Magazines in the Age of
Specialization
Chapter 9
Magazine Specialization
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Like radio, magazines specialized to survive
television.
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Ex. TV Guide. Also an early example of media
convergence
Developed market niches to cope
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Appealed to advertisers who wanted specific audiences
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Defined by gender, age, race, class, or social and cultural
interests
More than 22,000 commercial, alternative, and
noncommercial publications and newsletters are
published in the U.S. today.
Early History of Magazines
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Defoe’s Review, 1704
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For elites
Political commentary
Looked like a newspaper
Gentleman’s Magazine, 1731
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Samuel Johnson
Alexander Pope
Colonial Magazines
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No middle class
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Often unaffordable
No widespread literacy
Served political, commercial, and cultural
concerns
Ben Franklin, in Philadelphia
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General Magazine
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Ruthlessly suppressed competition
Used privileged position as postmaster
By 1776 about 100 magazines in colonies
Saturday Evening Post
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Longest-running magazine in U.S. history
Started by Alexander and Coate, 1821
First major magazine to appeal directly to
women
First important general-interest magazine
aimed at national audience
The National Magazine
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Better, cheaper technology
Fed growing literacy and education
Better distribution and transportation
Most aimed at women
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Sara Josepha Hale: Ladies’ Magazine
Godey’s Lady Book
E. L. Godkin’s Nation, 1865
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Oldest continuously published magazine
Modern American Magazines
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Postal Act of 1879 lowered postage rates.
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By late 1800s, advertising revenues soared.
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Equal footing with newspapers delivered by mail
Captured customers’ attention and built national
marketplace
The magazine became an instrument of emerging
American nationalism.
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Readers no longer maintained only local or regional
identities.
Muckrakers
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Teddy Roosevelt coins term in 1906.
Early form of investigative reporting
Journalists discouraged with newspapers sought
out magazines where they could write in depth
about broader issues.
Not without personal risk to reporter
Famous American muckrakers:
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Ida Tarbell takes on Standard Oil
Lincoln Steffens takes on city hall
Upton Sinclair takes on meatpacking industry
General-Interest Magazines
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Popular after WWI from 1920s to 1950s
Combined investigative journalism with broad
national topics
Rise of photojournalism plays a prominent
role in general-interest magazines.
The General-Interest “Bigs”
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Saturday Evening Post
– 300+ cover illustrations by Norman Rockwell
Reader’s Digest
– Applicability, lasting interest, constructiveness
Time
– Interpretive journalism using reporter search teams
– Increasingly conservative as became more successful
Life
– Oversized pictorial weekly
– Pass-along readership of more than 17 million
Modern Challenges to
Photojournalism
“Original film has qualities that make it easy
to determine whether it has been tampered
with. Digital images, by contrast, can be
easily altered.”
—Christopher R. Harris
Decline of General-Interest Magazines
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Advertising money shifts to TV.
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Paper costs rise in early 1970s
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TV Guide is born.
Life
Look
Saturday Evening Post
…all fail
But many women’s magazines survive.
People, 1974, is first successful mass market
magazine in decades.
Fragmentation of the Industry
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In 2006, the Magazine Publishers of America
trade organization listed more than forty
special categories of consumer magazines.
Magazine Classifications
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Leisure, sports, and music
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Travel and geography
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E.g., Smithsonian, Travel & Leisure, National
Geographic
Age-group specific
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E.g., Playboy, Soap Opera Digest, Sports Illustrated,
Rolling Stone
E.g., Highlights for Children, Teen People, AARP The
Magazine
Elite magazines and cultural minorities
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E.g., The New Yorker, the New Republic, Ebony,
Imagen
Web Magazines
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By 2006, the three most popular Internet
magazines were Entrepreneur, Forbes, and
Sports Illustrated, with entrepreneur.com
scoring “6 million unique visitors” in February
2006.
Tabloids
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National Enquirer is founded in 1926 by
Hearst.
News Corp. launches Star in 1974.
In early 1990s tabloid circulation numbers
start to decrease.
“I love talking to witches and Satanists and vampire
hunters, and people who have been kidnapped by
UFOs — it sure beats covering zoning board
meetings.”
—Cliff Linedecker
Magazine Structure
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Production
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Editorial
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Content, writing quality, publication focus, and mission
Advertising and sales
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Machines and paper
Layout and design
Manage the income stream from ads
Circulation and distribution
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Either “paid” or “controlled”
Chains
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Hearst
Condé Nast
Advance Publications
Time, Inc.
PRIMEDIA
Hachette Filipacchi
Rodale
Meredith
Media Giant
Contemporary Magazines
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Fewer than 90 U.S. magazines sell to more
than 1 million readers.
 The other nearly 19,000 U.S. magazines
struggle to find a niche.