4.2.7.3 The media, globalisation and popular culture Quiz: AQA Sociology, Unit 2

The 20 questions

1. Which view holds that global media mainly spread Western, especially American, values and consumer goods, weakening local cultures?

   • Cultural relativism: each society's customs should be judged by its own standards rather than by an outside yardstick
   • Ethnomethodology: the commonsense rules people use to make sense of everyday media talk are studied in fine detail
   • Structural functionalism: media transmit shared norms that maintain social stability and integrate society as a whole
   • Cultural imperialism: dominant nations' media export their values and consumerism, displacing local cultural forms

2. What does 'glocalisation' describe in relation to global media products?

   • Governments banning foreign broadcasts to protect domestic audiences from outside political and commercial influence
   • Global products being adapted to suit local tastes, languages and cultural practices in each individual market
   • All national cultures becoming identical copies of one dominant global model of production and consumption everywhere
   • Local cultures rejecting every imported product and producing only traditional forms of entertainment for their communities

3. Which statement best describes the homogenisation thesis about global popular culture?

   • Local audiences always reject foreign media and develop wholly original forms of popular entertainment unaffected by outside influence
   • Cultural forms stay fixed inside each nation, unaffected by the international trade in films, music and television formats
   • Global media increasingly produce similar cultural products everywhere, which may reduce cultural diversity over time
   • Global media strengthen national cultures by giving local producers large international audiences for their own original work

4. What is meant by 'hybridity' in the study of globalised popular culture?

   • The mixing of global and local cultural elements to produce new forms, such as music that blends Western and local styles
   • The separation of high culture from mass culture so that cinema, art and music stay within distinct social spheres
   • Political control of broadcasting by one national government that restricts what audiences are able to access and watch
   • The replacement of local languages by English in all television output and print media across the world's many countries

5. A country's television schedule is dominated by imported American programmes. Which perspective most directly interprets this as cultural domination?

   • The cultural imperialism perspective, which sees imports as a way for dominant states to spread their values and weaken local culture
   • The functionalist perspective, which sees imported programmes as shared entertainment that builds social solidarity and shared values
   • The interactionist perspective, which focuses on the individual meanings viewers give to programmes in everyday talk and daily routines
   • The ethnomethodological perspective, which studies the commonsense rules viewers use to recognise and make sense of television genres

6. Which example best illustrates McLuhan's concept of the 'global village'?

   • A local newspaper that reports only on events within its own city and nearby towns over a typical year of publication
   • A cinema that shows only films released in the decade in which the building was originally constructed by its owners
   • A live event transmitted by satellite and watched by audiences in many countries at the same moment in time
   • A national government that bans all foreign films to protect domestic cinema from outside political and cultural influence

7. A sociologist notes that media images seem more real to audiences than the events they claim to depict. Which concept, associated with Baudrillard, best describes this?

   • Ideology: a set of beliefs that presents the interests of a dominant class as the natural interests of society as a whole
   • Metanarrative: a single overarching explanation of history that claims to hold across all societies and historical periods
   • Secularisation: the decline of religious belief and practice and the growing influence of scientific reasoning in modern society
   • Hyperreality: copies and images, such as media representations, come to seem more real than the reality they represent

8. Which of these best describes 'new media' as the term is used in sociology?

   • Government-controlled television channels that broadcast only official news bulletins and scheduled public information programmes
   • Digital platforms such as social networking sites, streaming services and user-generated content that allow audience interaction
   • Printed newspapers and radio broadcasts that have changed little in format or distribution since the middle of the twentieth century
   • Face-to-face public meetings, letters and telegrams used before mass communication technologies became widely available to people

9. Who coined the phrase 'global village'?

   • Karl Marx, a theorist who analysed capitalism, class conflict and the economic base of nineteenth-century industrial societies
   • Talcott Parsons, a theorist who developed a structural functionalist account of social systems and their functional needs
   • Max Weber, a theorist who analysed bureaucracy, legitimate authority and the Protestant ethic in modern economic life
   • Marshall McLuhan, a media theorist who wrote about electronic media linking people across the world

10. Which argument supports the view that globalised media can increase cultural diversity?

    • Audiences can access many national and niche productions, which can expose them to a wider range of cultural forms
    • Global corporations always produce identical content in every country, so local audiences see the same programmes everywhere in the world
    • Local audiences have no real choice but to consume imported programmes, which leaves little room for local production to survive at all
    • National governments never allow foreign media to be broadcast, so cultural exchange between countries is almost entirely absent today

11. Which factor is most often cited as increasing the global reach of popular culture since the 1990s?

    • The expansion of national radio licences restricted to a single language and a single region within each individual country
    • The decline of international trade in films, music and television formats as national production became more self-sufficient
    • Digital distribution and streaming, which let cultural products cross national borders without traditional broadcast limits
    • The collapse of satellite and cable television, which reduced the number of channels available to viewers in most countries

12. Evaluate the homogenisation thesis. Which finding would most weaken it?

    • Audiences actively interpret and adapt imported media, so the same text can carry different meanings in different cultures
    • Hollywood films earn a large share of their revenue from international box office receipts, so their appeal is broad across countries
    • Media ownership has become more concentrated in a small number of global corporations, which reduces the range of content available
    • Television formats such as talent shows are adapted and broadcast in dozens of countries with very similar structures and rules

13. Which is the strongest criticism of the cultural imperialism thesis?

    • It ignores the economic role of multinational corporations, which in reality have little influence on what is broadcast in any country
    • It assumes audiences are passive and largely ignores how people resist, reinterpret or reject foreign media content
    • It assumes all national media are regulated by the same state institutions, leaving almost no scope for national variation at all
    • It focuses on the content of individual programmes rather than on the economic structure of the media industry and its ownership

14. A sociologist argues that global media create a 'culture of consumerism' in which people identify with brands more than with local communities. Which evidence would best test this claim?

    • Recording how often a national anthem is broadcast on radio in one day to test how patriotic feeling changes across seasons
    • Counting the number of feature films produced by one national industry in a single year to estimate its overall output and reach
    • Comparing brand identification and local community involvement among audiences in several countries, measured over time
    • Measuring the average length of television news bulletins across regions to see whether coverage differs by geographical area

15. Which statement about globalised popular culture is best supported by sociological evidence?

    • Cultural flows are controlled entirely by national governments, so international media influence on audiences has largely disappeared
    • Cultural flows are multidirectional, with products moving between many regions rather than only outwards from the West
    • Cultural flows have stopped almost entirely since digital platforms allowed local creators to reach audiences in every country
    • Cultural flows run in one direction only, from the Western economies to the rest of the world, without significant exception today

16. A television channel in Mumbai broadcasts a local version of a Western reality show, with local contestants and language. Which concept best describes this?

    • Deviance amplification, in which media coverage makes a minor social problem appear larger and more dangerous than it actually is
    • Moral panic, in which the show is seen as threatening social values and prompting widespread public outrage and official concern
    • Glocalisation, in which a global format is adapted to suit local audiences while keeping the basic format recognisable
    • Cultural relativism, in which the show is judged only by standards internal to the society in which it is broadcast and watched

17. A researcher finds that viewers in different countries interpret the same soap opera in different ways. Which theoretical idea best explains this?

    • Reception theory: audiences decode media messages according to their own social and cultural contexts and experiences
    • Ideological state apparatus: the state uses media to produce passive compliance with the dominant political order and its values
    • Mass society theory: audiences are isolated individuals who are easily manipulated by media content and lack strong social ties
    • The hypodermic needle model: audiences receive the same message and respond identically, as if injected with it directly

18. Which example best illustrates the concept of 'cultural hybridity'?

    • A music genre that combines a traditional local rhythm with global pop production techniques and recording methods
    • A government that bans foreign music in order to protect domestic traditions from outside cultural influence and commercial pressure
    • A village that keeps its traditional dances and songs without any contact with outside media, other cultures or visiting performers
    • A company that sells exactly the same product in every country with no change to its packaging, language or marketing approach

19. What does 'the globalisation of media' most directly refer to?

    • A single world government that controls national broadcasting policy, licensing and censorship across all countries
    • The spread of media production, distribution and consumption across borders through transnational corporations and digital networks
    • The end of national borders for all trade in goods, services, people and cultural products, which has been complete since 1990
    • The exclusive use of English in all media produced in every country of the world, with no other languages used in broadcasting

20. Which term describes cultural products made for large commercial audiences and consumed widely through mass media markets?

    • Counterculture: values and lifestyles that deliberately reject mainstream norms and the dominant social order of a society
    • Mass culture: cultural products made for large commercial audiences and distributed widely through mass media and markets
    • Folk culture: traditions transmitted orally within small, stable communities over many generations and rarely written down
    • High culture: art and literature valued for their aesthetic qualities and appreciated mainly by educated and affluent elites

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