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I.

INTRODUCTION
1. Look at the photographs which show different media. Discuss these questions.
a. How effective is each medium in communi cating information and ideas?
b. Do you read newspapers? If so, which ones? What is your definition of a 'good newspaper'?
c. What are your favourite radio and TV programmes?
d. How often do you use the internet?
2. Read these quotes about the media. Do you agree or disagree with each one?

3. Discuss these questions.


a. How do people regard the media in you r country? How could it be improved?
b. How do you think new technological developments wi ll ch ange the media in the future?

II. VOCABULARY
Compound nouns
1. Complete the following with the missing part of speech.
a __________ +noun: baby clothes
b __________ + noun: cookbook
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c __________ + noun: greenhouse
d __________ + preposition : fallout
e __________ + verb: uptake
2. Is the stress on the first or the second component of these compound nouns?
blackboard bookcase breakdown breakwater checkout credit card
downfall hard drive input music shop search engine software
swimming pool take away
3. Underline the compound nouns in this text. How many of each type in 1 are there?
No news is good news
An American news editor once said, ' If news is not really news unless it is bad news, it may be
difficult to claim we are an informed nation.' The stories below are from The Good News
Network, which does not publish bad news.
• Miami 's crime rate has fall!'!n dramatically. In the past eight years, homicides, break­ins and
assaults have been cut in half. Tourist robberies have dropped 95%.
• 13 .3 million teenage Americans donate time and effort to community service each week ­ a
participation rate of almost 603 .
• Lake Tahoe is the clearest it's been in five years thanks to a $900 million clean­up organized by
developers and environmentalists.
4. Use a word from each list to make compound nouns to describe jobs. More than one
answer may be possible.
A: care computer news police shop television university
B: assistant lecturer officer programmer reader reporter taker
5. Use a word from each list, A and B. Form compound nouns related to the media which
match definitions a-j. Some compounds are written as one word, some as two.
A: current eye foreign head mass news press remote soap talk
B: affairs agent's conference control correspondent line media
opera show witness
a sources of information such as television, newspapers etc. which influence a lot of people
b a meeting at which someone gives information to a group of journalists
c a person who has seen a crime or an accident and who can describe it afterwards
d a shop where you can buy magazines and newspapers
e a story about the lives and problems of ordinary people which is broadcast frequently
f events of political or social importance that are happening now
g a television or radio programme in which famous people answer questions asked by an
interviewer
h the title of a newspaper article printed in large letters, especially on the front page
i a device that allows you to operate a television , radio etc. from a distance
j a journalist who reports news from another country
7. Read the text below. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the lines to form
a word that fits in the gap in the same line. There is an example at the beginning (0).
John Simpson – Still doing crazy things
Everyone I know takes risks, but rarely with their lives. Why should I,
at an age when all (0) _______ sensible men and women are starting SENSE
to think seriously about their (1) _______, want to go on doing RETIRE
crazy things? Why am I still standing on foreign pavements, arguing
the toss with gunmen, (2) _______ and secret policemen? RIOT
(3) _______ not because I have to. As the head of the BBC's foreign CERTAIN
reporting, I can do more or less what I want. I have a (4) _______ PLEASE
office at Television Centre , filled with producers and correspondents
who are (5) _______ friends. I could exist perfectly well on a PERSON
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professional diet of international summitmeetings, coriferences and
(6) _______. I could stay at decent hotels, eat at reasonable hours, ELECT
plan my social life properly and never again set foot in (7) _______ DANGER
parts of the world. I could also go mad. That life ­ safe, (8) _______ PREDICT
and easy ­ would bore me to death.

III. READING AND USE OF ENGLISH


1. Dicuss these questions
a. If you wanted to catch up with the latest news, what would you do?
b. If you wanted to read literature of some kind ­ a novel , poetry or a play, what would you do?
c. If you wanted to find out the latest gossip about celebrities , what would you do?
2. Quickly read the article on page 101. How does the writer feel about the possibility that
print will disappear?
3. Now read the article again. Choose from the sentences A-G the one which fits each gap (1-
6). There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.
A This is because I can find all the news ­and information I need on the TV or the internet,
which I can stream on my smartphone.
B Until quite recently, everywhere you looked you could see books, newspapers and magazines
on sale or being read by a majority of the population.
C Even though digital media is increasing in popularity, print media still has its fans.
D For some people , it is simply more convenient than buying physical products from shops or
online.
E Many people still prefer print for the very simple reason that they can touch it and hold it.
F Like many others of my generation, I was brought up believing that the printed word was one
of the cornerstones of our civilisation.
G This is because, with fewer copies sold, the money generated from advertisements has
diminished.
Print: when will it disappear?
Print has been with us for hundreds of years and has, in that time, been such an important feature
of our everyday life. (1) _________ Now however, more and more people are predicting the
disappearance of print, with speculation mounting that this could occur sometime soon.
Personally, I find this sad and but not surprising. (2) ___________ When I was a child, my father
would always bring a newspaper home from work with him. We'd all argue about who was going
to look at it first. Mum was interested in the news, I'd want to look at the sports pages and my
sister was desperate to know what was on television that night.
Ironically, now I'm an adult, I hardly ever buy a newspaper. (3) __________ Everyone in my
family has internet access, so we can all read anything whenever we like and wherever we are.
Something similar is happening to books; although I love to read as much as ever, it's a while
since I actually bought a book or took one anywhere with me. I now take my e­reader with me
everywhere; incredibly, it can hold more books than I'll ever have time to read.
The plain fact is that, like me, fewer and fewer people are buying printed materials of any kind.
Perhaps the underlying reason for this is laziness. (4) _________ Others, however, actually seem
to prefer the digital format probably because so many books, magazines or newspapers can be
stored on a computer or a small e­reader weighing less than a thin paperback book. Traditional
print media cannot compete with this.
There are other factors to take into account, too. With sales of print in decline, commercial
companies are spending less on publicizing their businesses in newspapers and magazines.
(5)__________ Even a small drop in revenue can be a massive blow to newspaper and magazine
publishers, as this was where so much of their income traditionally came from. Many businesses
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have now moved into more profitable online advertising in digital publications as well as on
social networking sites and in online games.
However, just because the statistics show that book sales have declined, and that less money is
being made from newspaper advertisements, doesn't necessarily mean that physical publications
will disappear completely in the near future.(6)__________ It is similar in the case of recorded
music: some people still buy CDs and even vinyl records, even though music is so cheap and
convenient to download . In the end, as long as a proportion of the population continue to prefer
printed books, newspapers and magazines, print will be with us for many years to come. It just
remains to be seen for exactly how many years.
7. Discuss these questions.
a. How important are print materials in your country? Is their popularity declining?
b. Are you one of those people who 'prefer print for the very simple reason that you can touch it
and hold it'?
c. Do you think print media will ever disappear completely? If so, when do you think this will
happen? If not, why not?

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