Exam 3 Reading Study Guide
1. According to Rheingold's The Virtual Community, the CMC has the potential to change
our lives on three different levels. Name and explain two of those levels.
2. In "The Virtual Community" by Rheingold, what does social capital mean in the WELL
community? Define what it means and then give an example and explain.
3. After reading "Tweeps on the Bus" by Marc Tracy, in what ways did BuzzFeed change
the way they present news? What is effective or ineffective about this?
4. Explain why the gender gap in wikipdia is so significant and why the author believes it to
exist (2 pts.) Next, give a specific example from the reading that exemplifies this gap (2
pts.).
5. For the online video "KONY 2012" what are some methods the author states are being
used to make the video more known and persuasive? Identify and explain 2 (or 3?)
6. In the reading “Students addicted to social media,” the University of Maryland conducted
a study in which students refrained from using social media for twenty-four hours. What
were two responses observed in the study that this article discusses?
7. In the article “Person of the year: Mark Zuckerberg” how does Zuckerberg’s future plan
for the Internet hinder the idea of the Internet as a heterarchy?
8. Identify and explain two reasons that Jonathan Sterne (in his article “What if Interactivity
is the New Passivity?”) provides for why he thinks we should be more critical of websites
or technologies that promote interactivity/participation?
9. Identify and explain two of the solutions that Steinem provides in her article "Sex, Lies,
and Advertising" in order to limit advertising’s control over women's magazines.
10. What are the two models that Calvert proposes in his article "Hate Speech and its
Harms"? And what is a legal downside for each model?
11. In "Why I love Al Jazeera" Kaplan lists a few reasons as to why Al Jazeera is enduring.
Identify and explain two of those reasons.
12. In "Social Communication in Advertising," Leiss, Kline, and Sut Jhally identify two
approaches to analyzing advertisements. Identify and explain one, and then identify both
a strength and a weakness for each approach.
13. Identify and explain the reasoning for two of the three suggestions Poniewozik makes in
the concluding section of his piece on "The Decency Police".
14. Provide and explain two characteristics of today’s "world fusion" music as discussed by
Hutcheon in the article "Mixing up the world’s beat."
15. According to Steinem's article "Sex, lies, and advertising", what were two of the main
functions of early magazines?
16. According to Lohr's "How privacy vanishes online", privacy has become more of an issue
in recent years. Explain one reason why it has become more of an issue, and identify two
ways an individual's personal information could be leaked online.
17. In the article "Brain Candy," Gladwell discusses whether media are making us smarter.
Identify and explain two reasons why it may be making us smarter than previous
generations.
18. In Copp’s article "Democracy and media" the author gives reasons why the FCC is
harming democracy; state and explain two.
19. In Skinner’s article "McLuhan's world and ours" the author states many of McLuhan’s
ideas. Identify and explain two of them.
20. In Gerbner's piece "The cultural environment movement" the author talks about the
different types and roles of stories that make up our media system. Identify two of these
types, and explain which one is the most dominant and why.
21. In Katayama’s interview titled “Meet Jake Adelstein, a Jewish reporter who thinks like a
Japanese gangster,” Adelstein talks about his role as an investigative journalist. Identify
and explain this view (as discussed by Adelstein).
22. In the article “Racial and economic profiling in Google ads: A preliminary investigation”
by Newmann, an experiment was conducted based on Google ads. Explain the
experiment as well as the response. What was Google’s response?
23. In Ting’s article “Why mobile will dominate the future of media and advertising” what
are the two features identified that characterize the rise of the mobile trend?
24. Drawing from McChesney’s reading “The political economy of global communication”
identify and explain two factors that are contributing to the facilitation of global
capitalism.