Topic 16: Mass media ( Phần 2)

The print media includes newspapers, magazines, brochures, newsletters, books and even leaflets and pamphlets. Visual media like photography can also be mentioned under this sub-head, since photography is an important mass media, which communicates via visual representations. Although it is said that the electronic or new media have replaced the print media, there exists a majority of audiences who prefer the print media for various communication purposes. Public speaking and event organizing can also be considered as a form of mass media.

For many people, it is impossible to imagine a life without their television sets, be it the daily news dose or even the soap operas. This mass media includes television and radio. This category also included electronic media like movies, CDs and DVDs as well as the new hottest electronic gadgets.

With the advent of new technologies like Internet, we are now enjoying the benefits of high technology mass media, which is not only faster than the old-school mass media, but also has a widespread range. Mobile phones, computers and Internet are often referred to as the new-age media. Internet has opened up several new opportunities for mass communication which include email, websites, blogging, Internet television and many other mass media which are booming today.

Mass media was developed as a means of social responsibility at the beginning. However, in the course of time, they have attained the status of an industry. Besides the social and industrial nature of mass media, the following common points may also be mentioned. Specifically, it is highly impersonal, because the masses are not identifiable based on perfectly defined audio, visual or written messages. In addition, it is never likely to reach 100 percent of the target nor to have more than 10 percent effectiveness in most of the cases. Contents are generally based on the broad social issues and aspiration of the target audience which may be designed to achieve some specific goals; and all in all, modern mass media draw heavily on technology.

What types of media is photography now considered belonging to?

Which of the following is mentioned as a favourite TV programme?

What does the phrase “new media” in the first paragraph refer to?

Which is NOT mentioned as an example of mass communication?

Print media may have to compete with _______________.

Although television was first regarded by many as “radio with pictures,” public reaction to the arrival of TV was strikingly different from that afforded the advent of radio. Radio in its early days was perceived as a technological wonder rather than a medium of cultural significance. The public quickly adjusted to radio broadcasting and either enjoyed its many programs or turned them off. Television, however, prompted a tendency to criticize and evaluate rather than a simple on-off response.

One aspect of early television that can never be recaptured is the combined sense of astonishment and glamour that greeted the medium during its infancy. At the midpoint of the 20th century, the public was properly agog about being able to see and hear actual events that were happening across town or hundreds of miles away. Relatively few people had sets in their homes, but popular fascination with TV was so pronounced that crowds would gather on the sidewalks in front of stores that displayed a working television set or two. The same thing happened in the typical tavern, where a set behind the bar virtually guaranteed a full house. Sports events that might attract a crowd of 30,000 or 40,000 suddenly, with the addition of TV cameras, had audiences numbering in the millions. By the end of television’s first decade, it was widely believed to have greater influence on American culture than parents, schools, churches, and government-institutions that had been until then the dominant influences on popular conduct. All were superseded by this one cultural juggernaut.

The 1950s was a time of remarkable achievement in television, but this was not the case for the entire medium. American viewers old enough to remember TV in the ’50s may fondly recall the shows of Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, and Lucille Ball, but such high-quality programs were the exception; most of television during its formative years could be aptly described, as it was by one Broadway playwright, as “amateurs playing at home movies.” The underlying problem was not a shortage of talented writers, producers, and performers; there were plenty, but they were already busily involved on the Broadway stage and in vaudeville, radio, and motion pictures. Consequently, television drew chiefly on a talent pool of individuals who had not achieved success in the more popular media and on the young and inexperienced who were years from reaching their potential. Nevertheless, the new medium ultimately proved so fascinating a technical novelty that in the early stages of its development the quality of its content seemed almost not to matter.

Fortunately, the dearth of talent was short-lived. Although it would take at least another decade before areas such as news and sports coverage approached their potential, more than enough excellence in the categories of comedy and drama emerged in the 1950s to deserve the attention of discriminating viewers. They are the most fondly remembered of the Golden Age genres for both emotional and intellectual reasons. Live TV drama was, in essence, the legitimate theatre’s contribution to the new medium; such shows were regarded as “prestige” events and were afforded respect accordingly. The comedies of the era are remembered for the same reason that comedy itself endures: human suffering and the ever-elusive pursuit of happiness render laughter a necessary palliative, and people therefore have a particular fondness for those who amuse them.

Which of the following best serves as the title for the passage?

The phrase “agog about” in paragraph 2 can be best replaced by _____.

According to paragraph 2, why would the public gather on the sidewalks in front of stores?

Which of the following does the word “aptly” in paragraph 3 probably mean?

According to paragraph 3, why is television described as “amateurs playing at home movies”?

The word “dearth” in the last paragraph is closest in meaning to ______.

Which of the following is TRUE according to the paragraph?

The passage can probably extracted from which of the following?

While trust in media as a whole may be at an all-time low, a new study by the EBU has shown the public’s trust in traditional media (broadcast and the written press) is actually on the rise. However, people’s trust in new media continues to fall: 61% of European countries distrust the internet while 97% have no faith in social networks.

The EBU’s new report – Trust in Media 2018 – shows the figures illustrating the differences between people’s trust in traditional and new media. Broadcast media remain the most trusted forms of media with 59% of people tending to trust radio (equivalent to 2017) and 51% trusting TV in the EU (an increase of 1 percentage point on 2017). Trust in the written press has also slowly improved over the last 5 years and it is now trusted by 47% of EU citizens. At the same time, people’s trust in the internet and social media has been eroded by fake news, misinformation and disinformation. Only 34% of EU citizens trust the internet and a mere 20% now trust social networks (down from 36% and 21% respectively in 2017).

Trust in Media 2018 is based on data published in the 88th Eurobarometer survey and gives an idea of European citizens’ perception of the trustworthiness of different types of media. The survey consists of approximately 1000 face-to-face interviews in the 33 countries covered by the study. The report shows how European citizens’ trust in broadcast media is closely connected with a free and independent press. The higher the level of trust in a country’s radio and TV, the higher press freedom in that country tends to be. There are also strong regional differences with the Nordics and Albania tending to trust traditional media the most while Eastern Europeans tend to trust social networks and the internet more.

The EBU’s Head of Strategy and the Media Intelligence Service Roberto Suárez Candel said: “The results of our research show that good quality, impartial media is highly valued by the public. “Public service media play an important role in that and, together, our Members make an invaluable contribution to society. The role of our public service Members in upholding democratic values and supporting media freedom is clearly demonstrated by the results of our research.”

Which best serves as the title for the passage?

The word “press” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _______.

According to paragraph 2, what is the conclusion drawn from the statistics provided?

The word “it” in paragraph 2 refers to _____.

According to paragraph 3, all the statements can be supported by the research, EXCEPT ____.

Which of the following statements is TRUE, according to the passage?

The word “upholding” in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to _______.

Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

Simmons Research conducted a survey of American adults in order to learn how much Americans at large trust the media, and we are pleased to present the results in this first Simmons News Media Trust Index. We asked respondents to let us know how trustworthy or untrustworthy they found 38 of the largest and most well-known news sources commonly available in the US. News sources included represented a wide variety of mediums, including print, online, radio, and television with many of them operating across platforms.

The average percentage of respondents who rated news sources as trustworthy or very trustworthy was just 40.1% - not a ringing endorsement for journalism in general. Topping the list across all news sources, and the only newspaper in the top five, was the Wall Street Journal with 57.7% of Americans trusting them.

The major television network news organizations also fared quite well in our survey, taking the second (ABC 55.9%), third (CBS 55.4%), and sixth (NBC 54.1%) most trusted positions. Among cable news, the most trusted network in the US was ironically not American. BBC News was trusted by 55.2% of Americans and was the fourth most trusted news source. CNN, which touts itself as the “most trusted name in news,” trailed the list at number 14 with the trust of 46.1% of Americans. Forbes was the most trusted magazine and rounded out the top five, trusted by 54.2% of Americans. The New York Times and the Washington Post were both among the most trusted news organizations in our survey. The New York Times came in at the seventh position trusted by 53.8% of Americans, and the Washington Post in eighth trusted by 53.6%. USA Today (51.1%) and the Washington Times (50.0%) were the final two sources trusted by at least a majority of Americans.

The least trusted news sources were all Internet-first and hyper-partisan in nature representing brands that have been consistently rated as misleading and inaccurate by fact-checkers. The six organizations trusted least were split evenly between far-left and far-right news sources, and on average were trusted by only about one in four Americans. Daily Caller was the bottom of our list, with just 22.5% trusting them. They were followed by another extremely conservative platform, InfoWars, at 24.3% which was recently banned or had content deleted from Facebook, YouTube, iTunes, and Spotify for violating terms of service around hate speech, harassment, and bullying.

Which best serves as the title for the passage?

The word “they” in paragraph 1 refers to _____.

The word “mediums” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _______.

The word “ringing” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to _______.

According to paragraph 3, which statement is correct about the sources order in terms of reliability?

According to paragraph 4, what made the worst rankers evaluated as “misleading and inaccurate”?

Which of the following statements is TRUE, according to the passage?

The author implies that _________.

More than a decade ago the UK investigative journalist Nick Davies published Flat Earth News, an exposé of how the mass media had abdicated its responsibility to the truth. Newsroom pressure to publish more stories, faster than their competitors had, Davies argued, led to journalists becoming mere “churnalists”. Shocking as Davies’ revelations seemed in 2008, they seem pretty tame by today’s standards, writes Ben Lorica, Chief Data Scientist at O’Reilly.

We now live in a post-truth world of Fake News and “alternative facts”; where activists don’t just seek to manipulate the news agenda with PR but now use advanced technology to fake images and footage. A particularly troubling aspect of these ‘”deepfake” videos is their use of artificial intelligence to fabricate people saying or doing things with almost undetectable accuracy. The result is that publishers risk running completely erroneous stories – as inaccurate as stating that the world is flat – with little or any ability to check their source material and confirm whether it is genuine. The rise of unchecked fakery has serious implications for our liberal democracy and our ability to understand what’s truly going on in the world.

The technology to manipulate imagery has come a long way since Stalin had people airbrushed out of history. Creating convincing yet fake digital content no longer requires advanced skills or a well-resourced (mis)information bureau. Anyone with a degree of technical proficiency can create content that will fool even the experts. Take the faked footage of Nancy Pelosi earlier this year, which was doctored to make her look incoherent and was viewed two and a half million times before Facebook took it down. This story shows how social media is giving new life to the old aphorism that “a lie can go halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its boots on”.

The propagation of lies and misinformation is immeasurably enhanced by platforms like Twitter and Facebook that enable virality. What’s more, the incentives for creating fake content now favour malicious actors, with clear economic and political advantages for disseminating false footage. Put simply, the more shocking or extreme the content, the more people will share it and the longer they will stay on the platform. Meanwhile, counterfeiters can manipulate the very tools being developed to detect and mitigate deepfake content, just as the security industry inadvertently supplies software that can be misused for cybercrime.

What does the passage mainly discuss?

According to paragraph 1, why did Davis label the current news workers as “churnalists?

According to paragraph 2, what is the most discernible feature of deepfake video?

The word “it” in paragraph 3 refers to _____.

Which of the following statements is TRUE, according to the passage?

The word “disseminating” in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to _______.

The word “inadvertently” in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to _______.

Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

There is a new type of advertisement becoming increasingly common in newspaper classified columns. It is sometimes placed among “situations vacant”, although it does not offer anyone a job, and sometimes it appears “situations wanted”, although it is not placed by someone looking for a job, either. What it does is to offer help in applying for a job.

“Contact us before writing your application”, or "Make use of our long experience in preparing your curriculum vitae or job history”, is how it is usually expressed. The growth and apparent success of such a specialized service is, of course, a reflection on the current high levels of unemployment. It is also an indication of the growing importance of the curriculum vitae (or job history), with the suggestion that it may now qualify as an art form in its own right.

There was a time when job seekers simply wrote letters of application. “Just put down your name, address, age and whether you have passed any exams”, was about the average level of advice offered to young people applying for their first jobs when I left school. The letter was really just for openers, it was explained, everything else could and should be saved for the interview. And in those days of full employment, the technique worked. The letter proved that you could write and were available for work. Your eager face and intelligent replies did the rest.

Later, as you moved up the ladder, something slightly more sophisticated was called for. The advice then was to put something in the letter which would distinguish you from the rest. It might be the aggressive approach. “Your search is over. I am the person you are looking for,” was a widely used trick that occasionally succeeded. Or it might be some special feature specially designed for the job in view.

There is no doubt, however, that it is the increasing number of applicants with university education at all points in the process of engaging staff that has led to the greater importance of the curriculum vitae.

What does the phrase “Make use of” in the second paragraph probably mean?

The new type of advertisement, which is appearing in newspaper columns, ____.

Nowadays a demand for this specialized type of service has been created because ____.

In the past it was expected that first-job hunters would ____.

Later, as one went on to apply for more important jobs, one was advised to include in the letter ____.

The word "worked” in the third paragraph is closest in meaning to ____.

What does the word "which” in the fourth paragraph refer to?

The curriculum vitae has become such an important document because ____.

[1] Advertising helps people recognize a particular brand, persuades them to try it, and tries to keep them loyal to it. Brand loyalty is perhaps the most important goal of consumer advertising. Whether they produce cars, canned foods or cosmetics, manufacturers want their customers to make repeated purchases. [2] The quality of the product will encourage this, of course, but so, too, will affect advertising.

Advertising relies on the techniques of market research to identify potential users of a product. [3] Are they homemakers or professional people? Are they young or old? Are they city dwellers or country dwellers? Such questions have a bearing on where and when ads should be placed. By studying readership breakdowns for newspapers and magazines as well as television ratings and other statistics, an advertising agency can decide on the best way of reaching potential buyers. Detailed research and marketing expertise are essential today when advertising budgets can run into thousands of millions of dollars. [4]

Advertising is a fast-paced, high-pressure industry. There is a constant need for creative ideas that will establish a personality for a product in the public’s mind. Current developments in advertising increase the need for talented workers.

In the past, the majority of advertising was aimed at the traditional white family - breadwinner father, non-working mother, and two children. Research now reveals that only about 6 percent of American households fit this stereotype. Instead, society is fragmented into many groups, with working mothers, single people and older people on the rise. To be most successful, advertising must identify a particular segment and aim its message toward that group.

Advertising is also making use of new technologies. Computer graphics are used to grab the attention of consumers and to help them see products in a new light. The use of computer graphics in a commercial for canned goods, for instance, gave a new image to the tin can.

What does the passage mainly discuss?

The word “this” in the first paragraph refers to ___________.

It can be inferred from the second paragraph that advertisers must ___________.

According to paragraph 2, market research includes ___________.

The author implies that the advertising industry requires ___________.

According to the passage, most advertising used to be directed at ___________.

The word “fragmented” in the fourth paragraph is closest in meaning to ___________.

The following sentence can be added to the passage.
Advertising is an essential part of the marketing process that can be tremendously influential in selling products. Where would it best fit in the passage?

My children can’t live without media. At age 14, 15 and 18, my daughters Sussy and Anni and my son Bill don’t use media. They inhabit media. And they do so exactly as fish inhabit a pond. Gracefully, and without consciousness and curiosity as to how they got there. They don’t remember a time before email or instant messaging or Google.

When my children laugh, they don’t say “Ha, ha”. They say “LOL”. These are children who shrug indifferently when they lose their iPods, with all 5000 tunes plus video clips, feature films, and TV shows (like who watches TV on a television anymore?). “There is plenty more where that came from”, their attitude says. And they seem right. The digital content that powers their world can never truly be destroyed.

As a social scientist, journalist, and mother, I’ve always been an enthusiastic user of information technology. But I’d noticed that the more we seemed to communicate as individuals, the less we seemed to function together as a family. And on a broader scale, that the more facts we have at our fingertips, the less we seem to know. That the “convenience” of messaging media (email, SMS, IM) consumes ever larger amounts of our time. That as a culture we are practically swimming in entertainment, yet remain more depressed than any people who have ever lived. Our family’s self-imposed exile from the information age changed our lives infinitely for the better. I watched as my children became more focused. I watched as their attention spans increased, allowing them to read for hours at a time; to hold longer and more complex conversations with adults and among themselves. They probably did no more homework during The Experiment than they had done before, but they all completed it far more efficiently and far more quickly.

The Experiment also forced us to notice food more. Before, eating had been a side dish. Now it was the main course, or at least one of them. Our approach to cooking changed, too, especially for the girls. They’d started out as reasonably competent cooks, but by the end of The Experiment they were capable of turning out entire meals with ease.

The Experiment also confirmed my strong suspicion that media has been robbing Sussy of sleep for years. Unplugged, the changes to her sleep patterns were dramatic. The evidence strongly suggests she is no isolated case. One study found that children who spend more time online also drink more caffeinated beverages, with a resulting effect on their prospects of sleeping well.

The writer says her children “inhabit media… as fish inhabit a pond” to show that _______.

How does the writer describe her children’s reaction to losing their iPods?

What does the writer say about information technology in paragraph 3?

The writer says that the period without electronic media enabled her children .

In what way did the relationship with food change?

What does the writer mean by “she is no isolated case”?

The highlighted word "that" in the passage refers to

The highlighted word "exile" in the passage is closest in meaning to __________ .