Cold War Media
What technology allowed the U.S. to broadcast information across national borders before the internet?
What is shortwave radio?
According to Joseph Nye, what type of power relies on attraction rather than coercion or payment?
What is soft power?
What term does Appadurai use for the global movement of media, images, and representations across borders?
What is a mediascape?
According to the constructionist approach, are media representations simply a neutral reflection of reality?
What is No?
They are constructed, selected, and curated.
Name one major form of media that has transformed global information flows in the 21st century.
What is the internet or social media?
During the Cold War, the U.S. and Soviet Union competed for the “hearts and ____” of audiences around the world.
What are minds?
What are the three major resources Nye identifies as sources of soft power?
What are culture, political values, and foreign policies?
What is global imagination?
The way people collectively understand and imagine the world beyond their immediate surroundings
What is the term for the unequal dominance of powerful countries' media industries over smaller countries' media?
What is media imperialism?
What is the difference between misinformation and disinformation?
Misinformation is false information, while disinformation involves intentional manipulation or restriction of information.
What U.S. broadcaster is an example of an official broadcaster, where the government openly speaks in its own voice to foreign audiences?
What is Voice of America (VOA)?
A country broadcasts its music, films, and culture internationally to make foreign audiences more attracted to that country. What concept does this illustrate?
What is soft power?
True or False: Globalization only involves the movement of goods and money.
What is False?
Globalization also involves the movement of ideas, images, culture, and media.
If information can freely cross borders but one country has far more resources to produce and distribute media than another, what does this demonstrate?
What is unequal media power?
During the Cold War, international broadcasting was largely organized around states communicating with audiences. Today, name two types of actors that also shape global information.
Private companies, social media platforms, news organizations, or individuals
Radio Free Dixie used jazz, blues, and messages about racial justice. What did its broadcasts expose about the United States?
What is racial inequality and injustice within the U.S.?
According to the course, why can a country's political values fail to create soft power even if the country promotes them internationally?
When the country's behavior does not match its stated values
Why might audiences prefer media from their own country or region instead of automatically choosing American media?
What is cultural proximity?
A news organization chooses which images, voices, and facts to include in a story. What concept explains that media representations are shaped through these choices?
What is the constructionist approach to media?
In today's information environment, why has credibility become especially important?
Because audiences face an enormous amount of competing information, making it difficult to determine what to trust.
Radio Free Dixie was treated as a threat by multiple actors. Name two groups or countries that monitored, jammed, or censored it.
What are the CIA, FBI, and Cuba?
The U.S. creates international media that highlights American democratic values in order to influence how foreign audiences view the U.S. Is this hard power or soft power, and why?
Soft power, because it attempts to influence through attraction and ideas rather than coercion or payment
Complete the course's “one-way flow” question: Who gets to ______ the world, and who receives someone else's ______?
What is “imagine” and “imagining”?
Scenario: A country allows foreign media to enter freely, but its own media industry is too small to compete with huge foreign corporations. Does “free flow” necessarily mean equal influence?
What is No?
Information can flow freely while media power remains unequal.
Our presentation argues that the U.S. has maintained the principle of the free flow of information, but what has fundamentally changed?
The global media environment, including the technologies, actors, and ways information is produced, distributed, and consumed.