Use this page as a guide. It’s not a blueprint–use it in conjunction with lecture and film notes, readings, and online course material.

The exam will be a combination of multiple choice, matching, short answer, and short and long essay. You’ll have choices on the short answer and essay questions (for instance, answer 2 of the following 4 questions). You’ll have better luck studying if you think of this like you’re telling a story, rather than simply trying to memorize disconnected facts.

Remember our discussions of finding different ways to get concepts to ‘stick.’ The more ideas you can connect to other ideas–propaganda connected to media, news, to politicians, strategies, specific topics, etc.–the more retrieval mechanisms you’ll have, and the more meaningful the information will be.

The test takes place on May 2-3. If you are entitled to accommodations, work it out with the disabilities services office so that I know to send them a copy of the exam in advance (which you need to take Monday morning).

Media bias

• Media, bias and politics. To understand media bias, you need to understand:
  • what mass media are,
  • what is meant by bias, and
  • ‘liberal/conservative‘ political caricatures used in the media, the political spectrum (that is, from left to right), how they relate to actual views (remember those maps of red states and blue states?).
  • Some important links on this page (the one we discuss in class)
  • Disambiguation. We discussed at some length the ‘Coke-Pepsi’ analogy of how media treat bias, you should be familiar with that argument and the different kind of bias it implies (in other words, how does it lead to certain kinds of content that may not necessarily represent the best journalism?)
  • Along similar lines, what sorts of ‘hooks’ or ‘bait‘ gets used to attract an audience? Why are they successful?
  • Media employees and employers–or structure and agency. This gets at the claims of bias sometimes levied at individual journalists. There is a difference between liberal or conservative journalists, and their bosses, the owners of media outlets, and the effects on news media content. Understand the importance of media ownership, the importance of increasing concentration of ownership. It would also be a good idea to get a handle on some of the major outlets and who owns them, I would think. And understand what is meant by a commercial and corporate bias. Jon Stewart’s video suggests how constructing bias as a liberal/conservative shouting match might be good for ratings, good for the parties, but may be misdirecting news consumers from a more fundamental bias in commercial news.
• Junk food news/news abuse (from the week 3 reading)–what is it, how does it affect news content, can you explain why it’s so prevalent?
• Journalists’ code of ethics–comes in handy to know this if you’re trying to compare how stories get covered with how the profession says they should be covered.

Media and politics

• Money and politics–why is money so important in politics, and what do mass media and other corporate interests have to do with its importance? How does the money flow? We only talked about this generally–understand why media for instance benefit from a Supreme Court ruling that throws out limitations on campaign financing, and how it might affect political campaigns as well, media reporting, etc. How are media, corporations and industries, and consumers/citizens related (another way of asking this might be ‘what do they need/get from each other’)?
• Does the US have a ‘free’ press? How would you know (could be relative measures, could be more absolute ..)?

The propaganda model or news filtering

• The five news filters–understand this model, be able to explain it and apply it to a real world situation.What do the news filters help explain? How do they relate to a possible commercial bias? Do filtering mechanisms apply to non-commercial news organizations? If so, how?
• Here’s the outline we went over in class
• Several principles: Disambiguation, social proof, heuristics (‘click and whirrrr’),
• What about the non-controversial, ‘conventional wisdom’ or ‘corporate version‘ of events as they’re reported in commercial news outlets? What other pressures do news organizations face to filter content? Principles in action
• Does the propaganda model to a good job of explaining what kinds of content get ‘filtered out‘ of mainstream media? Where does this filtered content ‘go?’ Can you illustrate with an example besides these?
• We’ve discussed in some depth advertising–I’d expect you’d be able to write pretty intelligently about how it works to persuade, to pressure, and how it affects the culture. Definitely, definitely understand about relationships between ratings, news content, revenue, etc.
• Pierce’s ‘Rules’ (of ‘Idiot America’)–what do they tell us about the state of news, about how propagandists can succeed? How is this an example of social proof?

Propaganda

• What is it?
• What are the four stratagems of persuasion?
• Here’s another example, on climate change, if you want more practice
• How were they used to promote an invasion of Iraq?
• What is the ‘rationalization trap?’
• The central versus the peripheral routes to persuasion–which works best and why?
• Remember some of the techniques, such as 3rd party technique (in various forms, including VNRs, think tanks, front groups/astroturf, etc.)
• What did Herman and Chomsky mean by ‘manufacturing consent?‘ How does this express itself in the commercial news media? We also watched an excerpt about Edward Bernays, which addressed the issue of social control of the masses via creating a consumer society.
• What is the difference between debate and discourse, and mass persuasion?
• Understand propaganda as a concept that can be used in advertising, politics, organizations, and by media.
• Lecture outline page, example on global warming
• Patrick’s ‘ten commandments‘, examples of how they work, how they could be used in news, politics
• Cialdini’s discussion of heuristics–again, how can they be used/applied?
• The public relations (PR) industry, and how it influences news

Video

• from The Persuaders (Frank Luntz and the utility company, ‘Give us what we want’)
• The Corporation (bovine growth hormone)
• Manufacturing Consent (the ‘propaganda model’)
• Century of the Self (Edward Bernays, starts at 9:25)
• Lots of excerpts (mostly in the ‘outline’ links from the main lecture page)
• Wag the Dog–how are propaganda and news intertwined? Parallels with the Jessica Lynch Rescue myth? How does a White House attempt to manage the press?

Terms we’ve discussed:

• Sound bites
• Ad hominem (basically this is the process of discrediting sources, attacking the messenger, avoiding his/her message, so to speak)
• Talking points
• Spin
• Red states and blue states
• Bias
• Third party technique
• Flak
• VNR (video news release)
• Check out the glossary page

The test will be multiple choice, some matching, short answer, short essay and a longer essay (you’ll have choices on the short answer and essay sections).

Readings:

• Everything assigned for the first five weeks of the course