Education, books and the media

Education
Biro/ballpoint pen Overhead projector Apprentice
Blackboard Sharpener Caretaker
Bookcase Protractor Expert
Calculator Rubber Governor
Calendar Shelf Graduate
Cupboard Textbook Head teacher
Desk Timetable Lecturer
Duster Wall chart Principal
Globe Undergraduate Scholar
Glue Vice-chancellor Staff
Praise Attend Tutor
Punish Behave Fail
Revise Enroll Pass
Sit/take an exam Specialize Play truant
Test Study Scholarship
Assignment Detention Seminar
Compulsory Lecture Staff-room
Course Mark Subjects
Deputy head Register Terms
vacation tutorial

Books/Types of books
Anthology Directory Paperback
Atlas Encyclopedia Poetry book
Autobiography Fiction Reference book
Bestseller Guidebook Romantic novel
Biography Hardback Science fiction novel
Book of fairy tales Manual Textbook
Cookery book Memoirs Thriller
dictionary Non-fiction whodonit
Parts of a book
Acknowledgements Contents Illustrations
Appendix Cover Index
Bibliography Footnote Jacket
Blurb Foreword Preface
Chapter glossary title

The media: Television/Types of programme

Chat show Educational programme Play
Children’s programme Food programme Quiz show
Comedy series (sitcom) Music programme Soap opera
Detective series Nature programme Sports programme
Documentary News and current affairs Travel programme
Drama series programme TV film
Viewer To give an interview Pressing problems
Live broadcast To host a program Hot spots
Blog Column Interviews
blogosphere High-tech politics Podcasts
website
The media: Newspapers
Advertisements/ad Comic strip Journalist
Article Crossword Letters page
Caption Editor Obituary
Correspondent Editorial Popular papers
Circulation Feature Quality papers
Classified advertisements Gossip column Reporter
Colour supplement Headline Review
Column Horoscope Sports page
Weather forecast Front page Tabloid
Coverage Issue News agency
Breaking news publicity Deadline
Broadcasting daily Defamation
Yellow press

The media: Films

Thrillers Adventure Historical
Musical Terror/horror Western
Comedy Drama War
Science fiction

Текст 1

MASS MEDIA

The mass media play an important part in our lives. Newspapers, radio and especially
TV inform us of what is going on in this world and give us wonderful possibilities for
education and entertainment. They also influence the way we see the world and shape
our views.
Of course, not all newspapers and TV programmes report the events objectively, but
serious journalists and TV reporters try to be fair and provide us with reliable
information.
It is true that the world today is full of dramatic events and most news seems to be bad
news. But people aren't interested in ordinary events. That is why there are so many
programmes and articles about natural disasters, plane crashes, wars, murders and
robberies. Good news doesn't usually make headlines. Bad news does.
Some people say that journalists are given too much freedom. They often intrude on
people's private lives. They follow celebrities and print sensational stories about them
which are untrue or half-true. They take photos of them in their most intimate moments.
The question is — should this be allowed?

The main source of news for millions of people is television. People like TV news
because they can see everything with their own eyes. And that's an important
advantage. Seeing, as we know, believes. Besides, it's much more difficult for
politicians to lie in front of the cameras than on the pages of newspapers.
Still, many people prefer the radio. It's good to listen to in the car, or in the open air, or
when you do something about the house.
Newspapers don't react to events as quickly as TV, but they usually provide us with
extra detail, comment and background information.
The Internet has recently become another important source of information. Its main
advantage is that news appears on the screen as soon as things happen in real life and
you don't have to wait for news time on TV.

Questions:

1. Do the media play an important part in your life?

2. Do you think that the media influence our life?

3. Millions of people get most of their news from television. What about you?

4. Do you read newspapers?

1. When do you usually listen to the radio?

5. Do you agree that most news we get from the media is bad news?

6. Do you think it would be nice if all news printed in newspapers and shown on TV
was good news?

8. Do you think that journalists are given too much freedom?

8. If people have died in a plane crash, should their bodies be shown on TV?

10. How do paparazzi earn their living?

11. Are you interested in politics? Don't you think that some politicians use the media
to influence their voters?

12. What is the main advantage of the Internet?

Текст 2 Newspapers
Newspapers are especially important nowadays and we can’t imagine our life without
them. There are dozens of them on every news-stand. There are newspapers for
professionals, for businessmen, for children and teenagers, for men and women, for
sports fans, for those who are interested in gardening, fishing, hunting, for those who
keep pets and so on. Some newspapers publish serious articles on politics, economy
and finance, some aim to entertain their readers. Many newspapers express certain
political opinion and people choose them according to their own political beliefs. In
short, you can always find a paper which suits your interests. The advantage of all the
newspapers is that they usually provide us with extra detail, comment and background
information. But it is bad that very often newspapers are full of dramatic events about
natural disasters, plane crashes, murders and robberies. Having read such articles, you
feel depressed and it seems that the world is being ruined. One more disadvantage is
that newspapers are full of gossip about different celebrities and their private lives.
There are also a lot of photos of them in their most intimate moments. I think it shouldn’t
be allowed, besides half of this information is unreliable.
It is impossible to imagine our life without newspapers. Millions of copies of them
appear every day. Many people subscribe to two or more newspapers; others buy
newspapers at the newsstands.
There are national daily newspapers, such as the "Izvestiya", and the "Komsomolskaya
Pravda". There are also national weekly newspapers, such as the "Argumenty i Fakty"
and the "Nedelya". Most national newspapers express a political opinion, and people
choose them according to their political beliefs. Most newspapers contain news,
detailed articles on home and international affairs, reviews of books, art and TV shows.
Many of them also cover sports events.
In the USA daily newspapers are published in 34 different languages. The daily
newspapers are of two kinds: quality and popular. A quality paper is a serious
newspaper, which publishes articles and commentaries on politics. A popular paper
contains many photographs; its articles are often sensational and mostly deal with
private life of famous people.
"The Wall Street Journal" is a quality paper. It is a business newspaper with the largest
circulation in the country. There are also newspapers in the USA, which are famous all
over the world for their quality. "The New York Times" is "the world's top daily".

Текст 3 The Press National Daily and Sunday Papers

In a democratic country like Great Britain the press, ideally, has three political functions:
information, discussion and representation. It is supposed to give the voter reliable and
complete information to base his judgment. It should let him know the arguments for
and against any policy, and it should reflect and give voice to the 'desires of the people
as a whole.

Naturally, there is no censorship in Great Britain, but in 1953 the Press Council was set
up. It is not an official body but it is composed of the people nominated by journalists,
and it receives complaints against particular newspapers. It may make reports, which
criticize papers, but they have no direct effects. The British press means, primarily, a
group of daily and Sunday newspapers published in London. They are most important
and known as national in the sense of circulating throughout the British Isles. All the
national newspapers have their central offices in London, but those with big circulations
also print editions in Manchester (the second largest press center in Britain) and
Glasgow in Scotland.

Probably in no other country there are such great differences between the various
national daily newspapers - in the type of news they report and the way they report it.
All the newspapers whether daily or Sunday, totaling about twenty, can be divided into
two groups: quality papers and popular papers. Quality papers include "The Times",
"The Guardian", 'The Daily Telegraph", "The Financial Times", "The Observer", 'The
Sunday Times" and "The Sunday Telegraph". Very thoroughly they report national and
international news.

In addition to the daily and Sunday papers, there is an enormous number of weeklies,
some devoted to specialized and professional subjects, others of more general interest.
Three of them are of special importance and enjoy a large and influential readership.
They are: the "Spectator" (which is non-party but with Conservative views), the "New
Statesman" (a radical journal, inclining towards the left wing of the Labour Party) and
the largest and most influential - the "Economist" (politically independent): These
periodicals resemble one another in subject matter and layout. They contain articles on
national and international affairs, current events, the arts, letters to the Editor, extensive
book reviews. Their publications often exert a great influence on politics.
The distinction between the quality and the popular papers is one primarily of
educational level. Quality papers are those newspapers which are intended for the well
educate. All the rest are generally called popular newspapers. The most important of
them are the "News of the World", "The Sun", the "Daily Mirror", the "Daily Express".
The two archetypal popular papers, the "Daily Mail" and "Daily Express" were built by
individual tycoons in the early 20th century. Both had a feeling for the taste of a newly-
literate public: if a man bites a dog, that's a news. The "Daily Express" was built up by a
man born in Canada. He became a great man in the land, a close friend and associate
of Winston Churchill, and a powerful minister in his War Cabinet. The circulation of "The
Daily Express" at one time exceeded four million copies a day. Now the first Lord
Beaverbrook is dead, and the daily sales are not much more than half of their highest
figure. The history of the "Daily Mail", with its conventional conservatism, is not greatly
different.

The popular newspapers tend to make news sensational. These papers concentrate on
more emotive reporting of stories often featuring the Royal Family, film and pop stars,
and sport. They publish "personal" articles which shock and excite. Instead of printing
factual news reports, these papers write them up in an exciting way, easy to read,
playing on people's emotions. They avoid serious political and social questions or treat
them superficially. Trivial events are treated as the most interesting and important
happenings. Crime is always given far more space than creative, productive or cultural
achievements. Much of their information concerns the private lives of people who are in
the news. The popular newspapers are very similar to one another in appearance and
general arrangement, with big headlines and the main news on the front page. This
press is much more popular than the quality press.

In some countries, newspapers are owned by government or by political parties. This is

not the case in Britain. Newspapers here are mostly owned by individuals or by
publishing companies, and the editors of the papers are usually allowed considerate
freedom of expression. This is not to say that newspapers are without political bias.
Papers like The Daily Telegraph, The Sun, for example, usually reflect Conservative
opinions in their comment and reporting, while the Daily Mirror and The Guardian have
a more left-wing bias. In addition to the 12 national daily newspapers there are nine
national papers which published on Sundays. The "quality" Sunday papers devote large
sections to literature and the arts. They have colour supplements and are in many ways
more like magazines than newspapers. They supply quite different world of taste and
interest from the "popular" papers. Most of the "Sundays" contain more reading matter
than daily papers, and several of them also include "colour-supplements" - separate
colour magazines which contain photographically-illustrated feature articles. Reading a
Sunday paper, like having a big Sunday lunch, is an important tradition in many British
households.

Текст 4 The Press

Britain's first newspapers appeared over 300 years ago. Now, as then, newspapers
receive no government subsidy, unlike in many other European countries today.
Advertising has always been a vital source of income. As long ago as 1660, King
Charles II advertised for his lost dog. Today, income from advertising is as crucial as
income from sales.
Nevertheless, there are approximately daily and Sunday papers, 1,800 weekly papers
and over 7,000 periodical publications. More newspapers, proportionately, are sold in
Britain than almost any other country. On average, two out of three persons over the
age of fifteen read a national morning newspaper. Three out of four read a Sunday
paper. National newspapers have a circulation of about 13,6 million on weekdays and
16,4 million on Sundays, but the ; readership is twice this figure.

Ownership of the press, is in the hands of a few large press publishing groups. The
most significant of these are News International, owned by the Australian-born press
tycoon Rupert Murdoch, and the Mirror Group Newspapers, owned by the family of the
late Robert Maxwell. The national newspapers, both on week-days and on Sundays, fall
into two broad categories: the 'popular' and 'quality' press. All the popular papers, with
the exception of the Sunday Express, are 'tabloid' in format. The tabloids are essentially
mass entertainment. They are smaller format that other papers, and are distinguished
by large illustrations, bold captions and a sensational prose style.

The tabloids' news content is minimal and their emphasis is on gossip, emotion and
scandal. By contrast quality newspapers, known as 'broadsheets' on account of their
larger, rather cumbersome format, emphasise news coverage, political and economic
analysis and social and cultural issues.

Almost every newspaper left its historic home in Fleet Street, the centre of the British
press for over a century. Some went to new sites in the London Docklands
redevelopment, while others moved elsewhere.

Finally, there are over 900 free newspapers, popularly known as 'freebies', almost all of
them weekly and financed entirely by advertising. They achieve a weekly circulation of
over 40 million. They function as local noticeboards, where local events are advertised,
and anyone can advertise in the 'for sale' or 'wanted' columns.

Among Britain's best selling periodicals, the favourites are the Radio Times and the TV
Times, which provide detailed information concerning forthcoming programmes on BBC
and independent television. Their popularity is evidence of the dominant place of
television in national life. Second to them in popularity are the women's
magazines, Woman's Weekly, Woman's Own, Woman, Woman's Realm. The leading
opinion journals are The Economist, a political and economic weekly; New Statesman
and Society, a political and social weekly; the Spectator, a political weekly, and Private
Eye, a satirical fortnightly with a reputation for devastating attacks on leading per-
sonalities.

With almost 900 correspondents in over 80 countries, no newspaper anywhere can

compete with Britain's formidable news agency, Reuters. Across the world its name has
become an assurance of objectivity, accuracy and reliability. Its reports are filed in
French, German, Japanese, Arabic and Spanish, as well as English. It is read in the
Kremlin, the White House and the Chancellery in Bonn.

Which word or phrase in the text above means

1. money granted, by a government or society, to an industry or other cause need-

ing help;

2. public announcement in the press TV, etc.;

 3. money received during a given period as salary, receipts from trade, interest from
investments, etc.;

4. printed publication, usually issued every day with news, advertisements, etc.;

5. a small size newspaper with many pictures, strip cartoons, etc. and with its news
presented in simplified form;

6. number of copies of a newspaper or other periodical sold to the public;

7. paper-covered (usually weekly or monthly, and illustrated) periodical, with stories,

articles, etc. by various writers;

8. magazine or other publication which appears at regular intervals (monthly, quar-

terly, etc.);

9. person regularly contributing local news or special articles to a newspaper;

10. short title or heading of an article in a periodical, etc.;

11. showing no fear.

Текст 5 The Press in Britain

It has been said that the British read more newspapers than any other people in the western
world. More than thirty million copies of newspapers are printed in the country every day.

National newspapers are sold throughout the United Kingdom. They all have their head
offices in London. Some papers aim to inform their readers as widely as possible about
national and international news. Other papers try to attract more general readers, with
pictures and sensational stories. The News of the World has the largest circulation of
any newspaper in Britain.

There are many provincial daily, evening and weekly newspapers published in cities
and smaller towns. They present local news and are supported by local advertisements.
Many big cities have evening papers which give the latest news. London has two.

There are nearly five thousand periodicals published in the United Kingdom. Of these,
women's magazines have the largest circulations. There are magazines and periodicals
for almost every trade, profession, sport, hobby or interest. Special magazines and
newspapers are published for young people. Very popular among them is Just
Seventeen magazine and the newspaper Early Times.

Writing to the newspapers and magazines is a popular pastime for many people. Many-
letters are answered. The most interesting are published. People often read the letters
before the main news, and the letters do have an influence,

Текст 6
Look quickly at the text about British newspapers. How many newspapers does it
describe?
 British people like their newspapers.
About 70 per cent of British people read a national newspaper every day and many also
read a local newspaper. There are two main types of daily newspaper in Britain. The
'broadsheets' contain national and international news, and pages on topics such as
money, the arts and travel. These are the four daily broadsheets:

The Times is very old - it started in 1785. It sells about 680,000 copies a day and it
costs 50 pence.

The Guardian started in 1821, in Manchester. (Most newspapers started in London.) It

sells about 325,000 copies a day and it costs 55 pence.

The Daily Telegraph sells more copies than the others — about 975,000 a day, and it
costs 60 pence. It started in 1855.

The Independent only began in 1986. It sells about 205,000 copies a day and it costs
60 pence.

'Tabloids' contain national news but not a lot of international news, and they have a lot
of pages on sport and the lives of famous people. The tabloids are more popular than
the broadsheets.

The Daily Mail started in 1896 and it sells about 2,422,000 copies a day now. It costs
40 pence.

The Daily Express started in 1900. It sells about 878,000 copies a day and costs 40
pence.

The Daily Mirror started in 1903. It costs 35 pence and sells about 2,200,000 copies a
day.

The Sun is quite new — it started in 1964 — but it is really popular. It sells about
3,452,000 copies a day. It costs 30 pence.

Текст 7 Television is doing irreparable harm

"Yes, but what did we use to do before there was television?" low often we hear
statements like this! Television hasn't been with us all that long, but we are already
beginning to forget what he world was like without it. Before we admitted the one-eyed
monster into our homes, we never found it difficult to occupy our pare time. We used to
enjoy civilized pleasures. For instance, we used to have hobbies, we used to entertain
our friends and be entertained by them, we used to go outside for our amusements to
theatres, cinemas, restaurants and sporting events. We even used о read books and
listen to music and broadcast talks occasionally. All that belongs to the past. Now all our
free time is regulated by the "goggle box". We rush home or gulp down our meals to be
in time for this or that programme. We have even given up sitting at able and having a
leisurely evening meal, exchanging the news of :he day. A sandwich and a glass of beer
will do - anything providing t doesn't interfere with the programme. The monster
demands and obtains absolute silence and attention. If any member of the family dares
to open his mouth during a programme, he is quickly silenced.
Whole generations are growing up addicted to the telly. Food is left uneaten, homework
undone and sleep is lost. The telly is a universal pacifier. It is now standard practice for
mother to keep the children quiet by putting them in the living-room and turning on the
set. It doesn't matter that the children will watch rubbishy commercials or spectacles of
sadism and violence - so long as they are quiet.

There is a limit to the amount of creative talent available in the world. Every day,
television consumes vast quantities of creative work. That is why most of the
programmes are so bad: it is impossible to keep pace with the demand and maintain
high standards as well.

When millions watch the same programmes, the whole world becomes a village, and
society is reduced to the conditions which Obtain in pre-literate communities. We
become utterly dependent on the two most primitive media of communication: pictures
and the spoken word.

Television encourages passive enjoyment. We become content with second-hand

experiences. It is so easy to sit in our armchairs watching others working. Little by little,
television cuts us off from the real world. We get so lazy, we choose to spend a fine day
in semi-darkness, glued to our sets, rather than go out into the world itself. Television
may be a splendid medium of communication, but it prevents us from communicating
with each other. We only become aware how totally irrelevant television is to real living
when we spend a holiday by the sea or in the mountains, far away from civilization. In
quiet, natural surroundings, we quickly discover how little we miss the hypnotic tyranny
of King Telly.

Текст 8 Television in modern life

How do people usually answer to questions like "What are you going to do tonight?" or
"What are you doing at the weekend?" In other words, how do people spend their free
time? Some twenty or thirty years ago the usual answers used to be:

"We're going to the theatre (or to the cinema)" or "We're going to a party" or "We're
having some friends round". Now you very often hear "We're going to stay at home and
watch the telly!" A first-rate colour TV set has become an ordinary thing in the
household today, and a DVD player is quickly becoming one.

Modern television offers the viewers several programmes on different channels. In

addition to regular newscasts you can see plays and films, operas and ballets, and
watch all kinds of contests, quizzes, and sporting events. You can also get a lot of
useful information on the educational channel. A good serial (perhaps, a detective story
or a screen version of a classical novel) can keep the whole family in front of the telly for
days, and don't we spend hours and hours watching our favourite football or hockey
team in an important international event?

Television most definitely plays a very important part in people's lives. But is this a good
thing or a bad one? Haven't we become lazier because of television? Don't we go out
less often than we used to? Don't we read less?

Текст 9 TV…could you be without it?

Ninety-eight per cent of us in Britain have a TV set in our homes and, according to the
experts, we rarely turn it off. In fact, the average viewer watches as much 5 as 25/4
hours a week. Yet television still provokes controversy.TV does undoubtedly have its
bad side. Whilst any links between on and off screen violence have yet to be proved,
few could deny that seeing too much fictional brutality can desensitize us to real-life
horrors.

Furthermore, even when programmes contain neither sex nor violence, it's not really a
good thing for so many families to spend whole evenings glued to the box. Some
primary school teachers are complaining of youngsters' inability to concentrate and their
need to be constantly entertained. It would seem that too much TV is to blame.

Of course, it's not only children whose happiness can be affected by television, It can
lead to the 'lodger' syndrome, where some husbands come home, flop down in front of
the TV and simply don't communicate with their families at all. In some homes, soap
operas have become a substitute for real life.

Yet there is another side to the picture. For the lonely, elderly or housebound, television
can be a blessing, being a cheap and convenient form of entertainment and a 'friendly
face1 in the house. It can be an ideal way to relax, without necessarily turning you into a
square-eyed addict.

Television doesn't just entertain, of course. There are times when it can be informative
and can provide a source of good family conversation. There is no evidence that other
hobbies and interests have lost out, either. In fact, it seems that television has helped to
popularise some games, like snooker and darts. And a final point. Over the past few
years, television has played a crucial role in disaster relief. During the Ethiopian famine
in 1984, the huge fund-raising so efforts of Band Aid might have had little impact without
the heart-rending pictures we saw on our screens, or the world-wide link up of millions
of viewers who donated money to the cause. Informative, useful, entertaining and
relaxing - and yes, banal and boring - television is all of these. But if we're not selective,
surely we have only ourselves to blame. TV can be part of family life, but when it
becomes all of it, maybe that's the time to reach for the 'off” switch.

Текст 10 a medium of no importance

Grown-ups, as any child will tell you, are monstrous hypocrites, especially when it
comes to television. It is to take their minds off their own telly addiction that adults are
so keen to hear and talk about the latest report on the effects of programmes on
children. Surely all that nonsense they watch must be desensitizing them, making them
vicious, shallow, acquisitive, less responsible and generally sloppy about life and death?
But no, not a scrap of convincing evidence from the sociologists and experts in the
psyches of children.

The nation has lived with the box for more than 30 years now and has passed from total
infatuation - revived temporarily by the advent of colour - to the present casual
obsession which is not unlike that of the well-adjusted alcoholic. And now the important
and pleasant truth is breaking, to the horror of programme makers and their detractors
alike, that television really does not affect much at all. This is tough on those diligent
professionals who produce excellent work; but since - as everyone agrees - awful
programmes far outnumber the good, it is a relief to know the former cannot do much
harm. Television cannot even make impressionable children less pleasant.
Television turns out to be no great transformer of minds or society. We are not, en
masse, as it was once predicted we would be, fantastically well-informed about other
cultures or about the origins of life on earth. People do not remember much from
television documentary beyond how good it was. Only those who knew something about
the subject in the first place retain the information.

Documentaries are not what most people want to watch anyway. Television is at its
most popular when it celebrates its own present. Its ideal subjects are those that need
not be remembered and can be instantly replaced, where what matters most is what is
happening now and what is going to happen next. Sport, news, panel games, cop
shows, long-running soap operas, situation comedies - these occupy us only for as long
as they are on. However good or bad it is, a night’s viewing is wonderfully forgettable.
It's a little sleep, it's Entertainment; our morals, and for that matter, our brutality, remain
intact.

The box is further neutralized by the sheer quantity people watch. The more of it you
see, the less any single bit of it matters. Of course, some programmes are infinitely
better than others. There are gifted people working in television. But seen from a
remoter perspective - say, four hours a night viewing for three months - the quality of
individual programmes means as much as the quality of each car in the rush-hour
traffic.

For the heavy viewer, TV has only two meaningful states - on and off. What are the kids
doing? Watching TV. No need to ask what, the answer is sufficient. Soon, I'll go up
there and turn it off. Like a light bulb it will go out and the children will do something
else.

It appears the nation's children spend more time in front of their TVs than in the
classroom. Their heads are full of TV - but that's all, just TV. The violence they witness
is TV violence, sufficient to itself. It does not brutalize them to the point where they
cannot grieve the loss of a pet, or be shocked at some minor playground

Answer the following questions:

1. Does the writer think television is harmful to children? Why/Why not?

2. Has the nation become more or less keen on television since it was first
introduced? What development had an effect on the popularity of television?

3. How successful is television as an educator, according to the writer?

4. Why do most people watch television, according to the writer?

5. What effect does quantity of viewing have on people?

6. Why are children not affected by television violence, according to the writer?

7. In one word, what is the advantage of the book over television?

Текст 11 Radio and Television

In 1936 the government established the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to
provide a public service in radio. Since then the BBC has been most affected by the
invention of television, which changed the entertainment habits of the nation, and the
establishment of independent and commercial radio and television, which removed the
BBC's broadcasting monopoly. In spite of its much reduced evening, audience, BBC
radio still provides an important service. Its five radio stations provide (1) non-stop pop
music; (2) light entertainment; (3) minority interests, e. g. classical music, arts
programmes and academic material (some for Open University courses), cricket
commentating in the summer months; (4) news and comment and discussion
programmes; (5) sport and education. The BBC additionally runs thirty-seven local radio
stations, providing material of local interest. There are also seventy: independent local
radio stations which pro-; vide news, information, music and other entertainment,
coverage of local events, sports commentary, chat shows and 'phone-in' programmes.
The latter provide an important counseling service to isolated, aggrieved or perplexed
people.

An important but separate part of the BBC's work is its external services, essentially the
BBC World Service and its broadcasts in thirty-five vernacular languages.

These are funded separately from the rest of the BBC, by money from the Foreign
Office. In other words, although the BBC has freedom in the content of what it
broadcasts, the government decides in which foreign languages it should broadcast,
and the amount of funding it should receive. In this way the service is a promotional part
of British foreign policy. In 1990 research showed that the BBC World Service enjoyed
an audience of approximately 120 million listeners, who were predominantly young
(aged between 25 and 35) and male. The strength of the BBC's external services has
been the provision of relatively objective and impartial news and comment to listeners in
countries where local censorship exists.

Television is the single most popular form of entertainment in Britain. In the late 1980s
the average adult spent twenty-five hours, and children eighteen hours, in front of the
television set each week. They had four channels to choose from: BBC1 and BBC2, ITV
(Independent Television) and Channel Four. Channel Four, which was established in
1982, specialises in minority interest programmes, but has proved highly successful.
BBC television derives its income from the annual license fee for television, while ITV
and Channel Four are financed solely through advertising. Coronation Street, ITV's
most watched show, attracts advertising worth ten times the cost of making the
programme.

The strength of British television lies in its high quality. "Go anywhere in the world," one
leading political journalist has written, "and British television is an object of envy and
admiration... The reason lies in the quality of its innovation and its willingness to
experiment. For example, British television enthusiastically took the Muppet
Show, when its creator, Jim Henson, had been rejected by the American networks. In
the fields of TV documentary comedy and satire, or drama, British television is a world
leader.

Текст 12 Advertising
Advertising is the businessman's tool for convincing the public to buy products. In the
beginning, it was a basic and crude tool. Craftsmen relied on word of mouth, crying out
to passersby to extol the virtues of their wares. As time passed advertising became
more refined and sophisticated Newspapers, magazines, radio, and television
introduced a vast audience to the many new products developed through exploration
and technology.

Advertising probably began when civilization evolved from agricultural communities and
people began producing goods to offer one another. In ancient times, spoken publicity
was a recognized Institution as a means of bartering for goods. Public criers proclaimed
information of articles for sale along with news of current events. Greek criers were
often accompanied by both vocal and instrumental music. Egyptian criers drifted
through the streets of Alexandria announcing the arrival of ships and the nature of their
cargo.

Crying to the public was a haphazard way of reaching people. Recorded advertisements
were soon recognized to be more reliable. The ancient Romans devised two methods of
recording ads: 1) they smoothed and whitened areas on a wall where advertisements
could be written or carved. These announcements were called "albums" and were later
used by Roman artisans to advertise the tools of their trade. 2) They used stone or terra
cotta tablets with lettering and illustration in relief that was done by sculptors. Plaques
like these were set into the walls of houses or suspended by brackets above a door.
They announced gladiatorial contests, athletic exhibitions, rooms for rent, lost-and-
found articles, and the merits of candidates running for public office.

By the Middle Ages, symbolic advertising was developed. A symbol represented certain
goods or services. Shops displayed a special object to indicate what goods or services
could be found inside. The striped barber's pole, for example, advertised that the man in
the shop would shave your beard, cut your hair, pull your teeth, and perform minor
surgery. Three gold balls indicated a pawnshop, where you could trade your goods as a
guarantee for borrowed money.

In the Middle Ages, verbal announcements, written messages, and symbolic figures ail
performed the basic function of giving information about goods and wares. Then two
historical changes — the Age of Exploration and the Industrial Revolution — caused an
explosion in the advertising field. As new inventions made it possible to duplicate
advertisements in bulk quantities, virtually endless amounts of advertising were foisted
on an unlimited consumer audience. The abundance of new luxury goods, which came
from both discovery and invention, meant that consumers had to be told more about the
product than before. The public had to be persuaded and convinced that it needed all
these new products and that the product was better than its many competitors. These
new dimensions made advertising an extremely powerful field.

Advertising became a professional business of creating new markets, new products,

and new needs. The advertising men became specialists, pooling their efforts to
organize themselves as an advertising agency. The jobs of the agency included
representing a number of media (newspapers, magazines, etc.) in the sale of space to
advertisers, writing copy, selection of the proper medium, and analysis of market.

Advertising followed the wave of scientific development of the 1920s. Advertisers

abandoned their blind faith that products would sell and backed their ventures with
scientific methods instead. Agencies set up their own market and consumer research
departments. Special firms did research for advertisers and the media. They
systematically investigated all the factors involved in selling: the product, the character
and mood of the prospective buyers, the buyers' geographical location and purchasing
power, etc. Along with attracting a new buying public, advertising also attracted
criticism. Advertising developed two particular techniques which are still used today:
exaggerating the virtues of many products and 2) creating a need in the minds of the
consumers where a need does not actually exist.

The advertisers' extravagant claims created an uncomfortable feeling that nothing was
quite as good as the ad described it to be. Despite this criticism, advertising continues
to capture the fancy of the consumer, who continues to buy. Motivational research is
probably the key reason. It seeks to discover why people buy the things they do.
Researchers observed that in a buying situation, people often act emotionally and
impulsively — reacting subconsciously to images and designs on the product package.
The average woman, for example, is willing to pay up to $2 or more for a facial cream
but not more than 50 cents for a bar of soap. According to the motivational research,
her subconscious is responsible for directing her actions. She buys under the illusion
that the facial cream will make her beautiful while the soap will only make her clean
Modern advertisers realize that their task is to find images which appeal emotionally to a
segment of consumers. The possible combinations of images and their corresponding
buying segments are infinite.

Advertising has come a long way since the stone carvings in ancient Rome. The basic
point remains the same – to sell a product. But now advertising appeals to as big
audience as possible, making the public buy a vast array of luxury items. Persuasion is
the tool of the trade and the key to success.

Текст 13
We talk to various people from different countries about their attitudes to television.
Does TV educate and stimulate? Or is it a drug, a tranquilliser, used to control the
population? Here are some views:

"Television has been the greatest instrument of social democracy in Western European
societies," says Mr Anthony Smith of the British film Institute. Mr Neville Jayawera from
SriLanka disagrees. 90% of the TV programmes in his country are foreign, and mostly
inferior, material. He feels that TV has disrupted local culture and social ties. '

Why do Third Word societies introduce TV in their countries? Perhaps governments do

it for prestige, to show that they have introduced new technology into their societies.
Another possible reason is that political leaders want their people to see them on TV.
But the politicians cannot be on the screen all the time, so what other programmes do
they show?

TV is a very expensive medium, and most Third World countries do not have the
technology, the expertise or the money to make their own television programmes. The
result is that most Third World countries are dependent for television on Britain and
America. It's easier and cheaper to buy inferior foreign products, mainly American
"soap" operas. So, a lot of people feel that TV is a danger to local cultures in poorer
countries. It could be an even greater threat to national identity than colonialism.

Текст 14
Internet
Modern Technology has had a tremendous effect on the lives of people and their
entertainment habits. Today, the Internet has undergone a phenomenal global growth. It
has become such an important data-gathering and communication source that few can't
afford to ignore. The Net encircles the globe.

Young people spend a lot of time on their computers because it’s exciting and they have
found in the Net new ways of meeting a basic human need: the desire to communicate
with other people. E-mail sends electronic messages from one person to another – like
letters, but capable of crossing the Atlantic in 15m. File transfers move bulk data from
one computer to another with these capacities, the Internet becomes post office,
printing press and meeting-place all in one.

Some people are making a fortune in cyberspace. Most companies have their own
websites; others exist only on the Internet. They are something called “dot com”
companies. Some of the most successful Net entrepreneurs are teenagers who are still
at school. They are called internet nerds.

Tom Hadfield, 16, started a football results website called soccer-net and it became a
great business.

To become a successful entrepreneur all you need is: to start a webpage of your own,
have a good idea for a business, think of a catchy name and find someone to lend you
money. And remember! English is the most used business language!

Read the text and say if the following statements are true or false. Correct the
false ones.

1. The Internet doesn't interfere at all with people’s lives.

2. Most teenagers only have a few hours of computer time.

3. Internet nerds are teenagers who spend most of their time in front of the
computer

4. The English language is not necessary to be successful on the Net.

Complete the following sentences with ideas from the text:

1. Nowadays the Internet has become tremendously _________________

2. Time spent on computers ____________________________________

Answer the following questions:

1. How does modern technology affect people's lives?

2. Why does the Net encircle the Globe?

3. How can people make a fortune in cyberspace?

Текст 15
 Internet
The Internet, a global computer network which embraces millions of users all over the
world, began in the United States in 1969 as a military experiment It was designed to
survive a nuclear war Information sent over the Internet takes the shortest path
available from one computer to another Because of this, any two computers on the
Internet will be able to stay in touch with each other as long as there is a single route
between them. This technology is called packet switching Owing to this technology, if
some computers on the network are knocked out (by a nuclear explosion, for example),
information will just route around them One such packet-switching network which has
already survived a war is the Iraqi computer network which was not knocked out during
the Gulf War Most of the Internet host computers (more than 50 %) are in the United
States, while the rest are located in more than 100 other countries Although the number
of host computers can be counted fairly accurately, nobody knows exactly how many
people use the Internet, there are millions worldwide, and their number is growing by
thousands each month.

The most popular Internet service is e-mail Most of the people, who have access to the
Internet, use the network only for sending and receiving e-mail messages However,
other popular services are available on the Internet reading USENET News, using the
World-Wide Web, telnet, FTP, and Gopher.

In many developing countries the Internet may provide businessmen with a reliable
alternative to the expensive and unreliable telecommunications systems of these
countries Commercial users can communicate cheaply over the Internet with the rest of
the world When they send e-mail messages, they only have to pay for phone calls to
their local service providers, not for calls across their countries or around the world But
who actually pays for sending e-mail messages over the Internet long distances, around
the world. The answer is very simple users pay their service provider a monthly or
hourly fee Part of this fee goes towards its costs to connect to a larger service provider,
and part of the fee received by the larger provider goes to cover its cost of running a
worldwide network of wires and wireless stations.

But saving money is only the first step If people see that they can make money from the
Internet, commercial use of this network will drastically increase For example, some
western architecture companies and garment centers already transmit their basic
designs and concepts over the Internet into China, where they are reworked and refined
by skilled - but inexpensive - Chinese computer-aided-design specialists.

However, some problems remain. The most important is security. When you send an e-
mail message to somebody this message can travel through many different networks
and computers The data is constantly being directed towards its destination by special
computers called routers However, because of this, it is possible to get into any of the
computers along the route, intercept and even change the data being sent over the
Internet In spite of the fact that there are many good encoding programs available,
nearly all the information, being sent over the Internet is transmitted without any form of
encoding. But when it becomes necessary to send important information over the
network, these encoding programs may be useful Some American banks and
companies even conduct transactions over the Internet. However, there are still both
commercial and technical problems which will take time to be resolved.

Текст 18 Soap Operas and Reality

The soap opera depends so much on human interaction that we may use the term to
describe our own conflicts. ("Gee, my father isn't speaking to me, my sister is getting an
abortion, and I’m flunking out of school. My life is really like a soap opera!") In reality,
few lives are as troubled and confused as those on the soaps. As with much of TV, our
lives are dull by comparison.

Soap opera characters are carefully created for the mass audience. They are usually
good or evil, positive or negative, with well-defined personalities. They are usually
young (25-35), well dressed, and financially comfortable. Leading men are doctors, and
lawyers. Leading women are attractive and well manicured. Indoor sets are unusually
large and boast wall-to-wall carpeting, plush drapes, and built in wet bars. Soap opera
characters tend to be very sophisticated and do a lot of eating, drinking, and arguing.

Regular viewers can name all the characters in a given soap and describe their history
in detail. The casual observer gets lost in the plot, which has more twists and turns than
a mountain highway.

Let's see... John's son is getting married today to the woman who used to be his father's
wife, who was recently divorced from the doctor who delivered his illegitimate daughter.
That illegitimate daughter is really Bill's mother, Nell, whose father was a doctor where
Bill was in medical school. We know that Bill never graduated but came to town and set
up practice anyway. Things were going great until he and Nell got divorced, but then
she found out she was his mother and...

Unlike prime-time shows, soaps are often shot only a day or two before they are aired.
This five-show-a-week schedule takes its toll on cast and crew. It really keeps the cast
on their toes. One advantage to the schedule is that the soap script may incorporate
recent news events, while prime-time shows, shot as much as six months in advance,
cannot.

Текст 19 Journalism: the most exciting career in the world

Man has always wanted to know what goes on in the world that surrounds him. How did
people manage before the days of newspapers? The Incas in South America had a
fascinating system, which was the forerunner of the media today. The information was
given to a 'runner', who learnt к by heart. He then ran 20 kilometers and relayed the
message to another runner who in turn memorized it and relayed it to the next runner.
That happened every 20 kilometers. A message travelled in this way over 2,400
kilometers in ten days. Those were the earliest 'journalists'. Other early journalists used
smoke signals, tom-toms and pigeons. The first newspapers as we know them were not
published until the seventeenth century.

How do modern-day journalists get their information? Journalists may collect

information by doing their own research. For example, if a journalist wants to write an
article about our school, they may come and interview students, teachers or the
principal. They will then write the article using the information they have collected. This
can be good fun but there is a much easier and quicker way for journalists to obtain
information: they can use news agencies. These are companies which supply
information to newspapers, radio and television. Agencies have correspondents all
around the world who collect information on site and send it to a central 'bank'. It is then
up to the individual journalists to write their articles using this information. This leads us
to one of the most important aspects of journalism: objectivity.
Objectivity means presenting things as they are, not as the journalist wants them to be.
An objective journalist reports the facts. If a journalist who has written an article about
our class says that there are 32 in it and that we are aged between 14 and 15, they are
reporting facts and being objective. But if they say we are charming, good-looking or
horrible students then they have let their own opinions influence their writing and have
lost their objectivity. It is very difficult not to express a point of view when we write. That
is why it is important for the news to be given by different newspapers: reading the
different points of view will help us to make up our own minds.

Journalism is one of the most exciting occupations. People in this profession meet many
people and learn a lot about the world. Foreign correspondents travel a lot and learn
about other cultures. To become a journalist in our country, you have to study for four
years at university. You also have to be good at writing and speak a foreign language.
It's much harder work than it looks but I think it is worth it.