and television undertakings must utilize Canadian resources in programming has been reflected in Canadian content regulations
e) all of the above

Question 12:


a) conservatism
b) neo-liberalism
c) globalization
d) vertical integration
e) horizontal integration

Question 13:


a) The vertical integration of production, distribution, and exhibition during the early history of the Hollywood studios ensured that the films these studios made were seen in the United States and in many international markets.
b) As the Hollywood studios have increasingly come under conglomerate ownership since the 1980s, massive and often non-American multinational firms such as the Sony Corporation have developed strategies to pursue global audiences.
c) American federal bureaucracies have pushed governments in other countries to satisfy Hollywood’s interests.
d) Hollywood production companies have substantial distribution operations around the world.
e) All of the above

Question 14:


a) IMPALA Group
b) Universal Music Group
c) Sony BMG Music Entertainment
d) Warner Music Group
e) EMI Group

Question 15:


a) Chinese
b) Indian
c) Canadian
d) Russian
e) British

Question 16:


a) reflect the dominant ideology
b) express the viewpoints of the capitalist class and other powerful groups
c) take the form of under-representation since members of less powerful groups are usually not seen in the media as frequently as they actually exist in society
d) take the form of misrepresentation because members of less powerful groups often are portrayed in ways that are stereotypical and negative
e) all of the above

Question 17:


a) Supporters of CanCon argue that radio stations should be forced to play at least 35 per cent Canadian music.
b) Opponents of CanCon contend that radio stations should only be forced to play at least 10 per cent Canadian music.
c) Opponents of CanCon maintain that radio broadcasters should have the right to play whatever music they want and whatever music their listeners want to hear.
d) Supporters of CanCon contend that developing artists will not receive airplay unless there are regulations that force radio stations to give them a chance to be heard.
e) Opponents of CanCon argue that if Canadian artists have talent, they will make it on their own without assistance from the CRTC.

Question 18:


a) About 70 per cent of these comedies were about a middle-class family, so they were over-represented.
b) Only about 10 per cent of these comedies centred on a working-class family, so they were under-represented.
c) Working-class men generally received negative representation.
d) Men in working-class comedies were portrayed as being much more intelligent than the women.
e) Middle-class men and women received positive representation.

Question 19:


a) the stark differences between the representation of working-class and middle-class men ideologically justify inequality in our class-divided society
b) blue-collar workers are portrayed as requiring supervision, and managers and professionals as intelligent and mature enough to provide it
c) middle-class men are portrayed as being intelligent, rational, mature, and responsible
d) working-class men are portrayed as inept, immature, and stupid
e) all of the above

Question 20:


a) women in these films had types of power culturally coded as masculine
b) women had power because they occupied the position of law enforcer and because they carried a gun
c) earlier genre of cop films (1987–91), such as ‘Blue Steel’ and ‘Impulse’, often imitated the physicality and violence of male action films by showing the women using their guns
d) later genre of cop films (1991–5), such as ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ and ‘Copycat’, privileged women’s intellectual over physical power
e) all of the above

Question 21:


a) Intellectualization
b) Domestication
c) Infantilization
d) Sexualization
e) Splitting strategies

Question 22:


a) Racial and ethnic minorities are often sensationalized in the media.
b) The under-representation of minorities in the media means that their contributions are trivialized and their roles as Canadian citizens are devalued.
c) To the extent that they are seen, ethno-racial minorities are frequently portrayed in stereotypical and negative ways.
d) Racial and ethnic minorities are depicted as having problems or creating problems in need of political attention or costly solutions.
e) Ethno-racial minorities have rarely been seen at the annual and nationally televised Juno Awards ceremony for the Canadian music industry.

Question 23:


a) decoding
b) encoding
c) the production structure
d) the wider socio-cultural and political structure
e) all of the above

Question 24:


a) The under-representation of the working class in domestic situation comedies has much to do with the need for producers and broadcasters to develop programs that will attract advertisers by providing a good atmosphere for products.
b) The need to attract advertising revenues by capturing large numbers of readers or viewers has contributed to the under-representation of the working-class and ethno-racial minorities in news stories.
c) There is a tendency to create shows that feature about the same amount of middle-class and working-class characters and occupational groups in order to get as many people as possible interested in buying the products appearing in the ads.
d) The under-representation of the working class in domestic situation comedies, along with the negative representation of working-class men, can partially be explained by the middle-class background of most producers and writers.
e) Middle-class people develop shows based on what is familiar to them, and when they occasionally focus on working-class characters, they rely on the negative stereotypes of the working class that circulate in our culture as part of the dominant system of m

Question 25:


a) negotiated
b) oppositional
c) encoded
d) dominant-hegemonic
e) representative

Question 26:


a) negotiated
b) oppositional
c) encoded
d) dominant-hegemonic
e) representative

Question 27:


a) Highbrows (people who identified classical music or opera as their best-liked form of music) tended to be white, older, more educated, and have a higher family income.
b) Highbrows in most of the European countries consumed a wider variety of music than non-highbrows.
c) The television viewing choices of highbrows were distinct from those of non-highbrows in several countries, such as Germany, Italy, and Spain.
d) In some countries, such as Denmark and France, highbrows were more inclined to limit themselves to elite fare and largely avoided the popular genres that were consumed by non-highbrows.
e) ‘Highbrow omnivorousness’ tends to exist in countries that have less commercialized television systems.

Question 28:


a) They found the men paid attention to violence that was directed against the social order.
b) Homeless men were enthusiastic about attacks on corporate capital and the police.
c) Homelessness stems from the contemporary conditions of US capitalism rather than individual failings.
d) Social-democratic policies had minimized the role of the state in social life and maximized that of capital and the market.
e) Certain representations of violence enabled subordinated people to articulate symbolically their sense of opposition and hostility to the particular forms of domination that oppress them.

Question 29:


a) Mainstream
b) Alternative
c) Lowbrow
d) Decoding
e) Public

Question 30:


a) late 1970s
b) late 1960s
c) early 1980s
d) early 1990s
e) late 1980s

Question 31:


a) unequal integration
b) digital divide
c) deepening ownership concentration
d) alternative divide
e) media injustice

Question 32:


a) mass media help to sustain power relations under capitalism and are a basis for conflict between unequal groups
b) mass media are influenced by patriarchal society
c) mass media perform key functions for society by contributing to its order and stability
d) mass media are controlled mainly by private companies
e) private ownership of the media raises concerns about the amount of American media content in Canada and other countries

Question 33:


a) the content of mainstream media reflects the dominant ideology in society
b) media texts are encoded with capitalist, patriarchal, and racist ideology through a complex mixture of economic and production factors
c) media texts are decoded by audience members through dominant, negotiated, and oppositional readings
d) members of subordinate groups have gone beyond resisting the content of mainstream media to express their own messages though alternative media
e) all of the above

Question 34:


a) Much of the power in the mass media is held by private companies through their ownership and control of media organizations.
b) The concentration of ownership by private companies raises concerns about the diversity and suppression of media content and its use for promoting specific agendas.
c) Private ownership also raises concerns about the amount of American media content in Canada and other countries, especially in view of globalization.
d) Media texts are encoded with capitalist, patriarchal, and racist ideology through a complex mixture of economic and production factors.
e) Since the state generally serves the interests of the capitalist class, media regulations were implements only because groups with little power pushed for them.

Question 35:


a) seems more and more to be an instrument that reflects and reinforces the power of the powerful
b) has become tied to deepening ownership concentration
c) has become tied to the distribution of mainstream media content and the dominant ideology embedded in this content
d) presents new opportunities for radical movements to challenge social inequality and generate social change
e) all of the above