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Билет 16. Mass Media. Cinema

Many movie and TV stories mirror the values and assump­tions to which most Americans adhere. Among them:

*admira­tion for the individual who disregards other people's opinions and does what he wants to do;

* who outwits or bests the "establishment" or the "au­thorities;"

*a faith that good will triumph over evil; glorification of people who are young and physically attractive;

*glorification of people who earn large amounts of money or who have ac­quired impressive quantities of material goods;

* a fixation on the action-filled life, as opposed to the contemplative one.

Characteristics of contemporary American life that many foreigners find objectionable are also conveyed - perhaps in an exaggerated form - through movies and television programs:

-a lack of intellectual depth;

-a larger concern for appearance than for substance;

-a fixation on sex, as manifested by the large-breasted women and hairy-chested men who populate many popular films and TV programs;

-an almost morbid interest in violence, as manifested by the large number and variety of ways in which television and motion picture performers do harm to other people;

-a fascination with "gadgets," with new tech­nological devices that enable people to do things with less effort.

The American media are driven by competition for money.

AMERICANS' VIEWS OF THEIR MEDIA. Some Americans criticize their media, especially TV, for being racist (by showing only white people as responsible, important individuals), sexist (by portraying women a "sex objects" rather than as whole human beings), violent, and inadequately concerned with realizing their potential for edu­cating the public.

*The non-commercial "public" radio and television networks at least attempt to provide in-depth analysis of current issues and "serious" entertainment programs.

*Some newspapers (for example, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Christian Science Monitor) and maga­zines provide substantive coverage and commentary on current affairs.

MISCONCEPTIONS THE MEDIA PROMOTE.One of the main misconceptions TV and movies convey abroad is that American women are nearly all readily available for sexual activity. Other misconceptions films and TV convey (again, not deliberately) include these: The United States is composed of New York City, Chicago, Disneyland, Las Vegas, Hollywood, San Francisco, and Texas (at least Dallas). Most American women are beautiful and most American men are handsome. Those who are not beautiful or handsome are criminals, deceitful people, and members of the lower class. Violent crime is an ever-present threat in all parts of the coun­try. Average Americans are rich and usually do not have to work to get money. Average Americans live in large, modern, shiny houses or apartments.

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film eraclassical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period. While the Lumiere Brothers are generally credited with the birth of modern cinema, it is indisputably American cinema that soon became the most dominant force in an emerging industry. Since the 1920s, the American film industry has grossed more money every year than that of any other country.

TV: Ninety-nine percent of American households have at least one television and the majority of households have more than one. The four major broadcasters in the U.S. are the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and Fox. Public television has a far smaller role than in most other countries. However, a number of states, including West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, and South Carolina, among others, do have state-owned public broadcasting authorities which operate and fund all public television stations in their respective states. The income received from the government is insufficient to cover expenses and stations also rely on corporate sponsorships and viewer contributions.

MAGAZINES: The U.S. has three leading weekly newsmagazinesTimeNewsweek and U.S. News and World ReportTime and Newsweek are center-left while U.S. News and World Report tends to be center-right. Time is well known for naming a "Person of the Year" each year, while U.S. News publishes annual ratings of American colleges and universities.

The U.S. also has over a dozen major political magazines.

PAPERS: The primary source of newspaper income is advertising – in the form of "classifieds" or inserted advertising circulars – rather than circulation income. However, since the late 1990s, this revenue source has been directly challenged by Web sites like eBay (for sales of secondhand items), Monster.com (jobs), and Craigslist (everything).

The largest newspapers (by circulation) in the United States are USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

Билет 17. Recreation. Sports.

SPORTS. Americans' interest in spectator sports seems excessive and even obsessive to many foreign visitors. ТВ networks spend millions of dollars arranging to telecast sports events. In the United States, professional athletes can become national heroes.

Sports are particularly associated with education in the United States, with most high schools and universities having organized sports. College sports competitions - important role in the American sporting culture. Junior and senior high schools have coaches as faculty members, and school athletic teams compete with each other in an array of sports. Each team's entourage includes a marching band and a group of cheerleaders. There is a whole indus­try built on the manufacture and sale of badges, pennants, T-shirts, blankets, hats, and countless other items bearing the totem and colors of various university athletic teams. Football and basketball coaches at major universities are paid higher salaries than the presidents of their institutions. Athletic de­partment budgets are in the millions of dollars.

****Expressions from sports are extraordinarily common in everyday American speech. Baseball is probably the source of more idiomatic expressions (examples: touch base; cover all the bases; two strikes against him) than any other sport.

+Black Americans are heavily overrepresented in the major sports of baseball, football, and basketball.

+The women's liberation movement has brought consider­able attention to women's athletics.

The major leagues, the National Football League (NFL), the Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Hockey League (NHL) enjoy massive media exposure and are considered the preeminent competitions in their respective sports in the world.

RECREATION - Many Americans jog every day, or play tennis, handball, racquetball, or bridge two or three times a week, or bowl every Thursday night, or have some other regularly scheduled recreation. They go on vacations, ski trips, and hunting or fishing expeditions that require weeks of planning and organizing. In the Ameri­cans' view, all these activities are generally fun and relaxing, or are worth the discomfort they may cause because they contrib­ute to health and physical fitness.

Much American recreation is highly organized. classes, clubs, leagues, newsletters, contests,exhibitions, and conventions centered on hundreds of different recreational ac­tivities.

In America recreation is big business. Many common rec­reational activities require supplies and equipment that can be quite costly. Recreational vehicles used for traveling and usually including provisions for sleeping, cooking, and bathing can cost as much as $35,000.

!!! the relationship between social class and certain recreational ac­tivities.For example, a relatively poor person who happens to live in the Colorado mountains may be able to afford skiing there, while an equally poor resi­dent of a plains state could not afford to get to the mountains and pay for lodging there.) In general, golf and yachting are associated with wealthier people, tennis with better-edu­cated people, and outdoor sports (camping, fishing, hunting, boating) with middle-class people. Those who bowl or square dance regularly are likely to represent the lower-middle class.

Билет 18. Family life

"Nuclear family" – mother, father, children

Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins - "relatives".For most Americans, the family is a small group of people, not an extended network. Families are changing.

  • The principal changes evi­dent in American families in the mid-1980s to the feminist movement.

  • Others say the difficult economic times are respon­sible.

Whatever the reasons, the traditional father-dominated family is becoming less common.

***Both parents work , The males have taken on household responsibilities that used to be left to females. More single-parent families. Larger numbers of teenage children are employed, and thus have a disposable income of their own. Unmarried couples living together, unmarried women having children, "blended families" that are com­posed of a man, a woman, and both of their children from previous marriages.

However, modern or liberated (from tradition) a family may be, there is likely to be at least some reflection of the tradition­al male-female role division. Traditionally, the female was re­sponsible for matters inside the house: cleaning, caring for the children, preparing meals. The male - outside the house: maintaining the family car and the yard. The children - to contribute to home maintenance."chores," such as washing dishes, vacuuming carpets, and keeping their rooms clean.

++The children are not as heavily involved in schoolwork as children in many other countries are. American public schools tend to be less demanding than those in many other countries.The children get considerable attention. Many American homes are what sociologists call "child-centered."

American teenagers have jobs. мoney for entertainment, clothes, or a car by delivering news­papers, cooking or washing dishes in a fast-food restaurant, mowing lawns, or other menial activity.

The "rebellious teenagers." Americans assume that adolescence is inherently a period of turmoil. Teenagers are expected to be self-centered, moody, and uncooperative while they seek to "find themselves" or "establish their personal identities" as individuals separate from others in the family.

In the stereotypic "average family," the children are ready to move out of the parents' house by the age of 18 - that is, when they have completed secondary school. They may "go to college" or they may seek a job.

Americans use the term "empty nest syndrome" - psychological impact on the parents, particularly the moth­er, of the last child's departure from home. is a combination of bore­dom, depression, and feeling of purposelessness that afflicts parents who no longer have their children around them on a daily basis.

Many aged parents live alone for as long as they possi­bly can before moving to a nursing home or taking up residence with one of their children. It is usually considered a difficult or awkward situation when an aged parent is living with grown children. Ideals about independence and self-sufficiency are so deeply imbued in most Americans that a situation of enforced dependency can be extremely uncomfortable for the elderly, infirm parent as well as for the children.

Билет 19. Pax Americana

Pax Americana (Latin for "American Peace") is a term applied to the historical concept of relative peace in the Western hemisphere and later the Western world resulting from the preponderance of power enjoyed by the United States starting around the turn of the 19th to 20th century. Although the term finds its primary utility in the later half of the 20th century, it has been used in various places and eras, such as the post-Civil War era in North America and globally during the time between the World Wars.

Pax Americana is primarily used in its modern connotations to refer to the peace established after the end of World War II in 1945. In this modern sense, it has come to indicate the military and economic position of the United States in relation to other nations. The term derives from and is inspired by the Pax Romana of the Roman Empire, the Pax Britannica of the British Empire and the Pax Mongolica of the Mongol Empire.

Pax literally means peace. An era of Pax [some country] exists when that country is so much more powerful than any other that declaring war on them is a futile exercise with a foregone conclusion- at least any country likely to pick a fight. We've been living in a Pax Americana since the early 1990s, and the collapse of Soviet communism and China's decision to print money, not little red books. Prior to that, the only comparable periods have been the Pax Britannica (between the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 and the rise of Imperial Germany in the early 20th century) and the original Pax Romana, mentioned above, which is the origin of the term.