Magazines: The 1st of the Specialized Media
Chapter Outline
History
Industry
Controversies
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

The First Magazines
 Appeared in Germany in 1663,
▪ Targeted elite, literate audience.
 The first two magazines in America,
▪ American Magazine & General Magazine,
 Six months later both magazines had failed
▪ Magazines were seen as a luxury
▪ Not like books or newspapers
 By 1776, a hundred magazines had started and
failed.
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 Ladies’ Magazine - special interest magazine
▪ Began publishing in 1828, under Sarah Josepha Hale
▪ Focused on Women’s Interests, issues & rights
 Ladies’ Magazine –
▪ Predecessor for Ladies’ Home Journal, founded in 1883
▪ Expanded the area of women’s interests
▪ to include sheet music and popular fiction.
 The first magazine to achieve a mass audience was
▪ The Saturday Evening Post.
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 Early 1900s magazines and newspapers crusaded for
social reform.
▪ Magazines, most effective in providing in-depth investigations.
 McClure’s Magazine
▪ Attacked the monopolistic practices of Standard Oil
▪ Exposed municipal corruption in several cities.
▪ Other magazines began to follow suit.
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 Muckraking – Investigative Journalism – Video Clip
▪ Articles led to child labor laws,
▪ Workers compensation
▪ First congressional investigations.
 Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906
▪ Passed because of the influence of muckraking reporting.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Consumer Magazines
 Lets name a couple of each
 News Magazines
 Women’s Magazines
 Men’s Magazines
 Hobby Magazines
Copyright Allyn & Bacon 2009

Mass Circulation Magazines
 Cultural magazines
▪ The New Yorker,
▪ Style magazines,
▪ Pulps such as True Confessions.
 Reader’s Digest, featured brief versions of articles
▪ Informative, well-written,
▪ Stressed conservative middle class values.
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 The first news magazine was Time,
▪ Originated the terms “photojournalism,” and “photo essay.”
 Golden age of photojournalism began in 1930s
▪ 35mm Leica camera allowed photographers to move with the
action
 Golden age lasted until general-interest magazines
declined in the 1960’s (What led to his decline?)
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
 America’s only national medium until the 1920s,
▪ Before radio networks were established.
 1960s advertisers moved to television
▪ To reach wider, more diverse audiences
 As U. S. became more culturally diverse
▪ Ethnic and business magazines flourished
 What are some magazines that cater to special interest groups
▪ (Ethnic, Cultural, Social, etc)
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
Adapting to New Media
 Magazines adapted to competition from new media.
▪ Movies popularity led to magazines about movies.
 Playboy
▪ Makes more from cable & broadcast than magazines.
 Magazines publish content on the Internet
▪ Cheaper because of no investments in paper, ink, or presses,
▪ No printing over runs or under runs, or postal rates.
▪ Interactivity with readers that is appealing to advertisers.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
 Types of Magazines – Pg 129
 Major Types of Consumer Magazines – Pg 130
 Top magazines by revenue – Pg 131
 Top Magazines by Circulation – Pg 132
 The Magazine staff – Pg 135
 Top Magazine Covers – Pg 139
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
 Consumer Magazines
▪ Target members of the buying public
 Trade magazines
▪ Focus on a particular business for people in those businesses.
▪ Can you think of any examples
 Public relations magazines
▪ Put out by organizations, corporations, and institutions
▪ Sole intent of making their parent organization look good.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
 Professional journals
▪
▪
▪
▪
Periodicals for doctors, lawyers, engineers and professionals
Expensive, cost up to $14,919 a year.
Libraries cutting back on to save money.
Reinvesting in digital online databases instead.
 Little magazines
▪ Publishes promising and established poets and authors
▪ Include The Antioch Review and The Paris Review
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 Comic books
▪ Little advertising, smaller revenue stream than other magazines.
▪ Have been an important part of American culture.
▪ Any comic book readers in here? Which ones?
 Zines
▪ Small, inexpensive publications - specific, usually obscure, topic.
▪ Important part of the beat/hippie movement of the 50s and 60s.
 Today, many Zines exist only on the Web.
▪ blogs are an online version of what Zines use to be.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

The Players
 Many publishers are
 Entrepreneurs
▪ Deep interest in the topic, small amount of money,
high tolerance for risk.
 Celebrity founded magazines
▪ O, The Oprah Magazine - one of the most successful
▪ Rosie - folded after dispute between Rosie O’Donnell and
corporate parent.
 Supermarket chains have been corporate publishers
▪ Family Circle (Piggly Wiggly) and Women’s Day (A&P).
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

The Staff
 Editor, editor-in-chief, or executive editor
▪ In charge of the magazine’s overall direction.
 Magazine editors
▪ Work mostly with freelance writers
▪ Only the largest magazines have primarily full time writers.
 Contributing editor
▪ Magazine’s highest paid freelance writers.
▪ Tom Wolfe, a well-known and highly respected author, is a
contributing editor at Harper’s.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
 Advertisers/Advertising
▪ Need the magazine to enhance its product sales and overall image.
▪ Magazine needs the advertiser for content as well as income.
▪ Sales staffs sell the personality/worth of the reader to advertisers.
 The circulation department
▪ Responsible for finding and keeping subscribers,
▪ Manages the subscriber list, Promote single-copy sales.
▪ Publishers also rely on subscription fulfillment companies
▪ Publishers Clearing House, etc
▪ (people knocking on your door trying to sell you magazines)
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
 The production department
▪ Coordinates the actual printing of the magazines
 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.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

The Reader
 Industry Claims
▪ About 90% of US adults read 12 issues a month on average,
▪ More education/income means more magazines people read.
 Magazines have a healthy pass-along circulation,
▪ Several more people than the original buyer/subscriber read them.
▪ (Where would you read a magazine that someone else bought)
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
 Magazines define the ideal female beauty
▪ What do think some of these standards are?
 As magazines continue to promote these standards
▪ Women are increasingly unhappy with their bodies.
 Critics insist that men’s ideas about women
▪ Are shaped by images such as Playboy’s centerfold
▪ Editorial content such as Penthouse Forum.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Outline of a Normal Woman’s Body versus Outline of a Model’s Body
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 Credibility is a magazine’s primary asset, even in an industry
that includes National Enquirer.
▪ Does anyone read the supermarket tabloids? Which ones?
 Legally, magazines are expected to be more diligent about
truth and accuracy than daily newspapers
▪ Because magazines have a longer time to work on stories and check
facts.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
 Editorial independence
▪ A magazine’s independence from advertisers,
▪ Independence from those it writes about or supply it with information.
 History of separating advertising and editorial
▪ Ms., Mad, Consumer Reports, and Consumers Digest
▪ Take no ads, and Reader’s Digest refuses all cigarette ads.
 The Saturday Evening Post,
▪ In final days promised to feature Henry Ford on its cover
▪ In exchange for $400,000 worth of Ford advertising.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
 Magazines and subscription fulfillment companies
▪ Seek innovative ways to sell.
▪ What are interesting ways people have tried to sell you magazines
 Direct-mail used deception with fake million dollar check.
 Elders subscribe to magazines they can’t afford on fixed
incomes.
 Critics and the courts agreed that this practice was unethical.
▪ Publisher’s Clearing House reimbursed subscribers $18 million,
▪ Reader’s Digest was forced to return $8 million,
▪ Time Magazine was forced to refund nearly $5 million
▪
To customers who were fooled.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Bring 1-2 magazines of your choice to class
on Wednesday for a class activity

Make sure you write down what magazines
you brought or have your name on them so
you can take them after class.
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved