al-JazeeraA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWcapital. Some 400 TV sets, each costing around
100 – the price of a small car – were in use.
With the coming of the Second World War, TV
broadcasts came to an abrupt end on 1 Septem-
ber 1939, by which time there were an estimated
20,000 TV sets in operation. The Alexandra
Palace studios opened for business again on 7
June 1946 but had to briefl y shut down trans-
mission once more in early 1947 because of the
acute fuel crisis. Th e Alexandra Palace studios
remained in service until 1955. See broadcast-
ing; television.
Alienation As a concept, derives largely from the
work of Karl Marx (1818–83), who argued that
the organization of industrial production robbed
people of opportunities for meaningful and
creative work, performed in cooperation with
others and over which they had some control.
Researchers have posed the question whether
the mass character of the modern communica-
tions industry produces a sense of alienation in
its own workers. Lewis Coser in Men of Ideas
(Free Press, 1965) believes that the industrial
mode of production within media organizations
hamstrings the individual producer by deny-
ing his or her creativity in the quest for a mass
culture, and that this results in alienation.
Th e term has a wider application. Alienation
is seen as a socio-psychological condition which
aff ects certain individuals. William Kornhauser
in The Politics of Mass Society (Free Press,
1959) argues that the breakdown and decline of
community groups and the extended family in
modern society produces feelings of isolation
and increases the possibility that people will be
infl uenced by the appeals of extremist political
groups. Some theorists view alienation as a
potentially signifi cant variable in determining an
individual’s receptivity to mass communication.
Th ere are echoes of the notion of the alienated
and isolated individual in the mass society
theory of the media, for example. See anomie;
intervening variables (ivs).
▶Denis McQuail, Mass Communication Theory
(Sage, 2010).
Alignment See framing.
al-Jazeera Arab satellite TV network, sharing
news and current affairs in high-definition.
Started up in 1996, al-Jazeera grabbed world
headlines with its exclusive news footage from
Taliban-held areas during the war in Afghani-
stan, 2002 and the US pursuit of Osama bin
Laden, thought to have masterminded the events
of 11 September 2001. Translated as ‘Peninsula’,
al-Jazeera scooped rival Western channels with
bin Laden’s pre-recorded video messages. Th eLongitudinal studies can detect trends and
directions of infl uence; tease out whether media
coverage prompts public awareness and interest
or whether the media perch on the ‘bandwagon’
of public opinion. The over-time study can
identify variants of events and issues and thus, as
Dearing and Rogers put it, ‘illuminate the nature
of media eff ects with special clarity ...’
A further focus of research into agenda-setting
involves what Dearing and Rogers term ‘trigger
events’. Th ese act as a ‘cue-to-action that occurs
at a point in time’, each trigger event serving ‘to
crystallize attention and action’. A trigger event
essentially ‘simplifi es the nature of a complex
issue into a form that the public can more easily
understand’.
Agitprop The Department of Agitation and
Propaganda was created in 1920 as part of the
Central Committee Secretariat of the Commu-
nist Party of the Soviet Union. Its responsibility
was to use all available media – especially
fi lm – to disseminate information and ideas to
the population of the world’s fi rst Communist
state. Th e term ‘agitprop’ has come to be used
to describe any unashamedly political propagan-
dizing.
Agora In the city states of ancient Greece the agora
was the place of assembly where the free citizens
debated matters of public concern; where public
opinion was formulated and asserted. Public
spaces have long been surrendered to enclosure
or to shopping malls, but the concept remains;
its practice continues at second remove – the
media speak for the people, purporting to
articulate and defend public interest in their role
as watchdogs, guarding the public from the
abuses of state. public service broadcasting
(psb) is perceived as an extension of the agora;
hence the concern often expressed about the
privatization of broadcast media, that it is turn-
ing the agora into a marketplace of commodities
rather than a marketplace of ideas and debate.
However, it could be claimed that a modern, and
expanding, form of the agora is the internet.
See blogosphere; information commons;
mediasphere; public opinion; salon
discourse.
AIDA model Guide to the principal stages of
advertising a product or service: A – create
Awareness; I – create Interest; D – promote
Desire; A – stimulate Action or response.
Alexandra Palace Birthplace of television in the
United Kingdom. Th e fi rst TV broadcasting took
place from London’s ‘Ally Pally’ on 2 November
- Initially the service reached only a few
hundred privileged viewers in and around the