Module 1

Question 1

What is democracy?

Answer 1

The belief in freedom and equality between people, or a system of government based on this belief, in which power is either held by elected representatives or directly by people themselves

Question 2

What is media?

Answer 2

Organizing structure of our society- how we communicate with those around us

Question 3

What is socialization?

Answer 3

The process whereby we learn and internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of our culture and, in so doing, develop a sense of self

Question 4

“Media” can refer to:

Answer 4

Institutions, forms/technologies, mediated representations

Question 5

What is society?

Answer 5

A group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction

Question 6

What is culture?

Answer 6

A “way of life” that we live in

Question 7

What is structure?

Answer 7

The systems in which we live, learn, and work

Question 8

What is agency?

Answer 8

Intentional and undetermined human action

Question 9

What are conglomerates?

Answer 9

Corporations that own a collection of other companies that may operate in diverse business areas (parent companies)

Question 10

What is cross-promotion?

Answer 10

Company owns the platforms on which to promote their properties (within one big parent company)

Question 11

What is cross-advertising?

Answer 11

Audiences are fragmented across many media platforms, so if you own them all, you can reach them all (two different companies)

Question 12

What is cross-production?

Answer 12

Intellectual property gets turned into a lot of different stuff

Question 13

What is vertical integration?

Answer 13

Integrated ownership of most parts of a media industry, from production to distribution

Question 14

What is horizontal integration?

Answer 14

Integrated ownership of different industries

Question 15

What is the homogenization hypothesis?

Answer 15

Suggests concentrated ownership diminishes diversity of content, reduces media pluralism

Question 16

What is copyright law?

Answer 16

protects the sale and distribution of “copyrighted” material

Question 17

The intellectual property rights are held by who?

Answer 17

The owner of copyright (who may not be the original author of the material)

Question 18

What is “fair use”?

Answer 18

Reasonable exceptions to copyright protection

Question 19

What idea is media deregulation based on?

Answer 19

Most often, on the idea that the free market approach is in the public interest

Question 20

What are net neutrality laws?

Answer 20

Rules preserving open access to the internet and a level playing field for all websites; all content treated equally by internet providers

Question 21

Deregulation works most often in favour of who?

Answer 21

Large conglomerates

Question 22

What is the Lauderdale Paradox?

Answer 22

The contradiction between public wealth and private riches

Question 23

The entire realm of digital communication was developed through what?

Answer 23

Government-subsidized and directed research

Question 24

The lack of debate about how the internet should be developed was due to what?

Answer 24

The digital revolution exploding the same time as neoliberalism

Question 25

What is a network effect?

Answer 25

Everyone gains by sharing use of a particular service

Question 26

How can one take over the policy-making process?

Answer 26

Through invention, propagation, adoption, control

Question 27

Where do the origin of copyright laws come from?

Answer 27

The idea that a person's use of information does not prohibit others from using it

Question 28

What are digital rights management (DRM)?

Answer 28

Technologies that imposed artificial limitations on the functionalities of digital services (helped put up effective barriers)

Question 29

What is exchange value?

Answer 29

Commodities produced for sale under capitalism

Question 30

What is use value?

Answer 30

Wealth

Question 31

What is brand integration?

Answer 31

When companies either contribute products that keep production costs down, or engage in joint marketing campaigns to promote both the media and the brand-name products

Question 32

How did British newspapers win their freedom from the government?

Answer 32

They shifted to a financial structure that relied on advertising

Question 33

How did the US press change?

Answer 33

They shifted from a politically-based press to commercially-based

Question 34

What is self-censorship in journalism?

Answer 34

The ways reporters doubt themselves, tone down their work or drop entire stories to avoid pressure, omit bias or advance their careers

Question 35

What audience do advertisers want to reach?

Answer 35

The rich

Question 36

What is intellectual property law?

Answer 36

the legal system that supports and guides information, entertainment, and computer software

Question 37

Who does intellectual property law protect?

Answer 37

It was meant to encourage creativity, but instead it is protecting producers and taxes consumers

Question 38

What is "thin" copyright protection?

Answer 38

Protection strong enough to encourage creative minds, yet porous enough to allow full democratic speech and the free flow of information

Question 39

What is a public sphere?

Answer 39

An area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action

Question 40

What enabled the development of a public sphere?

Answer 40

The emergence of independent press culture

Question 41

What did Walter Lippmann argue?

Answer 41

That the world was "too confusing" for the public and that educated experts should have a central role in all discussions and decisions of public policy

Question 42

What did John Dewey argue?

Answer 42

The public should be better educated to be able to distinguish between information

Question 43

Why does copyright exist?

Answer 43

To encourage the investment of time and money in works that might not otherwise find adequate reward in a completely free market

Question 44

What is technological determinism?

Answer 44

The idea that technology itself causes change, often in ways that people don’t intend and are unaware of

Question 45

What is social constructivism?

Answer 45

The idea that technology is made up of inanimate objects and ultimately people decide how to use (or not use) technology

Question 46

Social reality is produced in 3 steps:

Answer 46

1. People create society through ongoing processes of physical and mental activity 2. Over time, these creations come to seem objectively real, separate from human activity 3. People internalize the norms and values of their culture, thereby being influenced by their own creation

Question 47

What are fair use exemptions based on?

Answer 47

1. Purpose and character of use 2. Nature of copyrighted material 3. Amount of original work used 4. Effect upon work’s value

Question 48

What is the class about?

Answer 48

A concern with how the relationship between media and democracy motivates our study of media and culture