Download Role of media question and answers

Question
 Identify
three processes sociologists have
identified as influencing the content of
the news
Answer
 the
owners
 profit motive
 organisational restraints
 agenda-setting
 gate-keeping
 norm-setting
Question
 What
do you understand by the term
agenda setting in relation to journalism
Answer
 Agenda
setting is the idea the media
have a powerful influence over the issues
that people think about because the
agenda is already set by journalists. This is
because people can only discuss and
form views about the issues they’ve been
informed about.
Question
 What
do you understand by the term
media stereotyping?
Answer
 Is
the way journalists construct a discourse
about a particular issue. This constructs
the way an issue is talked about in news
items – for example welfare claimants as
scroungers
Question
 Identify
and explain two characteristics of
a pluralist view of the media
Answer






owners do not have direct control over media content
there’s no dominant class but competing social groups
media content isn’t ideological neither does it reflect the
interests of owners
media content is driven by media managers who give
journalists the freedom to seek out any type of newsworthy
story
media content is their to meet the needs of its audience as
the audience choose the content they wish to read or
watch
any bias is merely reflects audience interests as the
audience ultimately has the final say it what he or she
wishes to view
Question
 Identify
and explain two characteristics of
the Marxist view of the media
Answer


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
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owners have direct control of media content
owners can and do interfere with media
content
owners use the media to spread ideas
(dominant ideology) which justify the position
and power of the ruling-class
media managers have to follow the wishes of
their owners
journalists depend on owners for their jobs so
are unlikely to run stories which challenge the
status and authority of the ruling-class
Question
 Identify
and explain two characteristics of
the neo- Marxist view of the media
Answer



owners don’t get actively involved in controlling content on
a day-to-day basis. Instead control and content is left in the
hands of journalists and managers
as managers and journalists want to protect their jobs they
seek to attract advertisers and audiences by publishing
suitable content. Sometimes audiences are attracted by
media criticism of ruling-class, but such criticism is never
threatening or damaging
journalists and managers don’t tend to criticise dominant
ideology because of their background. Journalists tend to
be white, well-educated, middle-class and male therefore
they’ve already been socialised to accept and value the
ruling-class ideology, thus their media messages tend to
support the established social consensus
Question
 Identify
and explain the uses and
gratification model
 Identify which theoretical perspective
best ties up with the uses and
gratifications model
Answer
 Audiences
actively choose what they
want to use the media for rather than
audiences being used by the media
 Pluralist