Dictionary of Media and Communication Studies, 8th edition

Amazon.com

A B C D E F G H I

JK

L M N O P R S T U V

XYZ

W

may reject a message which contradicts what you

think you know. As Myers and Myers conclude,

‘Th e allness attitude may do much to prevent you

from developing satisfying relationships with

others and from communicating eff ectively with

them.’

Allusion See historical allusion.

Alternative computing See hacker, hack-

tivist.

Alternative (radical) media See media activ-

ism.

Amazon.com US Seattle-based electronic

superstore selling everything from books to

computers, from cameras to furniture, from

gourmet food to health products, clothing and

groceries worldwide. Named after the earth’s

longest river and with ambitions to be the fi rst

and biggest online shopping mall, Amazon was

founded in 1995 by Jeff Bezos, beginning life

with books only and achieving profi tability by

2001. Th e company soon began to run the retail
      websites of major corporations, at the same
      time acquiring network-related enterprises such
      as Bookpages (UK), Telebook (Germany) and
      the Internet Movie Database that would drive
      forward Amazon business. Th e company moved
      into online music retailing in 1998, launching the
      Amazon MP3 in 2007 and the e-book reader,
      Kindle, in the same year.

nizations] like to manage what information
the news media disseminate about them. Th ey
do this through censorship and propaganda.
Like the news media, these actors seek self-
preservation, and the actors operating in the
market place are particularly concerned with
getting information that will help them make
effi cient decisions.’ Alleyne’s own claim for his
model is that it ‘takes us from the stage of merely
describing the wonders of new technologies and
assuming positive political consequences from
the so-called information revolution to a clear
explanation and understanding of how the news
media function in international relations’.
Allness attitude Gail and Michelle Myers in Th e
Dynamics of Human Communication (McGraw-
Hill, 1985) refer to what Alfred Korzybski termed
‘allness’, that is the attitude that you can know
or say all there is about a person, group, issue
and so on. As Myers and Myers point out, the
allness attitude can constitute a considerable
barrier in communication. It may mean that you
communicate with certain people on the basis
that you know all there is to know about them or
the topic under discussion, and few people take
kindly to such assumptions.
Th e attitude may also aff ect how you receive
messages. For example, you may believe you
already know all that you are being told, or you

Alleyne’s news revolution model, 1997