All flashcards
Flashcard 1: What is popular culture (pop culture) in sociological terms?
Answer: Widely shared cultural elements that are mainstream and rapidly changing. Reflects current trends and values accessible to the general public.
Flashcard 2: Identify the concept: After heavy crime-drama viewing, a person overestimates crime rates.
Answer: Cultivation theory. Media consumption shapes beliefs about real-world frequency.
Flashcard 3: Identify the concept: A viewer watches news that reinforces existing political beliefs.
Answer: Selective exposure. Seeking information that confirms pre-existing views.
Flashcard 4: What is the uses and gratifications approach to media consumption?
Answer: Audiences actively choose media to satisfy needs (information, identity, entertainment). People are active consumers selecting media for specific purposes.
Flashcard 5: What is the hypodermic needle (magic bullet) model of media influence?
Answer: Media messages are directly and uniformly absorbed by passive audiences. Early theory assuming audiences are powerless against media.
Flashcard 6: What is cultivation theory regarding long-term media exposure?
Answer: Heavy viewing shapes perceptions of reality to match media portrayals. Repeated exposure creates distorted worldviews matching TV content.
Flashcard 7: What is gatekeeping in mass media?
Answer: Selecting which information becomes news and how it is presented. Media outlets filter what reaches the public as news.
Flashcard 8: What is framing, and what does it change about how audiences interpret events?
Answer: Presentation style that changes interpretation by emphasizing aspects. Context and angle shape how audiences understand information.
Flashcard 9: What is the hypodermic needle (magic bullet) model of media effects?
Answer: Media messages directly and uniformly affect passive audiences. Early theory assuming audiences are powerless against media messages.
Flashcard 10: Which option best describes the digital divide as a social inequality relevant to media?
Answer: Unequal access to and effective use of information technologies. Gap between those with and without digital resources and skills.
Flashcard 11: Identify the concept: repeated media portrayals lead viewers to see a group as “all alike.”
Answer: Stereotyping via representativeness/availability from media exposure. Limited media diversity creates mental shortcuts about groups.
Flashcard 12: What is the difference between a stereotype and prejudice in media portrayals?
Answer: Stereotype: belief; prejudice: attitude or affect toward a group. Stereotypes are cognitive; prejudice involves emotional evaluation.
Flashcard 13: What is the spiral of silence theory about expressing minority opinions publicly?
Answer: People with minority views self-censor to avoid social isolation. Fear of isolation silences dissent, making majority seem unanimous.
Flashcard 14: What is the third-person effect regarding media influence on attitudes and behavior?
Answer: Belief that media affect others more than oneself. Psychological bias underestimating personal susceptibility to influence.
Flashcard 15: What is the two-step flow model of communication in mass media influence?
Answer: Media influence flows to opinion leaders, then to others. Influential individuals filter and spread media messages to networks.
Flashcard 16: What is popular culture as studied in sociology and social psychology?
Answer: Widely shared mainstream cultural products, practices, and beliefs. Elements of culture consumed and shared by the general public.
Flashcard 17: What is socialization, and what does it produce in individuals?
Answer: Internalization of norms and values that produces a social self. Process by which individuals learn society's expectations and develop identity.
Flashcard 18: What is a social norm in the context of media and culture?
Answer: Shared expectation for appropriate behavior in a given context. Rules that guide behavior based on group consensus.
Flashcard 19: What is selective exposure in the context of media consumption?
Answer: Preferring information that aligns with existing beliefs. People seek media that confirms rather than challenges their views.
Flashcard 20: What is socialization?
Answer: Learning norms, values, roles, and behaviors of a society. Process through which individuals internalize cultural expectations.
Flashcard 21: What is the definition of popular culture in sociology?
Answer: Widely shared, mainstream cultural products and practices. Encompasses entertainment, trends, and practices consumed by masses.
Flashcard 22: What is the sociological definition of mass media?
Answer: Communication technologies reaching large, dispersed audiences. Emphasizes technology's role in reaching many people simultaneously.
Flashcard 23: What is confirmation bias as it relates to media interpretation?
Answer: Interpreting media to support preexisting attitudes or beliefs. Cognitive bias where people favor information confirming beliefs.
Flashcard 24: What is the uses and gratifications approach to media?
Answer: Audiences actively select media to satisfy needs and goals. Views audiences as active participants choosing media purposefully.
Flashcard 25: What is the spiral of silence theory?
Answer: People suppress minority opinions to avoid social isolation. Fear of isolation leads to self-censorship of unpopular views.
Flashcard 26: What is the third-person effect in mass media?
Answer: Belief that media affect others more than oneself. Perceptual bias underestimating media's influence on self.
Flashcard 27: What is agenda-setting in mass media?
Answer: Media influence what issues audiences perceive as important. Media doesn't tell people what to think, but what to think about.
Flashcard 28: What is framing in mass media?
Answer: Media shape interpretation by how an issue is presented. Same facts presented differently lead to different conclusions.
Flashcard 29: What is cultivation theory?
Answer: Heavy media exposure shapes perceptions of social reality. Long-term exposure cultivates worldviews matching media portrayals.
Flashcard 30: What is the two-step flow model of communication?
Answer: Media influence flows to opinion leaders, then to others. Recognizes opinion leaders as intermediaries in media influence.