Comm 160 ucla midterm 1
According to Martin & McCrain in the Washington Post article "Yes, Sinclair Broadcast
Group does cut local news, increase national news and tilt its stations rightward," list the
four things that generally happened to a station once it was bought by Sinclair. -
ANS-ANSWER:
1. Increases its coverage of national politics by roughly 25 percent,
2. Decreases its coverage of local politics by roughly 10 percent,
3. Shifts significantly rightward in its coverage's ideological slant, and
4. Loses a very small share of its viewers.
In the Washington Post op-ed by McArdle, she refers to ways in which people pay for
papers struggling to stay afloat. One of the ways she presents is called "donor or
philanthropic journalism." What is donor/philanthropic journalism and what is the main
problem with its usage?
find the answer you should look at paragraphs 13 and 14 of the "A Farewell to free
journalism" article. - ANS-Funding papers by donors as a philanthropic project is exactly
what it sounds like → wealthy people feel like they're doing a service by putting money
towards a paper, to help it continue its journalistic duty to the public. However, this
funding can be problematic because it is narrow in one way: Donor-funded journalism
tends to largely be ideological, with donors looking for stories that flatter their opinions
and produce measurable political "impact" beyond just keeping readers informed *
In the reading "Who Cleans Up When the Party's Over" by Groeling and Engstrom, what
(suggestive) evidence was found of the correlation between partisanship of newspapers
and the consistency of electoral outcomes? - ANS-(not my question, so my answer
might not be 100% correct)
As newspapers became more independent and partisan, split-ticket voting began rising
and Congress and Presidency had more discrepancy in party dominance. *
What was one reason radio was so appealing to advertisers? [1 point]
(Lecture slides Class 03, slide 19) - ANS-Advertizing was SO effective because people
were forced to listen all the way through
*characteristic of the radio: nature of radio tuning made it difficult to change channels
(forced your attention more so than newspapers)
,What do scholars consider to be the first true modern mass media? [1 point] - ANS-the
printing press/penny press
Over time, various mass medias have evolved in order to fill different niches of the news
market. Each mass media has unique characteristics that have provided unique
advantages to news companies over the past 100 years. Name three of these mass
medias and compare and contrast their characteristics and how they have impacted the
news market as a whole. [3 points]
(answer found in class 3: The Rise of Mass Media) - ANS-1) Newspapers
-not partisan (couldn't alienate half of audience): content was neutral
-emergence of yellow journalism
-intense competition
-can get more information reading than listening
2) Radio
-at beginning, VERY expensive
-hard to tune radio= AMAZING for advertisers
-government had influence because they controlled the public airways
3) TV
-1950's- take off
-popular by 1970
-visual aid was even better for advertisers
-evening news programs had HUGE influence on public opinion (seen in Presidential
Election of 1968- Nixon v. Humphrey)
-market dominated by just a few networks
What was the main benefit of using telegraphs? What effect did this result for
chains/syndicate papers and partisan news? (3 points)
Hint: Class 3: Rise of Mass Media - ANS-allowed rapid transmittal of news!
nesssceity to sell same story to different partisan papers led to "objective" and neutral
coverage!
magnified power of news as a source!
What is franking? (1 point)
, 2. Hint: Class 2: The Early American Press - ANS-The privilege of sending mail without
paying for postage.
What were Thomas Jefferson's beliefs on the press at the beginning of his career as a
politician versus near the end of it? (1 point)
(Hint: Jonathon Ladd Ch. 2 American Press) - ANS-ACTUALLY Thomas Jefferson liked
the press, he thought press over government (there's a quote by him that even states
that) BUT End of term is correct, because he was attacked about his slave side chick
and basically destroyed by the press reputation wise
Name and describe the three traditional spamming tactics that have been adopted for
the purposes of computational propaganda through social media. What is the purpose
of these tactics? (3 points)
(Hint: Sanovich and Stukal's "D. Strategies and Tactics of Spreading Disinformation
through Online Platforms") - ANS-keyword stuffing: has been used to make posts with
predefined keywords/hashtags to promote specific messages (ie. adding popular
keywords to promote websites in search engine rankings)
link bombs: similar or identical posts pointing to specific websites (ie. using anchor text
in links to relate specific search queries with required websites)
mutual admiration societies: are groups of accounts that follow and repost/retweet each
other
(ie. groups of websites with links pointing to each other).
Purpose: To Manipulate Search Algorithms- to basically make certain news stories more
likely to appear. Pg 30
EFFECT-during 2016 U.S. presidential and senatorial elections "up to 30% of [...]
national candidates had their search results affected by potentially fake or biased
content." pg 31
Detail the two-sided market that created revenue for newspaper companies.
[1 point; A Farewell to Free Journalism] - ANS-"sold subscriptions to you and once
you'd subscribed, we sold your eyeballs to our advertisers... necessary because
subscription dollars often didn't cover the cost of printing and delivering the physical
pieces of paper."
According to Martin & McCrain in the Washington Post article "Yes, Sinclair Broadcast
Group does cut local news, increase national news and tilt its stations rightward," list the
four things that generally happened to a station once it was bought by Sinclair. -
ANS-ANSWER:
1. Increases its coverage of national politics by roughly 25 percent,
2. Decreases its coverage of local politics by roughly 10 percent,
3. Shifts significantly rightward in its coverage's ideological slant, and
4. Loses a very small share of its viewers.
In the Washington Post op-ed by McArdle, she refers to ways in which people pay for
papers struggling to stay afloat. One of the ways she presents is called "donor or
philanthropic journalism." What is donor/philanthropic journalism and what is the main
problem with its usage?
find the answer you should look at paragraphs 13 and 14 of the "A Farewell to free
journalism" article. - ANS-Funding papers by donors as a philanthropic project is exactly
what it sounds like → wealthy people feel like they're doing a service by putting money
towards a paper, to help it continue its journalistic duty to the public. However, this
funding can be problematic because it is narrow in one way: Donor-funded journalism
tends to largely be ideological, with donors looking for stories that flatter their opinions
and produce measurable political "impact" beyond just keeping readers informed *
In the reading "Who Cleans Up When the Party's Over" by Groeling and Engstrom, what
(suggestive) evidence was found of the correlation between partisanship of newspapers
and the consistency of electoral outcomes? - ANS-(not my question, so my answer
might not be 100% correct)
As newspapers became more independent and partisan, split-ticket voting began rising
and Congress and Presidency had more discrepancy in party dominance. *
What was one reason radio was so appealing to advertisers? [1 point]
(Lecture slides Class 03, slide 19) - ANS-Advertizing was SO effective because people
were forced to listen all the way through
*characteristic of the radio: nature of radio tuning made it difficult to change channels
(forced your attention more so than newspapers)
,What do scholars consider to be the first true modern mass media? [1 point] - ANS-the
printing press/penny press
Over time, various mass medias have evolved in order to fill different niches of the news
market. Each mass media has unique characteristics that have provided unique
advantages to news companies over the past 100 years. Name three of these mass
medias and compare and contrast their characteristics and how they have impacted the
news market as a whole. [3 points]
(answer found in class 3: The Rise of Mass Media) - ANS-1) Newspapers
-not partisan (couldn't alienate half of audience): content was neutral
-emergence of yellow journalism
-intense competition
-can get more information reading than listening
2) Radio
-at beginning, VERY expensive
-hard to tune radio= AMAZING for advertisers
-government had influence because they controlled the public airways
3) TV
-1950's- take off
-popular by 1970
-visual aid was even better for advertisers
-evening news programs had HUGE influence on public opinion (seen in Presidential
Election of 1968- Nixon v. Humphrey)
-market dominated by just a few networks
What was the main benefit of using telegraphs? What effect did this result for
chains/syndicate papers and partisan news? (3 points)
Hint: Class 3: Rise of Mass Media - ANS-allowed rapid transmittal of news!
nesssceity to sell same story to different partisan papers led to "objective" and neutral
coverage!
magnified power of news as a source!
What is franking? (1 point)
, 2. Hint: Class 2: The Early American Press - ANS-The privilege of sending mail without
paying for postage.
What were Thomas Jefferson's beliefs on the press at the beginning of his career as a
politician versus near the end of it? (1 point)
(Hint: Jonathon Ladd Ch. 2 American Press) - ANS-ACTUALLY Thomas Jefferson liked
the press, he thought press over government (there's a quote by him that even states
that) BUT End of term is correct, because he was attacked about his slave side chick
and basically destroyed by the press reputation wise
Name and describe the three traditional spamming tactics that have been adopted for
the purposes of computational propaganda through social media. What is the purpose
of these tactics? (3 points)
(Hint: Sanovich and Stukal's "D. Strategies and Tactics of Spreading Disinformation
through Online Platforms") - ANS-keyword stuffing: has been used to make posts with
predefined keywords/hashtags to promote specific messages (ie. adding popular
keywords to promote websites in search engine rankings)
link bombs: similar or identical posts pointing to specific websites (ie. using anchor text
in links to relate specific search queries with required websites)
mutual admiration societies: are groups of accounts that follow and repost/retweet each
other
(ie. groups of websites with links pointing to each other).
Purpose: To Manipulate Search Algorithms- to basically make certain news stories more
likely to appear. Pg 30
EFFECT-during 2016 U.S. presidential and senatorial elections "up to 30% of [...]
national candidates had their search results affected by potentially fake or biased
content." pg 31
Detail the two-sided market that created revenue for newspaper companies.
[1 point; A Farewell to Free Journalism] - ANS-"sold subscriptions to you and once
you'd subscribed, we sold your eyeballs to our advertisers... necessary because
subscription dollars often didn't cover the cost of printing and delivering the physical
pieces of paper."
