Answer & Explanation:help to answer some Questions Worksheet 3.4 Literacy: More Than the Ability to Read Books
Your text explains that the Harry Potter books have been
bestsellers, but the books also have been the target of groups wanting to
censor them from school libraries. You may have never read any of these books,
but consider the possible reasons that parents might not want their children to
read certain books without their knowledge.
1. Is it ever okay for groups like parents, apart from
governmental decisions, to choose not to allow certain books in their schools?
Why or why not?
2. Public schools would be targets of censorship for playing
the racist lyrics of Eminem or religious music of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
in the cafeteria. Should books be any different? Explain.
3. Is it appropriate to allow (or even insist) that movies,
TV, video games, and recordings have warning labels or ratings while we call
the same labeling of books censorship? Explain. If you think this is
inappropriate, should we have ratings for all media or no ratings for any
media? Why?
4. Did you read any books as a child that you now think
might not really be good for children? Which one(s) and why?
5. Is it better to have children reading books that are
controversial just to get them to read or would it be better if the children
were not reading at all? Why?
6. Finally, the chapter’s media literacy section suggests
that reading books “all the way through” is a virtue to be taught. Is this an
elite perspective—that
partial reading will leave people imperfectly educated? How important is
reading all the way through versus choosing how much and what portion of each
book to read?
Name _____________________
Section _____________ Date
__________________
Name _____________________
Section _____________ Date
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Worksheet 4.4 Advantages and Disadvantages of Electronic
Newspapers
Think about the many areas of importance in the business
operation of a newspaper. Newspapers need circulation and advertising revenues
to make money. They spend money on paper and ink as well as on personnel who
report the news, lay out the pages, run the presses, develop the photographs,
and keep the payroll. After looking at an online version of a newspaper, think
about how online news might change the financial elements of publishing.
1. A newspaper has everything from full-page ads to
classifieds only three lines long. What kind of flexibility do you see in the
kinds of advertising a newspaper can sell to support an online version? How
might this affect the income potential of the medium?
2. It is easy for a newspaper company to know its
circulation, the number of copies that were sold or distributed on a given day.
On the other hand, newspapers may never be taken out of the rubber band or
read, reducing the number of consumers who see the advertisements. How does
online publishing affect the newspaper’s ability to obtain circulation
information?
3. Explain how online publishing affects the money
newspapers make through subscriptions and vending sales.
4. What expenses should be greater and which should be less
in terms of publishing the electronic version when compared to the paper
version?
5. If a newspaper was published exclusively online and the
print version was discontinued, which personnel might lose their jobs? What new
jobs would need to be filled?
Name
_____________________ Section
_____________ Date __________________
Worksheet 5.2 Online Magazines
Go online and find an electronic magazine. Then answer the
following questions:
The title of the online magazine is
_____________________________________
1. Who publishes the magazine?
2. How often is it published?
3. Is there a cost to access it?
4. Is it a partner or version of a hard-copy magazine? If
so, how do the Web and print versions differ, if at all? How are they similar?
5. How would you describe the readers (audience/demographic)
for this online publication? Do the online and print readers differ? How?
6. What kinds of products are advertised in this magazine?
7. Do the ads seem to “target” the desired demographic (see
question 4)? How?
8. In general, how are online magazines different from print
magazines? How are they the same? What would be the advantages and
disadvantages of “publishing” online versus publishing in print?
Worksheet 13.3 Journaling the Explanatory Power of Theory
After reading Chapter 13, you should now have a better
understanding of various theories of communication. As the text explains, we
currently believe that the media do affect us, but not in the all-powerful ways
once taught by the magic bullet theories. Instead we believe the media impact
us powerfully in limited areas of life, such as that explained by agenda
setting theory.
First, what are the three most important problems facing America
today?
1.
2.
3.
Now that you’ve listed the most important problems, think
about how you came to believe that those are the most important problems. Are
they from personal experience, do the media talk about those problems, or is it
a combination of the two? Write an essay explaining your answer to these two
questions. Talk about how much knowledge you could even have about each issue
without the media, and therefore the amount of “dependency” you place on the
media for that specific topic.
