A(n) ______ program is a social program whose beneficiaries qualify by demonstrating need.
means-tested
A federal program that guarantees benefits to qualified recipients is a(n) ______ program.
entitlement
U.S. public opinion polls on the American health care system show that a majority of people
are dissatisfied with the quality of health care.
The federal government's insurance program for the elderly and disabled is called
Medicare
Fiscal policy refers to
the government's use of taxing and spending powers to regulate the economy.
The income level below which a family is considered to be poor is the
poverty threshold.
People don't usually think of subsidies for homeowners as a social welfare policy because
they generally think of social welfare policies as helping only the poor, when it reality it can also help the middle class.
An example of a distributive policy is
farm subsidies.
Public policy can be defined as a(n)
government plan of action to solve a social problem that people share collectively or that they cannot solve on their own.
The use of interest rates to control the money supply in order to regulate the economy is known as ______ policy.
monetary
Crisis policy, strategic policy, and structural defense policy are
the three major types of foreign policy.
Social insurance programs refer to
government programs that offers benefits in exchange for contributions.
Foreign policy that lays out a country's basic stance toward another country or a particular problem is
strategic policy.
According to the text, distributive policies are popular because
their costs are not noticed because they are spread among all taxpayers, but their benefits go to a specific group who knows they are benefitting.
The Cold War policy of the United States seeking to prevent the spread of communism is known as
containment.
The Cold War refers to
the half-century of tension between the Soviet Union and the United States following World War II.
The president's inner circle of foreign policy advisers that includes such people as the secretaries of state and defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the
National Security Council.
The State Department is the executive department charged with managing
foreign affairs.
A major weakness of monetary policy as a way to affect the economy is that
it is hard to control because small changes can have large effects.
Concerning declarations of war,
the War Powers Act states who has the power to declare war in certain situations.
Government agencies have their largest role in policy
implementation.
Most social welfare policies are
redistributive policies.
Critics of President Bush's proposal to create private Social Security accounts argue that such accounts would
potentially end Social Security as a guarantor of a secure retirement.
The Great Depression had a significant impact on American public policy because
for the first time people began to view poverty as a problem requiring government action and expected the government to do something about it.
The relationship between the president and Congress in foreign policy has become a struggle because
both have constitutional powers in this area.
While the web provides people with enormous amounts of information,
it is difficult to sort and evaluate the available information.
One advantage of the Internet is that
it is interactive to a degree that far surpasses talk radio or television.
The tendency of public officials, journalists, and lobbyists to move between public and private sector jobs is known as
the revolving door.
When the media bring a news issue to the public's attention, thereby telling the public that this issue is important, the media engage in
agenda setting.
One of the problems in selecting the Internet as an alternative to the mainstream corporate media is that
it takes time and effort to find out which sources are accurate and trustworthy.
Yellow journalism refers to
the effort to lure audiences by reporting on sensational topics.
The tendency of the media to make coverage and programming decisions based on what will attract a large audience and maximize profits is known as
commercial bias.
The Federal Communications Act was passed because
government regulation was needed to manage competition for scarce airwaves.
The impact of the deregulation of broadcast journalism by the 1996 Telecommunications Act has been to
increase the possibilities for media monopoly.
The ______ required that stations give free airtime to issues that concerned the public and to opposing sides when controversial issues were covered.
fairness doctrine
News magazines like Time or Newsweek can offer more comprehensive news coverage than newspapers because they
do not have to meet a daily deadline.
According to the text, covering which of the following would be an example of commercial bias?
The Michael Jackson trial
______ is the power to determine which news stories are covered and which are not.
Gatekeeping
The most basic consequence of the concentrated corporate ownership of the news is
commercial bias.
Today, a majority of Americans believe that the media
are biased.
Most of the news that Americans read on a daily basis comes from only a few sources because most newspapers
subscribe to one of the major wire services.
In engaging in agenda setting, priming, and framing, the news media are
telling the public what to think about.
Excessive press coverage of an embarrassing or scandalous subject is called
feeding frenzy.
According to some scholars, broadcast news has
led to a reduction in political accountability.
The current trend for "everyday citizens" to report on news items and then communicate their stories to the public through blogs or social media sites is called ______ journalism.
citizen
The invention of the radio was important for politics, because
politicians could now speak directly to the public without having their ideas filtered through the media.
What was the impact on newspapers of larger circulations and increased revenue from advertising?
An end to the partisan press
______ is an example of infotainment.
Showing a police chase
The corporate nature of the American media has caused
advertisers to dictate the content of the news.
A presidential speechwriter who then took a job as a syndicated columnist and later returned as a domestic policy advisor to a member of Congress would illustrate
the revolving door.