2. Make up 10 questions to the text.

3. Give Russian equivalents to the following phrases.

press agent;

information flow;

to depart from sth;

commercial break;

to tune in to sth;

to be of vital importance;

to have a surveillance instinct;

bizarre and morbid crime;

pervasive psychological factor;

to shape the selection and framing of news;

4. Translate sentences into English, using words and word combinations from the text.

Источниками информации для программ новостей могут служить общественные организации, частные компании, политические деятели, полиция.

В газетах печатают то, что заставляет людей их покупать.

Создание программы новостей проходит несколько этапов.

У журналистов есть определенные этические принципы о честности и искренности.

Среднестатистический телезритель уделяет больше внимания истории о вопиющем преступлении, чем информации о высоком уровне несчастных случаев.

5. “Mass media have to publish whatever makes people buy their newspapers, listen to their radio programs, or tune in to their TV shows and stay tuned through the commercial breaks”. What do think of this statement? Do you agree with it? Why/Why not? (Write about 300-400 words).

IV ВАРІАНТ

1. Read and translate the following text. Broadcasting in Europe

The mass media in Europe are presently going through profound transformation, with their technology, economic basis, political and legal framework, rapidly altering in a brief time-span. There is evidence of discontent on the side of politicians, investors, media professionals and civil society with some features of this ongoing transformation. Television, in particular, is a strong agent of social change, yet broadcasting systems in Europe apparently dissatisfy stakeholders for various, sometimes opposing, reasons.

In Western Europe, for instance, the future of public service broadcasting is questioned on the grounds of its expensiveness, while commercial broadcasting has come under critical scrutiny for its often low-quality programming. Recent political developments in Spain and, particularly, in Italy caused concern about the real extent of autonomy of public service broadcasters.

In most of the post-communist European nations, the reform of the State-owned broadcasting ‘‘mammoths’’ has failed, while low-quality programming-based commercial television has boomed at a fast pace. In the CEE countries, the regulation of both public and private broadcasting is harmed by direct government interference in broadcasting activities, and the politicization of broadcasting regulators. The ‘‘public service’’ nature of public broadcasting is undermined by political bias in program content and other types of indirect influence, such as personnel policy and funding restrictions.

These problems appear to be widespread and raise serious concerns about the ability of the dominant broadcasting media (television) to play any watchdog role effectively. In 2002, EUMAP published reports on Corruption and Anti-corruption Policy, which covered the ten CEE countries. Among the findings of these country reports was that a failure to guarantee media independence, in particular for public broadcasting, is one of the key of corruption. In addition, the reports highlighted a general absence of international standards or regulations that could be used to advocate reforms directed at guaranteeing independent and objective broadcasting media.

Following the findings of these reports, EUMAP has commenced monitoring on a new subject: TV across Europe: regulation, policy and independence. The main objective of this monitoring is to assess the regulations and policies established to secure the independence of TV across Europe, and ensure that it is able to play its role as an essential pillar of functioning democracies.

Television, in particular, is usually regarded as the most widely received and most influential medium and therefore the most important in terms of its impact on political processes. The monitoring will therefore focus mainly on television, as the dominant mass medium, although some aspects of public radio broadcasting will also be included.