  We reinterpret anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking from a field-theoretic
perspective in which superconformal anomalies couple to either the chiral
compensator or the $U(1)_R$ vector superfield. As supersymmetry in the hidden
sector is spontaneously broken by non-vanishing vacuum expectation values of
the chiral compensator F-term and/or the $U(1)_R$ vector superfield D-term, the
soft breakdown of supersymmetry emerges in the visible sector. This approach is
physically more understandable compared with the conventional approach where
the chiral compensator is treated on the same footing as a spurion in
gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking scenario.
