The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America Short Question Test Answer Key

Short Answer Key

Chapter 1 - Introduction - Section III

1. What term refers to an activity that exists for the sole purpose of the media publicity and serves little to no other function in real life?

Pseudo-event.

2. How many main "extravagant expectations" does Boorstin posit Americans hold?

2.

3. What is the first of the "extravagant expectations" held by Americans, according to Boorstin?

There is always more that the world can provide.

4. What is the second of the "extravagant expectations" held by Americans, according to Boorstin?

We have unlimited power to fashion the world to our desires.

5. What term is used in semiotics and postmodern philosophy to describe a hypothetical inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy?

Hyper-reality.

6. What refers to a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the rejection of objective truth and global cultural narrative or meta-narrative?

Post-modernism.

7. Boorstin writes that the...
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