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Introduction to
Communications Media
Ch5 Magazines
A+ Brief History of Magazines
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Magazine Evolution
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Most historians agree that media go through three
stages of development over time:
Elite stage: only the richest and best-educated
members of society make use of them.
Popular stage: a truly mass audience takes
advantage of them.
Specialized stage: media tend to break up into
segments for audience members with diverse and
specialized interests.
Magazines seem to demonstrate this process most
clearly.
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A+ Brief History of Magazines

The First Magazines
 By
1776, a hundred magazines had started and failed.
 Ladies’ Magazine was a special interest magazine
that began publishing in 1828, under the editorship of
Sarah Josepha Hale, a widow who took up writing and
editing to support her family.
 Ladies’ Magazine was the predecessor for Ladies’
Home Journal, which was founded in 1883 and
expanded the area of women’s interests to include
sheet music and popular fiction.
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A+ Brief History of Magazines
 The
Golden Age of Magazines
 The
first magazine to achieve a general interest, mass
audience was the Saturday Evening Post.
 During 1885 to 1905, the number of magazines
published doubled from 3,500 to 7,000.
 Magazines also became a national advertising medium.
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A+ Brief History of Magazines
 The
Golden Age of Magazines
 This
golden age was made possible due to:
 The U.S. had made a commitment to free universal
education, which resulted in an increase in literacy.
 The Postal Act of 1879 reduced magazine rates to a
penny a pound, making it economical for magazines to
be distributed by mail.
 The Rural Free Delivery postal system was established
in the 1890s, enabling magazines to be delivered in
out-of-the-way farms and country homes.
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A+ Brief History of Magazines
 The
Muckrackers: Journalism that
inspired social change
 The
beginning of the 20th century saw newspapers and
magazines getting serious about crusading for social
reform.
 Muckraking articles of this period helped bring about
child labor laws, workers’ compensation and the first
congressional investigations.
 Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906
partially because of the influence of muckraking
reporting.
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A+ Brief History of Magazines
 Mass
Circulation Magazines
 Cultural
magazines included the New Yorker,
founded in 1925 by Harold Ross, style magazines, and
pulps such as True Confessions.
 Reader’s Digest, published in 1922 by Dewitt and Lila
Wallace, was a digest featuring brief versions of
articles that were informative, well-written, and
stressed conservative middle class values.
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A+ Brief History of Magazines
 Mass
Circulation Magazines
 The
true golden age of photojournalism began in the
1930s with the introduction of the 35 mm Leica
camera, which made it possible for photographers to
move with the action, taking shots of events as they
were unfolding.
 This golden age lasted until the decline of the great
general-interest magazines.
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McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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A+ Brief History of Magazines
 Magazines
were America’s only national medium until
the 1920s, when radio networks were established.
 By the 1960s advertisers interested in reaching the wide
and diverse audiences of general-interest magazines
moved to television.
 Ethnic and business magazines flourished as the
U.S. became more culturally diverse in the postindustrial information age.
 Special interest magazines include Latvian
Dimensions, Filipina, and Lefthander Magazine.
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A+ Brief History of Magazines
 Adapting
to New Media
 Magazines
have always adapted to new media. When
movies became popular the industry developed
magazines about movies.
 Magazines publish their content on the Internet which
is cheaper because of no investments in paper, ink, or
presses, no printing overruns or underruns, or postal
rates. Online publishing also provides an interactivity
with readers that is appealing to advertisers.
 Webzines Internet-based, web-only magazines.
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A+ Brief History of Magazines
 Global
Endeavors
 Many
U.S. publishers are moving to international
editions to take advantage of new markets, especially
in former iron curtain countries and in Latin America.
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Top Magazines by Revenue
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Top Magazines by Circulation
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Understanding
Today’s Magazine Industry
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 Trade
magazines are those that focus on a particular business,
and are usually essential reading for people in those businesses.
Billboard is the trade magazine for the music industry.
 Public relations magazines are put out by organizations,
corporations, and institutions with the sole intent of making their
parent organization look good.
 Colors was a public relations magazine for Benetton clothing.
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Understanding
Today’s Magazine Industry
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 Professional
journals are periodicals that doctors,
lawyers, engineers and other professionals rely upon
for the latest research and information in their fields.
 Professional journals are expensive. For example, a
subscription to Brain Research costs $14,919 a year.
 Libraries are cutting back on professional journals
and academic journals to save money. They are
reinvesting in digital online databases instead.
 A little magazine publishes promising and
established poets and authors of literary essays and
fiction. Most of them, including The Antioch Review
and The Paris Review, have tiny circulations.
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Understanding
Today’s Magazine Industry
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 Types
of Magazines
 A consumer
magazine is released at least three
times a year, with a circulation of at least 3,000
general readers, and containing at least 16 pages of
editorial (as opposed to advertising) content.
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Major Types of Consumer Magazines
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Types of Magazines
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McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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Understanding
Today’s Magazine Industry
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books don’t contain much advertising and have
a smaller revenue stream than other types of
magazines. But comics, like the superhero monthlies
published by Marvel and DC comics, have been an
important part of American culture.
 Zines are small, inexpensive publications put out by
people who are enthusiastic about a specific, usually
obscure, topic. Zines, were important parts of the beat
movement of the 1950s and the hippie movement of
the 1960s.
 Today’s zines continue to be self-published outlets for
counterculture voices, but they are now produced with
desktop publishing.
 Comic
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Understanding
Today’s Magazine Industry
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 The
Players
 Many
publishers are entrepreneurs with a deep
interest in the topic, a small amount of money and a
high tolerance for risk.
 The publisher is often the magazine’s founder.
 A mission statement is a grief accounting of how the
magazine will be unique and what will make it
successful.
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Understanding
Today’s Magazine Industry
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 The
Players
 Celebrity
founded magazines is a recent trend. O,
The Oprah Magazine has been one of the most
successful. Thalia, named after the Mexican pop
singer, launched her own magazine in 2004.
 Supermarket chains have been the corporate
publishers of several successful women’s magazines
including Family Circle (Piggly Wiggly) and
Women’s Day (A&P).
 National Geographic is an example of a sponsored
magazine, i.e. published by associations.
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Understanding
Today’s Magazine Industry
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 The
Staff
 The
editor, editor-in-chief, or executive editor is in
charge of the magazine’s overall direction. There is
usually a managing editor, several deputy editors,
senior editors or associate editors.
 Magazine editors work mostly with freelance writers
because only the largest magazines have primarily
full time writers.
 The title contributing editor is generally given to
the magazine’s highest paid freelance writers. Tom
Wolfe, a well-known and highly respected author, is
a contributing editor at Harper’s.
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The Magazine Staff
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McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Understanding
Today’s Magazine Industry
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 In
the extremely competitive magazine business
advertising sales staffs sell the personality of the
magazine and the worth of the target reader to
advertisers.
 The advertiser needs the magazine to enhance its
product sales and its overall image. The magazine
needs the advertiser for content as well as income.
 The circulation department is responsible for
finding and keeping subscribers, manage the
subscriber list, and to promote single-copy sales.
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McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Understanding
Today’s Magazine Industry
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 Most
publishers also rely on blow-in cards and
subscription fulfillment companies such as
Publishers Clearing House.
 Magazine publishers now put out demographic and
regional editions, known as split-run editions.
 Demographic editions of the same magazines go out
to different zip codes.
 Regional editions allow local advertisers to run ads
in prestigious national magazines.
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McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Understanding
Today’s Magazine Industry
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 Single-copy
sales are mostly of interest to paid
circulation magazines whose readers actually pay
subscription fees and newsstand charges.
 Controlled circulation magazines are sent free to
readers who qualify.
 The production department coordinates the actual
printing of the magazines with outside companies,
including those that specialize in high-speed color
printing and the use of glossy paper.
 The publicist’s job is to make headlines (in
newspapers, radio, television and Internet news
services) with news from the cover of the magazine’s
current issue.
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Copyright ® 2010. The
McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Understanding
Today’s Magazine Industry
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 The
Reader
 The
magazine industry claims that 90 percent of
American adults read 12 issues a month on average,
and that the more education and income people have,
the more they read magazines.
 Magazines have a healthy pass-along circulation,
which means that several more people than the
original buyer or subscriber typically read them.
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Controversies
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 Fashion
magazines define the ideal female beauty as
having perfect facial features, long legs, a long neck
and terrific body tone. She must also be 5’ 10” tall
and weigh less than 120 pounds.
 The average woman is around 5’ 4” and weighs 144
pounds. As fashion magazines continue to promote
this unrealistic body size surveys show that women
are increasingly unhappy with their bodies.
 Many critics insist that men’s ideas about women are
shaped by images such as Playboy’s centerfold and
editorial content such as Penthouse Forum.
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Teen Magazines and Websites
A
research study of magazines and their websites
geared towards teen girls showed:
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A focus on beauty to attract males
A focus on cosmetics and other consumer products to
increase beauty
A focus on “what’s wrong” with the individual physically
and how can it be “fixed”
(see Critical Culture Issues on p114)
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Problems Facing the Industry
 Harder
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to market magazines
Publisher’s Clearinghouse no longer effective
Cable TV and the Internet provide competition for
specialized markets
New magazines continue to be launched, but 60% fail to
last a year
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Magazines in the Digital Age
 Magazines
are still learning how to use the
Web
 Originally
just posted same content as print
edition
 Often expanded and supplementary coverage is
available now
 Often magazine websites try to create
communities of readers through forums and chat
rooms
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Magazine Classification
 Six
basic categories
 General
Consumer
 Business
 Custom
 Literary
reviews and academic journals
 Newsletters
 Public Relations publications
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General Consumer
 People
 Time
 Reader’s
 TV
Digest
Guide
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Business
 Forbes
 Money
 Kiplinger’s
 Fortune
 Barron’s
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Custom
 Lexus
 Sky
(Lexus automobiles)
(Delta Airlines)
+ Literary Reviews and Academic Journals
 Journalism
and Mass Communication
Quarterly
 Poultry
and Egg Marketing
 The
Lancet
 The
Kenyon Review
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Newsletters
 Aerospace
 Oil
Daily
Spill Intelligence Report
 Media
Monitor
 Communication
Booknotes
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Public Relations Magazines
 Designed
and published by a company or
industry
 Internal
versions designed to communicate
with workforce
 External
ones designed to communicate
with stockholders, potential customers
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Magazine Organization
 Circulation
 Advertising
 Production
 Editorial
and Sales