Annan Commission Report on Broadcasting, 1977
Dissatisfied ambition is a target for much
advertising and is often seen as a desirable trait
in modern capitalist societies – a perspective
reinforced by some of the outpourings from the
mass media. A question of concern, then, is the
contribution of the mass media and in particular
advertising to the condition of anomie. Anomie
can lead to extensive personal as well as social
breakdown, to suicide and mental illness as well
as to crime, delinquency, drug addiction and
alcoholism.
Anticipatory compliance Phrase used by
Bruce Dover in his book Rupert’s Adventure in
China (Tuttle Publishing, 2008) to describe how
editors working for the Murdoch media empire
know by nature, rather than directive, what they
can or cannot publish or broadcast. Dover, a
former vice-president of Murdoch in China,
writes ‘Murdoch very rarely issued directives or
instructions to his senior executives or editors’.
What was expected was ‘a sort of “anticipatory
compliance”. One didn’t need to be instructed
about what to do, one simply knew what was in
one’s long-term interests’.
Anti-language According to Martin Montgom-
ery in An Introduction to Language and Society
(Routledge, 1995), anti-languages ‘may be under-
stood as extreme versions of social dialects’.
Typically, anti-languages are developed by sub-
cultures and groups that take an antagonistic
stance towards mainstream society. Th is stance
may be general or relate to a specific area of
social activity. Further, the core activities of the
group – those around which the anti-language
often develops – may well be illegal. Th e anti-
language serves both to establish a boundary and
a degree of separateness between the group and
society, and to make its activities more diffi cult
for outsiders to detect and follow.
By their nature anti-languages are diffi cult to
study, but Montgomery discusses several types
including those developed in Polish prisons and
those used by the Calcutta underworld. Another
example could be that of Polari, described by
Ian Lucas in ‘Th e colour of eyes: Polari and the
Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’ in Anna Livia
and Kira Hall, eds, Queerly Phrased: Language
Gender and Sexuality (Oxford University Press,
1997) as a kind of ‘British gay slang’. Polari was
popular among the homosexual community
in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s, before
crossing over into the mainstream. It has some-
times been employed in the comic portrayal of
camp characters. Th ere is thought to be limited
contemporary use of Polari by the homosexual
community.▶Paul Wells, Understanding Animation (Routledge,
1998); Wikipedia.
Annan Commission Report on Broadcast-
ing, 1977 Historian Lord Annan chaired the
Royal Commission on the Future of Broadcast-
ing, whose main task was to decide what should
happen to the broadcasting industry once the
right to broadcast of the radio and television
companies lapsed at the end of July 1979. Th e
Annan Commission was also asked to make
recommendations on a fourth television channel.
What Annan wanted above all was a shift from
duopoly to a more diverse system of broadcasting
in Britain: ‘We want the broadcasting industry
to grow. But we do not want more of the same
... What is needed now are programmes for the
diff erent minorities which add up to make the
majority.’ Annan also declared that there was ‘a
widely shared feeling that British broadcasting
is run like a highly restricted club –managed
exclusively by broadcasters according to their
own criteria of what counts as good television
and radio’.
The then Labour Government published
a white paper, Broadcasting (July 1978), in
response to Annan, but before there was time
for legislation, the Conservatives came to power
in May 1979. Th e Queen’s Speech promised the
fourth channel to commercial television and
the Annan proposal for an Open Broadcasting
Authority was rejected. See channel four.
See also topic guide under commissions,
committees, legislation.
Anomie It was Emile Durkheim (1858–1917), a
French sociologist, who fi rst used this term to
describe a state of ‘normlessness’ in which the
individual feels that there are no eff ective social
rules governing behaviour, or that those rules
and values to which he/she is exposed are
confl icting and therefore confusing. Th e anomic
state is most likely to occur when contact with
others is limited. Durkheim linked anomie
with the disturbance caused by social change
and upheaval, and saw it as a temporary social
phenomenon. Several contemporary observers
consider it a more permanent feature of modern
industrial society.
mass society theorists have tended to
view those suffering from anomie as being
particularly vulnerable to over-infl uence by mass
communication. Observers have also found that
some behaviour that was considered anomic was
in fact sub-cultural. Another feature of anomie is
that the individual may react to it by becoming
ceaselessly ambitious, and this in some cases can
lead to severe agitation and discontent.