Exam 15: Media Effects and Cultural Approaches to Research

Habermas formed his ideas about the public sphere while examining which aspect of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English and French society?

Media effects research first emerged because of concerns about television violence.

Which line of research has generally demonstrated that the mass media don't tell people what to think as much as they tell people what to think about?

Our media culture helps to make sense of the world. It changes our culture and we are changed by it. Media also changes our history, politics, and economics. Provide examples from the textbook and by searching the Web.

Agenda-setting theory refers to the media's ability to change public opinion on controversial issues.

Researchers associated with the minimal-effects model argue that people engage in selective ________________________ and selective retention with regard to the media.

Media historian James Carey defined communication as ______.

What method is a researcher using if he or she watches a season of a television program and counts each time an act of violence is shown?

In experiments, subjects are picked for each group through ______, which simply means that each subject has an equal chance of being placed in either group.

Which line of research helps to explain why Midwesterners started to rank shark attacks as a problem after the 1975 release of the movie Jaws and its subsequent press coverage?

The idea of the public sphere, defined as a space for critical public debate, was first advanced by American media critic Walter Lippmann.

In media research, an area that focuses on media ownership and what that might mean for the messages distributed to the public is called ________________________.

In media research, the ________________________ studies approach tries to understand how the media and culture are tied to the actual patterns of communication used in daily life.

Survey research is better than experimental research at establishing cause-effect linkages, but experimental research gets closer to real-world conditions.

The cultivation effect (also known as "mean world" syndrome) argues that ______.

When mass media researchers say they are studying political economy, they are most likely looking at which of the following?

What type of study looks at changes in a population over time?

A mass media effects researcher might choose a survey approach if he or she has a desire to ______.

When studying media effects, which kinds of issues should you look at?

What is the spiral of silence? In what kinds of circumstances might the theorized effects not occur?