Chapter 1 Quiz Study Guide

Key Terms

  • Media literacy

    • An understanding of the mass communication process through the development of critical-thinking tools – description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and engagement – that enable a person to become more engaged as a citizen and more discerning as a consumer of mass media products

  • Mass media

    • The cultural industries – the channels of communication – that produce songs, novels, news, movies, online services, and other cultural products and distribute them to a large number of people

  • Mass communication

    • The process of designing and delivering cultural messages and stories to diverse audiences through media channels as old as the book and as new as the internet

  • Digital communication

    • Images, texts, and sounds that use pulses of electric current or flashes of laser lights and are converted (or encoded) into electronic signals represented as varied combinations of binary numbers, usually ones and zeros; these signals are then reassembled (decoded) as a precise reproduction of a TV picture, a magazine article, or a telephone voice.

  • Digital turn

    • The shift in media use and consumption resulting from the emergence of the Internet as a mass medium, which enables an array of media to converge and be easily shared

  • Media convergence

    • The first definition involves the technological merging of content across different media channels; the second definition describes a business model that consolidates various media holdings under one corporate umbrella

  • Culture

    • The symbols of expression that individuals, groups, and societies use to make sense of daily life and to articulate their values

  • High culture

    • A symbolic expression that has come to mean “good taste”; often supported by wealthy patrons and corporate donors, it is associated with fine art (such as ballet, the symphony, painting, and classical literature), which is available primarily in theaters or museums

  • Low (popular) culture

    • A symbolic expression allegedly aligned with the questionable taste of the masses, who enjoy the commercial “junk” circulated by the mass media, such as soap operas, rock music, talk radio, comic books, and monster truck pulls

  • Modern Era

    • A period from the Industrial Revolution to the twentieth century that was characterized by working efficiently, celebrating the individual, believing in a rational order, and rejecting traditional and embracing progress

  • Progressive Era

    • The period of political and social reform lasting roughly from the 1890s to the 1920s that inspired many Americans – and mass media – to break with tradition and embrace change

  • Postmodern period

    • A contemporary historical era spanning the 1960s to the present; its social values include celebrating populism, questioning authority, and embracing technology

  • Populism

    • A political idea that attempts to appeal to ordinary people by setting up a conflict between “the people” and “the elite”

  • Critical process

    • The process whereby a media-literate person or student studying mass communication employs the techniques of description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and engagement