Hometask_1

News and entertainment are communicated in a number of different ways, using different media. The media/the mass media are all the people and organizations that provide information for the public, including television, radio, and the newspapers. The media include print media such as newspapers and magazines, and electronic media such as radio and television.

The word media is most often used to refer to the communication of news, and in this context means the same as news media.

• LANGUAGE NOTE

Media can be singular (Am.) or plural (Br.). The singular of media is medium.

Mass media is also spelt with a hyphen.

Exercise 1 Read the text and translate it into Russian in writing.

THE MASS MEDIA AND PUBLIC OPINION

1. The press, radio, television, and, in recent years, the Internet have come to be called mass media. They can be less important than the immediate social environment when it comes to the formation of attitudes, but they are still significant. They focus the attention on certain personalities and issues, and many people subsequently form opinions about these issues. Govern­ment officials have noted that their mail from the public tends to "follow the headlines"; whatever is featured in the press at a particular moment is likely to be the subject that most people write about.

2. The mass media can also activate and reinforce latent attitudes. Political attitudes, for example, are likely to be activated kid reinforced just before an election. Voters who may have only I mild preference for one party or candidate before the election campaign starts are often worked up by the mass media to a point where they not only take the trouble to vote but may contribute money or help a party organization in some other way.

3. The mass media play another extremely important role in letting individuals know what other people think and in giving leaders large audiences. In this way they make it possible for public opinion to include a large number of individuals and to spread over wider geographic areas. It appears in fact that in some European countries the growth of broadcasting, and especially television, has affected the operation of the parliamentary system. Before television, national elections were seen largely as contests between a number of candidates or parties for parliamentary seats.

4. More recently, elections in such countries as Germany and Great Britain have appeared more as a personal struggle between the leaders of the principal parties concerned, since these leaders were featured on television and came to personify their parties. Television in France and the United States has been regarded as a powerful force strengthening the presidential system, since the president can easily appeal to a national audience over the heads of elected legislative representatives.

5. Even when the mass media are thinly spread, as in developing countries or in nations where the media are strictly controlled, word of mouth can sometimes perform the same functions as the press and broadcasting, although on a more limited scale.

6. Pressure groups, or interest groups, play an important purl in the formation and spread of public opinion on issues of relevance to themselves. These groups may be concerned with political, economic, or ideological issues and often work through the mass media in trying to influence attitudes. Some of the larger or more affluent interest groups in the United States, Western Europe, and elsewhere make extensive use of mass mediated advertising and public relations to influence opinion. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, for example, hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent in the United States on advertising by opponents and proponents of U.S. policy in Southeast Asia, and lesser amounts were devoted to interest group advertising on other public issues, In Britain, much advertising space was purchased by opponent» of Britain's proposed entry into the Common Market.

7. Through the mass media opinion, leaders play a major role in defining important issues and in influencing individual opinions regarding them. Political leaders, in particular, can turn a hitherto relatively unknown problem into a national issue if they decide to call attention to it. One of the ways in which opinion leaders rally opinion and smooth out the differences among those who are in basic agreement on a subject is by coining or popularizing symbols or slogans: the Allies in World War I were fighting "a war to end all wars". Slogans are perhaps among the most useful tool* that are available to the political leader. Once enunciated, symbol! and slogans are frequently kept alive and communicated to large audiences by the mass media and may become the cornerstone of public opinion on any given issue.

("Encyclopedia Britannica")

Exercise 2 Find the English equivalents for the following word combination! and phrases and use them in situations from the text.

когда дело доходит до; ставить в центр внимания; сформировать мнение о; государственные чиновники; небольшое предпочтение; предвыборная кампания; взять на себя труд сделать что-либо; предоставить большую аудиторию; охватывать обширные географические регионы; радио- и телевещание; борьба за места в парламенте; выполнять те же функции; в меньшем объеме; сторонники политики; предполагаемое вступление в Общий рынок; обратить всеобщее внимание на; сгладить противоречия; в целом придерживаться единого мнения по какому-либо вопросу; прием, имеющийся в арсенале политика; провозгласить лозунг.

Exercise 3 Explain the meaning of the following word combinations and phrases:

immediate social environment; the formation of attitudes; to be featured in the press; to reinforce latent attitudes; to be worked tip by the mass media to a point where; they came to personify their parties; to appeal to a national audience; to be thinly spread; issues of relevance to smb; be concerned with ideological issues; more affluent; of mass mediated advertising and public relations; to turn a hitherto relatively unknown problem into a national issue; to rally opinion; to coin symbols or slogans; the cornerstone of public opinion.

Exercise 4 Study and translate into Russian or into English the following examples, using a dictionary if necessary.

1. Much of what children learn comes directly from the mass media.

2. Средства массовой информации уделили этому фильму огромное внимание.

3. There can be little doubt that in this country the media is very biased.

4. Средствам массовой информации трудно освещать все возрастающее число кризисов по всему миру.

5. You in the media are all part of a powerful industry. That power can be used destructively or constructively.

6. Рекламодатели могут установить безличность контакт с потребителями посредством печатных СМИ и телевидения.

7. For the book’s main character, withdrawal is the only means of escape from the crowd, from groupthink, from the mass media.

8. Все студенты, которые обучаются по программе «Массовые коммуникации» должны в обязательном порядке посмотреть этот документальный фильм, т.к. он наилучшим образом показывает то, как демонстрация жестокости человека к человеку может неправильно сформировать общественное мнение.

9. The White House has announced that they normally will not let any member of the news media report on what is going to be in the speech until the president actually delivers it.

10. Система общественных взглядов и другие сферы культурной деятельности человека терпят крах под давлением более или менее банальной информации, которую передают электронные СМИ

Exercise 5 a) Study the following sentences and translate the words in bold.

1) After waiting weeks for a day when it would get maximum media exposure, the Labour Party launched its new policies for industry on February 25^th – just as the Gulf War got going.

2) The trial of Bruno Hauptmann for the 1932 kidnapping of aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby attracted media attention unlike any seen before.

3) The government has been particularly annoyed at the involvement of the French state in what they are calling a hostile media campaign.

4) Black had set his heart on the “News”, which he saw as a key part of his plan to build a worldwide media empire.

5) The thought of a quiet ceremony and a small dinner party to follow is becoming more attractive to stars as they watch publicized marriages like Elizabeth’s Taylor’s being transformed into a media circus.

6) The director of the campaign for the homeless said yesterday’s government announcement is no substitute for a proper national housing policy. “We were quite upset about the amount of attention this announcement was given, and the amount of media hype that went on around it. Actually there was no new money and it was not a new initiative”.

7) Those people ought to be our priority. I don’t think they would be best pleased to hear this domestic squabble about the leadership of the Conservative Party being hyped up by the media at this sort of time.

8) Reporters were kept away from the group when they arrived form Nairobi amid fears that any media coverage of the event might compromise their safety.

b) Complete the tasks by combining the word “media” with the other words in the box below the numbered questions

1) Find three expressions referring to what the media give or show if they talk about something.

2) Find one expression for a very big media organization, perhaps one containing newspapers or TV stations.

3) Find one expression meaning excitement generated by the media not justified by reality.

4) Find one expression meaning a period of coverage in different media organized to change peoples’ opinions about something or someone.

5) Find one expression showing disapproval describing an event dominated by the presence of the media.

exposure coverage attention hype MEDIA campaign circus empire

• LANGUAGE NOTE

The verbs corresponding to the noun hype are hype or hype up.

Events can be hyped or hyped up by the media.

Exercise 6 Make combinations with “media” from the box below and use them to complete the extracts. (In extract c, it’s not possible to find the exact word.)

a) Find one expression meaning an expert on using the media.

b) Find one expression for an expert on the media as a business.

c) Find one expression meaning someone who gives their opinions using the media.

d) Find one expression for someone who reports on the media in the media.

e) Find three expressions for the head of a media organization.

correspondent analyst guru MEDIA pundit magnate (=mogul, tycoon)

1. Estimated by Browen Maddox, media ___________________ at Kleinwort Benson Securities are that the company will lose more than $ 330 million this year.

2. But it is not the economists and media _________________ who matter. The people who have been driven to fury by the finance minister are those who have lost their livelihoods.

3. … another satellite network, Sky Television, owned by the media ________________ Mr Rupert Murdoch.

4. The Palace had claimed that Fergie had hired media ___________________ Sir Tim Bell to handle publicity on her behalf.

5. For the past three years he had been chairman of Thames Television and had been due to retire shortly because of his ill-health. Our media __________________, Torin Douglas, looks back at his career.