TEST GUIDE
Core 114

NB:  This information is intended only as a guide to what students should be prepared to address on their tests.   The actual test questions may vary from the questions as formulated below.  Students should also note that tests are often comprised of a single question.  Therefore, adequate test preparation entails being able to FULLY and EFFECTIVELY answer each and every one of the listed questions.  Grades are based on the demonstrated comprehension of the underlying material.  This requires THOROUGH responses.  (Students most frequently loose credit not from wrong answers but from incomplete answers.)

Test # 1
1.  Arguments - objective questions (T/F; fill in the blank, etc.)
2.  What is a mass image and what are the economic presuppositions of the majority of mass images we encounter?
3.  As developed in the Frontline program, The Merchants of Cool, discuss the symbiotic relationship that exists between the media and contemporary teens.
4.  Discuss the idea developed by Shenk (Data Smog) and in lecture that with the increase of information there may be a corresponding decrease of knowledge and an increase of faulty beliefs. 
5.  According to C. Wright Mills, who are the power elite and how do they differ from ordinary people?  What is the power elite's relationship with each other?
6.  According to Hinkley ("What is a Corporation?") and the video, The Corporation, what is a corporation? According to corporate law, what are the duties of the corporation's board of directors?
7.  According to Turner ("My Beef With Big Media"), how does the pattern of media ownership impact media content?  Why is this important?
8.  Fundamental to any type of literacy is the development of relevant knowledge structures. Discuss knowledge structures and their operation.  Also discuss the various cognitive skills that were said in lecture to be most relevant to the development of media literacy.

Test # 2
1.  Entertainment media intentionally presents distorted representation of the world. Discuss these distortions and their purpose.
2.  The video, Behind the Screens, expresses the belief that commercialism has shaped and distorted the ways in which movies are made.  Discuss the evidence presented in support of this conclusion.  With respect to television, what did the Friends episode which we watched in class (#6.11) illustrate in this regard?
3.  Discuss the idea of news as a construction and tie this with the notion of the theoretical impossibility of the news being "objective".  As presented in lecture, what is the major influence determining how the news is constructed and how does this shape the news?
4.  Discuss the idea developed in class that journalists are often simply stenographers for the power elites.
5.  Discuss Postman's related contentions that "embedded in the surrealistic frame of a television news show is a theory of anticommunication" and that television produces "a species of information that might properly be call disinformation." How does the video, Live at 5, illustrate these assertions.
6.  A Pew study found that a majority of American journalists identify themselves as liberals. Why, according to Herman and Chomsky (Myth of the Liberal Media), is this insufficient to give the news a liberal bias?
7.  Contrast "canned news" with "video news releases" (VNRs).

Test # 3
1.  Advertising is pervasive and it is designed to promote the consumption of commodities.  Discuss some of the problems this fosters as developed in the video, The Ad and the Ego, and in lecture.
2.  "Puffery" refers to the practice of puffing up the product without making substantial, objective claims about the qualities or characteristics of the product.  Discuss the tactics that are used to do this. 
3.  What is the commodity that the major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX) sell?
4.  How and why does the pharmaceutical industry's advertising medicalize ordinary experience? How does this illustrate the media's power to shape our perception of reality? 
5.  Discuss the use of sex in advertising both when it is integral and extraneous to the product advertised.
6.  On the basis of the videos The Century of the Self and Toxic Sludge is Good for You, discuss the PR industry, what it is, and some of the fundamental techniques it employs to achieve its ends.
7.  What is "culture jamming"?  Discuss some of the reasons it is practiced.
8.  re: The Persuaders: In crafting the message to "Give us what we want," does Luntz clarify the issues or distort them? Explain. Narrowcasting also tailors its message to the intended recipient. Is this inherently dishonest? Explain.  What is said to be the one fundamental difference between commercial and political advertising?   
9.  Discuss "social propaganda".