SCOM 2050 • Media, Culture & Society

Exam 2 Study Guide

Description: The second exam will be worth 250 points. Bring Scantron Form 4521 and a pencil.

Key Terms (definitions, significance, and context/dates)

Broadcast Networks
Trustee Principle Prior restraint
Spectrum Scarcity Near v. Minnesota
Telecommunications Act of 1996 The Pentagon Papers
1910 Wireless Ship Act US v. Progressive Magazine
Radio Act of 1927 Obscenity & Prurient
Miller v. California (&3-part Miller Test)
Clutter (aka: hyper-commercialization) The Fairness Doctrine
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Intellectual property rights
Federal Communication Commission (FCC) Copyright
Permission Marketing Absolute privilege
Public Relations Qualified privilege
Wheeler-Lea Act Gag orders
Parity products Shield laws
Pseudo-event 4th-Estate

Daguerreotype
Persistence of vision Sherman Antitrust Act
Cinematographe Clayton Antitrust Act
The Trust (Edison) International Synergy
Nickelodeons Wage Gap
Movie palaces

Important People (& what they did)

Thomas Edison Joseph Niepce
Emile Berliner William Talbot
Nikola Tesla Eadweard Muybridge
Guglielmo Marconi The Lumiere Brothers
Reginald Fessenden Georges Mieles
Lee DeForest George Eastman

F. Wayland Ayer Vladimir Zworykin

Ivy Lee Philo Farnsworth
Edward Bernays Ted Turner
Amos Kendall Lucille Ball
John Walson
Topics/Questions (pg 1 info rephrased)
Edison’s talking machine
Who patented radio in the US
Who 1st transmitted voice over radio
Year of 1st commercial radio broadcast
All the ways radio was a media innovator
The popularity of radio today
The impact of radio deregulation
What was the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), who created it, and why

The prevalence of commercials/ads

The ancient history of advertising
Advertising in the US before the Civil War
First full service ad agency in the US
The impact of radio on the ad industry
Advertising after WWII
Who regulates advertising?

PR’s PR problem
Definition of PR
How PR differs from advertising
PR before the Civil War
3 historical stages of PR in the US
How PR is flourishing today

The weakness of early still photography technology

How the first picture of motion was captured, who did it, and why that mattered
Early American film industry & The Trust
The movie peak and why attendance declined afterward
How the movie industry works economically

Prior restraint and why it’s bad

The definition of “obscenity”
The fairness doctrine
Who the “Constitution” protects you from
Intellectual property vs. freedom of expression
Slander, libel, and the defenses against them
1st Amendment vs. 6th Amendment

The people who contributed to the invention of television

The first public demonstration of TV and what happened after
Why TV grew so much after WWII
The influence of “I Love Lucy”
The origins of cable
The VCR and its impacts
The economics TV

What has the trend been in terms of regulation of industry in the 20 th and 21st centuries?
What did the Telecommunications Act of 1996 do, and what were its impacts?
The wage gap, its history since 1965, and its modern context