Study Guide for Midterm Exam for MASC 101-001 (Fall 2015) The midterm exam will consist of 75 true-false, multiple-choice, matching, ordering and fill-in-the- blank questions. It will look like the test you took on Sept. 24-29. Blackboard will show you the questions one at a time; you must answer each question and move to the next; you can’t go back. While taking the midterm exam, you must not use your notes, textbook, Google or other resources; this is not an open-book test. You must not collaborate with anyone in taking the test. The Honor System applies on our tests and exams. The test implicitly carries this pledge: “On my honor, I have neither given nor received aid on this assignment, and I pledge that I am in compliance with the VCU Honor System.” You will have 75 minutes to take the midterm – one question per minute. You can take the test only once. I will activate the test at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 21. The deadline to complete the test will be 11:59 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 25. If you prefer to take the test on paper and in person, email me. I can’t promise that I can accommodate you, but I’ll try. The midterm will cover all of the material we have studied so far. About half of the questions will come from Chapters 1-5 (the focus of the previous test); and about half questions will come from Chapters 6-8. To prepare for the test, you should:  Take (and retake) the practice quizzes for each chapter posted on Blackboard (under Tests & Exams > Preparing for the midterm).  Study the questions and answers from the Sept. 24-29 test. You can do that by clicking on your test score in Blackboard and/or by taking the practice test in the “Preparing for the midterm” folder.  Review the textbook, lecture videos, “media in the news” videos, Google Hangouts and supplementary videos and readings. Here are topics from our textbook and lectures that I consider “fair game” for the midterm: Course Overview Ritual, publicity and reception models How much time do you spend Traditional mass comm with media every day? vs. new-media model How many ads do you see a day? Evolution of the media world Is technology reshaping Development of movable type & printing our personalities? ‘Old’ media vs. social media Trends in media consumption Chapter 1: Living in a Media World Definition of media literacy Textbook’s approach: Media are central Different functions of journalism, to our lives advertising/PR and entertainment Chris Hadfield vignette Media literacy dimensions (cognitive, Gerbner’s definition of communication emotional, aesthetic and moral) Levels / types of communication John McManus’ SMELL test What is mass communication? 7 truths “they” don’t want you to know Mass comm and technology Meaning of “media” Disintermediation SMCR model (Schramm) Supplementary Links Viewer Beware: Watching Reality TV Can Prodigies Leaping Beyond Impact Real-Life Behavior Electronic Dance Music Do NASCAR Races Contribute To Motorists’ Disintermediation – Futurist David Houle Wrecks? Stephen Fry – The Machine That Made Us Will death of Robin Williams herald spike in Social Media Revolution 2014 suicides? Don’t Be Fooled: Use the SMELL Test Debunking the Beauty Industry To Separate Fact from Fiction Online Is Google Making Us Stupid? Neil Postman: Amusing Ourselves to Death Is Facebook making us lonely? Children May Be Losing Their Ability To Read Chapter 2: Mass Communication Effects Emotions, But There’s A Fix Snowden and WikiLeaks OUTFOXED Trailer Difficulty / futility of controlling information in How Social Media Silences Debate today’s digital world The effect the media can have on society Chapter 3: The Media Business Rise of mass society & mass media Spike Lee & Kickstarter vignette Direct effects model (& synonyms) History of media ownership in America Indirect effects model First newspapers in the colonies Critical Culture Model Penny Press: What is it, who started it, how it Types of media effects: message, medium, changed the business model for all media ownership and active audience effects The paradox of big media Names of prominent media scholars How many companies control Biggest media companies most media content Problems raised by conglomerates Vertical integration Do some owners have political bias? Synergy How focus on profits may affect media Legacy big-media companies companies’ behavior and consumers New players Theories of media and society Newspaper economics Functional Analysis What’s happened to newspaper ad revenues, Agenda Setting vs. Google ads (and other digital ads) Uses and Gratifications Long Tail economic model: definition, Social Learning characteristics, consequences Spiral of Silence Who controls the media? Media Logic Cultivation Analysis Supplementary Links How do campaigns affect voters? How Facebook and Twitter Became Your Media and political bias Newspapers People gravitate to news that reflects their view Why Google Became Alphabet Herbert Gans: basic journalistic values Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Address How a focus on attracting the biggest audience Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Native (and thus making money) affects media Advertising content Chris Anderson’s article in Wired about the Long Tail Supplementary Links Chris Anderson’s TED talk on the Long Tail Collateral Murder video Trailer for “Rich Media, Poor Democracy” We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks (movie trailer) “War of the Worlds” Chapter 4: Books: The Birth of the Mass Media NPR: Technology Of Books Has Changed, But Rainbow Rowell & Eleanor & Park Bookstores Are Hanging In There History and development of writing ALA poster: 2014 Books Challenges Development of paper (beginning with papyrus Infographic and parchment); who invented paper and After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica when it arrived in Europe Stops the Presses (NYTimes) Evolution of book format: scrolls, code, monks hand-copying books in scriptoria Chapter 5: Magazines: Gutenberg: what he invented and how it The Power of Words and Images impacted culture, communication, society Lena Dunham vignette Consequences of Gutenberg Definition of a magazine Books in the New World: first printing press Where magazines get their revenues Other inventions: rotary press, paper reels, Magazine history: first magazine, typesetting machine magazines in colonial America Early book content Saturday Evening Post The three players in the book business Mathew Brady Is the book industry doing better than other Why magazines boomed after Civil War print-media industries? Invention of the halftone Book industry trends (big fish eat smaller fish) Types of magazines: consumer, trade, 3 types of publishers; literary/commentary top global and U.S. publishers Muckrakers: what they did; where they’re Authors & book writing process important; names of famous muckrakers Booksellers: wholesalers/distributors, major Henry Luce & his magazines chains, independent booksellers, e-tailers Margaret Bourke-White (Amazon) & mail-order book clubs Godey’s Lady’s Book Textbook business “Seven sisters” women’s magazines How much authors and publishers make Men’s magazines: 3 popular ones; “Great books” vs. popular books: how they differ the history of this debate Controversy over body image and How many books lose money or make a profit “Campaign for Real Beauty” Censorship: how attempts can backfire Conflict between advertising Book banning in U.S. and editorial departments Global controversies (including death threats) Blurring of ads and editorial content How Amazon reflects the Long Tail Dick Stolley How the Internet has changed publishing Race and magazine covers and distribution of books Current trends in magazine publishing Diffusion of innovations theory Magazines in the digital age E-books and audio books Print-on-demand Supplementary Links Jezebel’s article on how Dunham’s photos had Supplementary Links been altered American Library Association’s lists of most YouTube clip about muckrakers challenged books Documentary on Margaret Bourke-White New York Times article declaring the Ten Years In, Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ Seems to Gutenberg press “Best Invention; Invention Be Aging Well Is the Mother Of Necessity” A&E’s Biography program picked Gutenberg as the most influential person of the Second Millennium Chapter 6: Newspapers and the News Chapter 7: Audio: Music and Talk Jeff Bezos, Amazon and The Washington Post Across Media Early newspapers: where they were published, Girl Talk and musical mash-ups by whom, challenges they faced Key ideas: New media shaking up old media Characteristics of early American newspapers History of sound recording: Edison vs. Berliner Penny Press revolution: how it changed the Morse, Hertz, Marconi media businesses’ economic mode How America realized importance of radio Why newspapers become more objective Radio Music Box Memo Newspapers, urbanization & democracy Radio history: RCA, KDKA Hearst vs. Pulitzer: Yellow Journalism How NBC, ABC and CBS came to be Newspaper tabloids vs. broadsheets Golden Age of Radio: popular programs Rise of radio news: 1920 through WW II Development of BBC TV news: from 1940s through modern times Why radio remains relevant Cable TV news: CNN and Fox Changing musical experience Newspapers today: one-newspaper cities; Rise of rock ’n’ roll: key individuals chain ownership British Invasion National papers Role of producers Metro papers Hip-hop culture Community and suburban papers Country music Which paper now has biggest circulation Music’s (alleged) effects on young people News values: how journalists determine Pre-digital musical formats whether something is news Digital music: CDs and MP3s Dangers journalists face Pros and cons of digital music Ethnic press and gay press Music sales trends (RIAA) Alternative weeklies: history, major chains Supreme Court decision Are newspapers dying? on file-sharing services Why newspapers are struggling financially Most popular radio formats Declines in circulation and ad revenues Rise of Spanish-language stations National surveys and our class survey Talk radio Paywalls and other ideas to generate Industry deregulation & radio consolidation revenues for newspapers Public radio Debate over government’s role Satellite radio in funding news media HD radio The paradox in journalism today Streaming over the Internet & podcasting New economic models for artists Supplementary Links Edward R. Murrow Supplementary Links The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords NPR: “They say that I stole this” Ida B. Well Guglielmo Marconi documentary State of the News Media David Sarnoff and the Titanic Disaster Who killed the newspaper? (The Economist) Sam Phillips documentary ProPublica: Journalism in the Public Interest Napster: Culture of Free (NYTimes) The Reconstruction of American Journalism RIAA: Piracy – the scope of the problem (and counterpoint articles) File-Sharing Getting Bad Rap? Future of News: News vs Noise File-Swap Services Can Be Sued Extra, Extra: Is It the End for Newspapers? Bloomberg News video: The Cockroach of Mass Media: Why Radio Has Survived David Pogue Tech Talk: HD Radio

Chapter 8: Movies Gravity & Alfonso Cuarón Early movie technologies & key inventors First silent films: titles and directors The studio system & the repercussions The blacklist Movie ticket sales trends How movies reacted to rise of TV The blockbuster era Highest-grossing films (with and without adjusting for inflation) Home video trends Digital production and projection Movie economics: How to make a profit Movies and media effects Movies, censorship and industry self-regulation Movie revenue sources Movies and the Long Tail Bollywood

Supplementary Links Eadweard Muybridge’s horse photos Georges Méliès: A Trip to the Moon Edwin S. Porter: The Great Train Robbery D.W. Griffith: The trailer for The Birth Of A Nation; also, scenes from Intolerance The Jazz Singer (1927) Technology behind IMAX 3D Box Office Mojo – top-grossing movies Articles about movie piracy NYTimes: To lure young, movie theaters shake, smell and spritz Motion Picture Association of America: Film Ratings This Film Is Not Yet Rated

Also be familiar with:

Media in the News for Aug. 29

Media in the News for Sept. 13

Media usage survey

Sept. 15 video chat with Dr. Ralph Hanson

Oct. 8 video chat with Dr. Kristal Zook