Social Media, Society and Professional Practice: Test Review

Everything for the Unit 4 test on one page: the key facts from all 7 lessons, the mistakes that cost the most marks, and a practice test that points you back to the lessons you need.

Key facts

Social Media Strategy and the Culminating Project

Plan in this order: audience, then one measurable goal, then platform, then content — never the reverse.
The four working frames are 1:1 (1080 × 1080), 4:5 (1080 × 1350), 9:16 (1080 × 1920) and 16:9 (1920 × 1080).
Impressions count displays; reach counts unique people, so reach is always the smaller number.
Engagement rate is engagements divided by reach: $ER = \frac{E}{R} \times 100%$ .
Shares and saves are the strongest engagement signals, because they cost the viewer more than a tap.
Contrast should be at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.
Keep text and logos inside the safe area — roughly the top 250 px and bottom 400 px of a vertical frame are covered by the interface.
Captions include sound information; subtitles carry dialogue only.

Designing Social Content: Carousels, Thumbnails and Brand Kits

An asset matrix lists messages against formats; every cell is a file that must exist (or a deliberate decision not to make it).
A brand kit holds the logo set, colour palette with roles and hex values, typography, image style, graphic elements and voice.
Templates are built at native size with locked brand elements and editable content fields.
Carousels: hook first, one idea per slide, consistent layout, a reason to swipe, and a call to action at the end.
Thumbnails must read at small sizes: one focal point, three or four words, high contrast, honest content.
Batch production plus consistent file naming, proofing and scheduling is how small teams post on time.

Digital Footprint, Privacy and Community Management

EXIF metadata can include the device, settings, date, time and GPS coordinates of a photo.
Many platforms strip metadata on upload, but email, cloud links and file-sharing often keep it — remove it yourself.
Anyone under 18 needs a parent or guardian's consent on a release, and the media consent list must be checked before publishing.
Uploading usually keeps your copyright but grants the platform a broad, royalty-free licence to use the content.
Cyberbullying response: do not retaliate, document, report, block, and tell a trusted adult.
Under Canada's Competition Act, material connections must be clearly disclosed, for example with #ad at the start and inside the video.

Copyright, Licensing and Ethics

Copyright is automatic on fixation — no registration, no fee and no © symbol required.
The Canadian term runs from the creator's death: life plus 50 years historically, extended to life plus 70 at the end of 2022.
Canada has fair dealing with a closed list of purposes — research, private study, education, parody, satire, criticism, review and news reporting — not American fair use.
Criticism, review and news reporting under fair dealing require naming the source and the author.
The CC ladder runs CC0, BY, BY-SA, BY-NC, BY-ND, with each rung adding a condition.
ND forbids any modification; SA forces your remix to carry the same licence; NC blocks all commercial use including ad-supported video.
Royalty-free means pay once, not free of charge and not unrestricted; rights-managed licenses one specific use.
A full attribution names the title, author, source and licence.
An identifiable person needs a model release, signed by a guardian if they are under 18.

Cultural Diversity, Appropriation and Inclusive Production

Appropriation takes a cultural element without permission, credit, understanding or shared benefit; appreciation involves all four.
Sacred, earned or restricted items — such as a Plains headdress — are not costumes or decoration.
First Nations, Métis and Inuit are distinct peoples; generic 'Indigenous-style' imagery erases their differences.
Consult early, find the recognized people, compensate them, and agree review, credit and limits in advance.
Colours, numbers and gestures change meaning across cultures, so test with the actual audience.
Localization adapts dates, units, images, layout and legal text — not just the words — and French copy often needs 15–30% more space.

Safe Work Practices in the Studio and on Location

Power is voltage times current: $P = V I$ . A 120 V, 15 A circuit delivers at most 1800 W; keep continuous loads at or below 80% (1440 W).
Several outlets often share one breaker, so add up every device on a circuit before plugging in lights.
Sandbag every stand low on a leg; on a C-stand, put the tallest leg under the load. Extension ladders use the 4-to-1 rule.
Battery energy in Wh = V × Ah; airlines generally allow spare lithium batteries up to 100 Wh in carry-on only.
WHMIS labels and Safety Data Sheets explain the hazards, handling and first aid for adhesives, paints and solvents.
Ontario's noise limit is 85 dBA over 8 hours, and safe time halves for every 3 dB above that.

Media Literacy, Environment and Careers

The five media literacy questions: who made this, who paid for it, who is the audience, what is left out, and whose voice is missing.
Misinformation is false and unintentional; disinformation is false and deliberate; malinformation is true material weaponized out of context.
Out-of-context reuse of genuine media is the most common manipulation, so check date, place and source before checking pixels.
Lateral reading — leaving the page to see what independent sources say — beats studying a suspect page harder.
Manufacturing a device usually costs more energy and material than years of using it, so keeping gear longer is the biggest single saving.
E-waste contains lead, mercury and lithium and belongs in an Ontario electronics or battery collection program, never in the bin.
20-20-20: every 20 minutes, look about 6 m away for 20 seconds.
Monitor top at or just below eye level, about an arm's length away, elbows and knees near 90 degrees, wrists straight.
A portfolio is 8 to 12 strong pieces showing process and an honest statement of your role; a demo reel is 60 to 90 seconds, best shot first.

Where marks get lost

Designing the graphic first and choosing the platform afterwards, so the artwork has to be cropped into a shape it was never composed for. (Social Media Strategy and the Culminating Project)
Putting text and logos in the outer band of a vertical frame, where the app's own interface covers them. (Social Media Strategy and the Culminating Project)
Reporting impressions as if they were people. Impressions count displays, so the same viewer scrolling past twice inflates the number. (Social Media Strategy and the Culminating Project)
Comparing raw like counts between accounts of different sizes instead of comparing engagement rate, which is the size-independent measure. (Social Media Strategy and the Culminating Project)
Publishing video with no captions, then being surprised at a three-second average watch time on a feed that plays muted. (Social Media Strategy and the Culminating Project)
Writing alt text like 'photo1.jpg' or 'image of a poster', which tells a screen reader user nothing about what the image shows or says. (Social Media Strategy and the Culminating Project)
Posting fourteen times in the first week and then nothing for a month — the audience learns the account is not worth following. (Social Media Strategy and the Culminating Project)
Burying the call to action in the last line of a caption that gets truncated after the first line. (Social Media Strategy and the Culminating Project)
Designing each post from scratch, so a campaign looks like it came from several different organizations. (Designing Social Content: Carousels, Thumbnails and Brand Kits)
Building templates at the wrong size and letting the platform crop them, cutting off text at the edges. (Designing Social Content: Carousels, Thumbnails and Brand Kits)
Opening a carousel with a logo or title card instead of a hook that gives people a reason to swipe. (Designing Social Content: Carousels, Thumbnails and Brand Kits)
Judging a thumbnail at full size on a laptop instead of at the small size it is actually seen. (Designing Social Content: Carousels, Thumbnails and Brand Kits)
Skipping the proofing step, so a wrong date or room number goes out on every asset in the batch. (Designing Social Content: Carousels, Thumbnails and Brand Kits)
Assuming a photo's location is removed because a platform strips it, then sharing the original file by email or cloud link. (Digital Footprint, Privacy and Community Management)
Checking only the subject of a photo and missing the house number, licence plate or timetable in the background. (Digital Footprint, Privacy and Community Management)
Publishing event footage before checking the media consent list for students who must not appear. (Digital Footprint, Privacy and Community Management)
Arguing with abusive commenters in public instead of documenting, removing, reporting and blocking. (Digital Footprint, Privacy and Community Management)
Using #sp or hiding #ad at the end of a long hashtag list, which does not count as clear disclosure. (Digital Footprint, Privacy and Community Management)
Believing an image with no visible credit or © symbol is unowned. Protection is automatic and silent. (Copyright, Licensing and Ethics)
Using the American term 'fair use' for Canadian situations, and with it the assumption that any transformative purpose qualifies — Canada's list of purposes is closed. (Copyright, Licensing and Ethics)
Thinking that crediting the artist makes any use legal. Attribution is a condition of some licences and of some fair dealing purposes; it is never a substitute for permission. (Copyright, Licensing and Ethics)
Repeating the myth that a few seconds of a song is automatically allowed. No such rule exists in Canadian law. (Copyright, Licensing and Ethics)
Reading 'royalty-free' as 'free' — it means no per-use royalty, and the licence still restricts what you may do. (Copyright, Licensing and Ethics)
Using a CC BY-ND image and then cropping or recolouring it, which is exactly what ND forbids. (Copyright, Licensing and Ethics)
Filming identifiable people for a class exercise and later publishing it, when the consent given was for the smaller use. (Copyright, Licensing and Ethics)
Presenting an AI-generated image as your own photograph instead of disclosing how it was made. (Copyright, Licensing and Ethics)
Assuming an image or pattern is free to use because it is widely available online. (Cultural Diversity, Appropriation and Inclusive Production)
Treating First Nations, Métis and Inuit as one group, or using generic 'Indigenous-style' graphics. (Cultural Diversity, Appropriation and Inclusive Production)
Consulting a community only after the work is finished, when nothing can change. (Cultural Diversity, Appropriation and Inclusive Production)
Translating a slogan word for word instead of localizing or transcreating it, and leaving no room for longer French text. (Cultural Diversity, Appropriation and Inclusive Production)
Using a colour, number or gesture that carries a negative meaning for part of the audience, without checking. (Cultural Diversity, Appropriation and Inclusive Production)
Plugging lights into different outlets and assuming that spreads the load, when the outlets share one breaker. (Safe Work Practices in the Studio and on Location)
Leaving an extension cord coiled on its reel while it powers a high-wattage light. (Safe Work Practices in the Studio and on Location)
Hanging sandbags high on a stand, or leaving stands unweighted because they 'seem steady'. (Safe Work Practices in the Studio and on Location)
Packing spare lithium batteries in checked luggage, or continuing to use a battery that has started to swell. (Safe Work Practices in the Studio and on Location)
Turning up headphones to hear over a loud event instead of using hearing protection and limiting exposure time. (Safe Work Practices in the Studio and on Location)
Judging a piece of media by whether you agree with it instead of asking who made it, who paid for it, and what has been left out. (Media Literacy, Environment and Careers)
Hunting for digital tampering first, when most misleading media is genuine material with a false caption or a missing date. (Media Literacy, Environment and Careers)
Sharing an emotionally charged post before verifying it, which is exactly the behaviour the post was engineered to produce. (Media Literacy, Environment and Careers)
Assuming streaming has no footprint because no object is produced — the data centres, networks and screens all draw power. (Media Literacy, Environment and Careers)
Replacing working equipment for a small speed gain, when manufacturing dominates the lifetime footprint of every device. (Media Literacy, Environment and Careers)
Putting old phones, batteries and monitors in the regular bin instead of an electronics collection program. (Media Literacy, Environment and Careers)
Working hunched over a laptop on a bed or a low table for hours, which is how neck and wrist injuries begin. (Media Literacy, Environment and Careers)
Building a portfolio of everything you have ever made, so strong work is judged alongside weak work. (Media Literacy, Environment and Careers)
Claiming a whole group production as personal work instead of stating the role you actually held. (Media Literacy, Environment and Careers)

Practice test

21 questions from across the unit. Each one shows the lesson it comes from.

Social Media Strategy and the Culminating Project
1
A post reached 800 accounts and received 44 likes, 6 comments, 5 shares and 5 saves. What is the engagement rate, as a percentage?
%
Social Media Strategy and the Culminating Project
2
What is the name for the central region of a frame that the platform's own interface never covers?
Social Media Strategy and the Culminating Project
3
Your video keeps 90% of viewers for the first two seconds but only 20% at eight seconds. What should you change first?
Designing Social Content: Carousels, Thumbnails and Brand Kits
4
A campaign has 5 messages, each needing a feed post, a story and a thumbnail, in English only. How many assets is that? (Whole number.)
assets
Designing Social Content: Carousels, Thumbnails and Brand Kits
5
Which thumbnail design will read best at small sizes?
Designing Social Content: Carousels, Thumbnails and Brand Kits
6
A video's thumbnail shows a dramatic crash that does not appear in the video. What is the main problem?
Digital Footprint, Privacy and Community Management
7
Which piece of information can EXIF metadata contain that is most dangerous to share?
Digital Footprint, Privacy and Community Management
8
A student gets free headphones from a brand and posts a review. Under Canadian rules, what is required?
Digital Footprint, Privacy and Community Management
9
Why should an organization's social account have at least two administrators?
Copyright, Licensing and Ethics
10
A Canadian illustrator died in 1954. Under the life-plus-50 term, at the end of which calendar year did copyright in her drawings expire?
Copyright, Licensing and Ethics
11
What document gives written permission to publish footage of an identifiable person?
Copyright, Licensing and Ethics
12
What is the most defensible way to use an AI-generated image in a submitted project?
Cultural Diversity, Appropriation and Inclusive Production
13
Which of these is the clearest example of appreciation rather than appropriation?
Cultural Diversity, Appropriation and Inclusive Production
14
A white-dominant design is planned for an audience in parts of East Asia. What should the designer check?
Cultural Diversity, Appropriation and Inclusive Production
15
How should you decide between person-first and identity-first language when describing someone?
Safe Work Practices in the Studio and on Location
16
How much current, in amperes, do two 650 W lights draw together on a 120 V circuit? (Round to 1 decimal place.)
A
Safe Work Practices in the Studio and on Location
17
What document gives the full hazard, handling and first-aid information for a product such as spray adhesive?
Safe Work Practices in the Studio and on Location
18
Under the 4-to-1 rule, how far from the wall should the base of an extension ladder be if it reaches 4 m up the wall?
Media Literacy, Environment and Careers
19
A viral image turns out to be a real photograph from another country two years ago, relabelled as local and current. What kind of manipulation is this?
Media Literacy, Environment and Careers
20
What is the term for deliberately spread false information, as opposed to false information shared by someone who believed it?
Media Literacy, Environment and Careers
21
Which best describes the difference between a college diploma and a university degree route in communications?

Endless drill

Fresh numbers every time, for the calculation questions in this unit.

Endless drillnew numbers every time

Generating a problem…