Vocaвulary exercises:

2. Choose the meaning that best matches the way the word is used in the context of the article.

14. prominently

А. well known

В. openly

С. hidden

D. exact

15. accurate

А. correct

В. exact

С. proper

D. ironic

16. novel

А. book

В. same

C. unusual

D. vague

17. criteria

А. rules

В. impact

C. judgment

D. accurate

18. bias

А. against

В. preference

C. merit

D. limit

C. Study the information on the forms of the noun MEDIA, the combinations it is usually found in and the examples that follow:

The word MEDIA is most often used to refer to the communication of news, and in this context it is synonymous with the combination NEWS MEDIA. The media include PRINT MEDIA (newspapers and magazines) and ELECTRONIC MEDIA (radio and television). The noun MEDIA can be used in the singular or in the plural.

It is difficult for the media to cover the growing number of crises throughout the world.

The media are a powerful industry. This power can be used destructively or constructively.

The documentary should be required study for all students of mass-media communications, because it illustrates to perfection the way in which illustrations of man’s inhumanity to man can mislead public opinion.

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.

Belief systems and older cultures expire under a weight of more or less trivial information conveyed by an all-pervasive(вездесущими) electronic media.

The word MEDIA is often found in the following combinations:

1. MEDIA ATTENTION/EXPOSURE/COVERAGE is what the media give or show if they observe, analyze, and report something.

2. MEDIA EMPIRE refers to a huge media organization, perhaps one containing newspapers and TV channels.

3. MEDIA HYPE refers to excitement generated by the media not justified by reality.

4. MEDIA CAMPAIGN refers to a period of coverage in different media in order to change people’s opinions about something or someone.

5. MEDIA CIRCUS describes a news event where the media coverage is perceived to be out of proportion to the event being covered, such as the number of reporters at the scene, the amount of news media published or broadcast, and the level of media hype.

D. Give the translation of these word combinations. Use them to complete the gaps in the sentences below:

1. The trial of Bruno Hauptmann for the 1932 kidnapping of aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby attracted ……………………… unlike any seen before.

2. Lord Mandelson declared war on News Corporation today when he accused the …….……………… of maintaining an "iron grip" on pay television.

3. The Canadian Media has created a massive amount of ………………………… around the sporting events of the Vancouver Olympics.

4. Like any public relations or marketing campaign, ……………………….. require a commitment.

5. That truly was a ……………………….. - The Sun even hired a double-decker bus with clowns to proclaim the fact.

6. This section looks at the .................................. of the Iraq war and occupation, especially how the big US-based media companies fed the public sensational, pro-war news reports.

E. Study the information on the forms of the noun CRITERION and the examples that follow:

CRITERION means something set up as an example against which others of the same type are compared. Like some other nouns borrowed from the Greek, criterion has both a Greek plural, criteria, and a plural formed on the English pattern, criterions. The plural in -a occurs with far greater frequency than does the -s plural. Although criteria is sometimes used as a singular (now for over half a century), most often in speech and rather infrequently in edited prose, it continues strongly in use as a plural in standard English, with criterion as the singular.

One important criterion for grading these essays will be their conformity to proper grammar.

These are the criteria for the selection of candidates.

This criterion is not valid, I’m afraid.

What are the criteria to select insurance companies?

F. Complete the following sentences using either the singular or the plural form of CRITERION:

1. What, then, is the criterion of metaphysical truth?

2. Any content that does not meet this success criterion can interfere with a user's ability to use the whole page.

3. Standards for university training in psychology serve as criteria for evaluating doctoral training programs are briefly summarized under the following major headings.

4. This situation requires a criterion to distinguish them effectively.

5. Criteria are one of the most fundamental elements of making a high quality decision.  Simply put, criteria are the way that you define success for a specific decision.  There are many synonyms for criteria: factors, measures of effectiveness, attributes, characteristics, goals, objectives, requirements, desires, constraints, musts, wants, needs, etc. criteria help us avoid the tendency to latch onto a favorite alternative, become enamored with it (because it was our idea and we are brilliant) and lose sight of its weaknesses, while also overlooking other more creative or effective alternatives. 

6. Each alternative performs (based on our estimates, experience or inputs from others) differently against each criterion. 

G. Study the information on the forms of the word IMPACT and the examples that follow:

IMPACT can be used as a noun (with the stress on the first syllable) meaning ‘influence or effect’:

The impact of Einstein on modern physics is unquestionable.

Usually it is part of the structure ‘to have an impact on’:

Global warming will have a severe impact on Arab states.

Do oil prices have an impact on financial markets?

IMPACT can also be used as a verb (with the stress on the second syllable) with or without a preposition:

The decision may impact your whole career.

The car industry will be impacted by the new labor agreements.

Increased demand will impact on sales

The use of IMPACT as a verb meaning ‘to have an effect’ can still be considered incorrect, but it cannot be because of novelty as it has been used as a verb since 1601, when it meant ‘to fix or pack in,’ and its modern, figurative use dates from 1935. It may be that its frequent appearance in the jargon-riddled remarks of politicians, military officials, and financial analysts continues to make people suspicious. Nevertheless, the verbal use of IMPACT has become so common in the working language of corporations and institutions that many speakers have begun to regard it as standard. It seems likely, then, that the verb will eventually become unobjectionable.

H. Translate the following sentences into English using IMPACT either as a verb or as a noun:

1. Семьи оказывают непосредственное влияние на социальные модели поведения.

2. Чтобы объяснить, как музыка воздействует на человека, необходимо исследовать механизмы восприятия звука.

3. Современные СМИ открыли новые способы воздействия на аудиторию.

4. Авторы дают краткий исторический обзор темы, анализируют феномен воздействия СМИ на целевую аудиторию.

5. Проблемой воздействия цвета на мозг человека занимались и занимаются многие ученые.

6. Почему общество не может эффективно воздействовать на власть?

7. Решение Центробанка оказало серьезное воздействие на коммерческие банки  процентные ставки по кредитам начали снижаться.

UNIT 2: THE PRESS

National Daily and Sunday Papers

In a democratic country like Great Britain the press, ideally, has three political functions: information, discussion and representation. It is supposed to give the voter reliable and complete information to base his judgement. It should let him know the arguments for and against any policy, and it should reflect and give voice to the desires of the people as a whole.

Naturally, there is no censorship in Great Britain, but in 1953 the Press Council was set up. It is not an official body but it is composed of the people nominated by journalists, and it receives complaints against particular newspapers. It may make reports, which criticise papers, but they have no direct effects. The British press means, primarily, a group of daily and Sunday newspapers published in London. They are most important and known as national in the sense of circulating throughout the British Isles. All the national newspapers have their central offices in London, but those with big circulations also print editions in Manchester (the second largest press center in Britain) and Glasgow in Scotland.

Probably in no other country there are such great differences between the various national daily newspapers - in the type of news they report and the way they report it.

All the newspapers whether daily or Sunday, totalling about twenty, can be divided into two groups: quality papers and popular papers. Quality papers include The Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Financial Times, The Observer, The Sunday Times and The Sunday Telegraph. Very thoroughly they report national and international news.

In addition to the daily and Sunday papers, there is an enormous number of weeklies, some devoted to specialised and professional subjects, others of more general interest. Three of them are of special importance and enjoy a large and influential readership. They are: The Spectator (which is non-party but with Conservative views), The New Statesman (a radical journal, inclining towards the left wing of the Labour Party) and the largest and most influential - The Economist (politically independent). These periodicals resemble one another in subject matter and layout. They contain articles on national and international affairs, current events, the arts, letters to the Editor, extensive book reviews. Their publications often exert a great influence on politics.

The distinction between the quality and the popular papers is one primarily of educational level. Quality papers are those newspapers which are intended for the well educated. All the rest are generally called popular newspapers. The most important of them are The News of the World, The Sun, the Daily Mirror, the Daily Express.

The two archetypal popular papers, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express were both built by individual tycoons in the early 20th century. Both had a feeling for the taste of a newly-literate public: if a man bites a dog, that's the news. The Daily Express was built up by a man born in Canada. He became a great man in the land, a close friend and associate of Winston Churchill, and a powerful minister in his War Cabinet. The circulation of the Daily Express at one time exceeded four million copies a day. Now the first Lord Beaverbrook is dead, and the daily sales are not much more than half of their highest figure. The history of the Daily Mail, with its conventional conservatism, is not greatly different.

The popular newspapers tend to make news sensational. These papers concentrate on more emotive reporting of stories often featuring the Royal Family, film and pop stars, and sport. They publish "personal" articles which shock and excite. Instead of printing factual news reports, these papers write them up in an exciting way, easy to read, playing on people's emotions. They avoid serious political and social questions or treat them superficially. Trivial events are treated as the most interesting and important happenings. Crime is always given far more space than creative, productive or cultural achievements. Much of their information concerns the private lives of people who are in the news. The popular newspapers are very similar to one another in appearance and general arrangement, with big headlines and the main news on the front page. This press is much more popular than the quality press.

In some countries, newspapers are owned by government or by political parties. This is not the case in Britain. Newspapers here are mostly owned by individuals or by publishing companies, and the editors of the papers are usually allowed considerate freedom of expression. This is not to say that newspapers are without political bias. Papers like the Daily Telegraph or The Sun, for example, usually reflect Conservative opinions in their comment and reporting, while the Daily Mirror and The Guardian have a more left-wing bias. In addition to the 12 national daily newspapers there are nine national papers which published on Sundays. The "quality" Sunday papers devote large sections to literature and the arts. They have colour supplements and are in many ways more like magazines than newspapers. They supply quite different world of taste and interest from the "popular" papers. Most of the "Sundays" contain more reading matter than daily papers, and several of them also include "colour-supplements" - separate colour magazines which contain photographically-illustrated feature articles. Reading a Sunday paper, like having a big Sunday lunch, is an important tradition in many British households.

The Weekly, Periodical and Daily Press

Good English writing is often to be found in the weekly political and literary journals, all based in London, all with nationwide circulations in the tens of thousands. The Economist, founded in 1841, probably has no equal everywhere. It has a coloured cover and a few photographs inside, so that it look like Time or Newsweek, but its reports have more depth and breadth than any these. It covers world affair, and even its American section is more informative about America than its American equivalents. Although by no means "popular", it is vigorous in its comments, and deserves the respect in which it is generally held. The Spectator is a weekly journal of opinion. It regularly contains well-written articles, often politically slanted. It devotes nearly half its space to literature and the arts.

Glossy weekly or monthly illustrated magazines cater either for women or for any of a thousand special interests. Almost all are based in London, with national circulations, and the women's magazines sell millions of copies. These, along with commercial television, are the great educators of demand for the new and better goods offered by the modern consumer society. In any big newsagent's shop the long rows of brightly covered magazines seem to go on for ever; beyond the large variety of appeals to women and teenage girls come those concerned with yachting, tennis, model railways, gardening and cars. For every activity there is a magazine, supported mainly by its advertisers, and from time to time the police bring a pile of pornographic magazines to local magistrates, who have the difficult task of deciding whether they are sufficiently offensive to be banned.

These specialist magazines are not cheap. They live on an infinite variety of taste, curiosity and interest. Their production, week by week and month by month, represents a fabulous amount of effort and of felled trees. Television has not killed the desire to read.

The best-known among the British national weekly newspapers are as follows.

The Times (1785) is called the paper of the Establishment. The Times has three weekly supplements, all appeared and sold separately. The Literary Supplement is devoted almost entirely to book reviews, and covers all kinds of new literature. It makes good use of academic contributors, and has at last, unlike The Economist, abandoned its old tradition of anonymous reviews. New Scientist published by the company which owns the Daily Mirror, has good and serious articles about scientific research, often written by academics yet useful for the general reader. This paper is most famous of all British newspapers. Politically it is independent, but is generally inclined to be sympathetic to the Conservative Party. It is not a government organ, though very often its leading articles may be written after private consultation with people in the Government. It has a reputation for extreme caution, though it has always been a symbol of solidity in Britain. Its reporting is noted for reliability and completeness and especially in foreign affairs. Its reputation for reflecting or even anticipating government policy gives it an almost official tone. The popular newspapers are now commonly called "tabloids". This word first used for pharmaceutical substances compressed into pills. The tabloid newspapers compress the news, and are printed on small sheets of paper. They use enormous headlines for the leading items of each day, which are one day political, one day are to do with a crime, one day sport, one day some odd happening. They have their pages of political report and comment, short, often over-simplified but vigorously written and (nowadays) generally responsible. They thrive on sensational stories and excitement.