Introduction
This topic will be able to tell us the significance of magazines to cultures, but most specially to the American culture. Magazine is one of the printed media that has the capacity to inform, entertain, and even persuade its readers. From this, we can gather that magazines have been journalistic, visual innovators. It became a source of infotainment as we can say for it has its significant impacts to its readers.
Nowadays, most newsrack magazines aim at narrow audience segments. On the other hand, sponsored magazines and trade journals outnumber newsrack magazines. Demassification of magazines as well has been an issue which will be tackled in lieu with this. Lastly, from this particular topic you will know the reasons why it has been said that magazines may be losing their influence in shaping the future.
What is a Magazine?
The word “magazine” meant warehouse or depository during the colonial times wherein various kinds of provisions have been stored in one roof. The first magazine in America came from books, pamphlets, newspapers and varied literary materials which were stored and bound together in one cover.
Magazines are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles, generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three. It can also be distributed through the mail; through sales by newsstands, bookstores or other vendors; or through free distribution at selected pick up locations.
Short History of Magazines
Listed below are some of the people who contributed to the development of magazines. Also, the time line shows us how magazines evolved and influenced people worldwide. From this we can see how and when was the the first newsmagazine, men's magazine, journals, women's magazine, etc. had been published.
1741- Andrew Bradford printed American Magazine and Benjamin Franklin printed General Magazines, first magazines in Colonies.
1821-Saturday Evening Post was launched, ushering in era of general-interest magazines.
1828- Sara Josepha Hale began editing the Lady's Book, first women's magazine.
1860- Harper's Weekly introduced visual news with Civil War illustrations.
1879- Congress gave discount postal rates to magazines.
1899- Gilbert Grosvenor introduced photographs in National Geographic.
1902- Ida Tarbell wrote muckraking series on Standard Oil in McClure's.
1922- DeWitt and Lila Wallace founded Reader's Digest.
1923- Henry Luce and Briton founded Time, first newsmagazine.
1924- Harold Ross founded the New Yorker and introduced the modern personality profile.
1936- Henry Luce founded Life and coined the term photojournalism.
1960's- Oversize general magazines, including Life, folded as advertisers moved to network television.
1962- Hugh Hefner introduced modern question-answer format in Playboy.
Influence of Magazines
Magazines created change throughout history. Its effects to the American culture is its major impact that contributed to a sense of nationhood. Short stories and serialized novels created by the Americans way back then flowed from their experience had helped in establishing their national identity apart from others. It also paved its way in becoming a national advertising medium wherein it build national markets for everyone who wanted to introduce their products to the markets. Since then, they had gathered a massive magazine audience—wherein a lot of people became fond of reading articles from it. Even the illiterates had been given the leisure time just watching large and colorful visuals embedded in it. Some magazines had been edited for downscale audience. Furthermore, the massiveness of the audience makes the magazine an exceptionally competitive medium.
Magazines as Media Innovators
Magazines also led other media with significant innovations in the field of journalism, advertising, and circulation. It helped in the pursuance of investigative reporting, in-depth personality profiles as well as photojournalism.
Before, investigative reporting was called “muckraking” which was honed by magazines as a journalistic approach in the first years of the 20th century. It was Theodore Roosevelt, the reform president who coined the term. Muckraking established magazines as a powerful medium in shaping public policy. In 1902, Ida Tarbell wrote a 19-part series on the Standard Oil Monopoly for McClure's. Lincoln Steffens also detailed municipal corruption. Collier's took on patent medicine frauds. Cosmopolitan, the leading muckraking journal of the period, tackled dishonesty in the U.S. Senate.
Magazines simply became a tool to expose negative issues on some of government agencies. It became effective in telling and writing reports about hidden agenda and even outrageous events gathered from thorough investigations for public information. It was the magazine who had led the way for investigative reporting or muckraking.
On the other hand, the in-depth personality profile is also a magazine invention. It is wherein writers used multiple interviews with a range of sources—talking not only with the subject of the profile but with just everyone and anyone who could comment on the subject. It is somehow a question-and-answer portion in some of the magazines' pages—exposing some information about particular subjects such as celebrities and popular icons coming from different fields as of the present time. It was Harold Ross of New Yorker who had pushed writers for the realization of this idea which is new in journalism. Under Hugh Hefner, Playboy took the interview in new aspects in 1962 with in-depth profiles developed from a highly structured Q&A format.
In the area of photojournalism, it was the magazine who had brought visuals for the public. Photographs were added so that people will be able to see and picture out the story behind what was written on the articles from magazines. Life magazine brought American photojournalism to new importance in the 1930's. The oversize pages from the magazines gave new intensity to photographs, and the magazine, a weekly, demonstrated that newsworthy events could be covered consistently by cameras.
Consumer Magazines
There are lots of magazines for general-interests and they are called consumer magazines. These magazines are available in newsracks and by subscription. They try to offer something for most of its readers, but they have target audiences and are edited for narrower purposes as well. We have the circulation leaders, newsmagazines, newspaper supplements, women's magazines, and men's magazine swhich are under consumer magazines.
An example of a circular leader magazine is the Reader's Digest which is usually considered to have the largest circulation of any U.S. Magazine, selling 15.1 million copies a month. It stems from its attempt to serve a true mass audience, its easy-to-read articles cut across divisions of age, gender, occupation and geography. Some magazines have narrower focus, such as Motor Trend for automobile enthusiasts, Family Circle for homemakers. A few, including newsmagazines, deal with subjects of general interest. BUT, one thing that consumer magazines have in common and that is its heavy reliance on advertising.
Newsmagazines are different from newspapers because they were never up to date. They were just compilations or summaries of news by categories such as national affairs, sports and business. Example of it is the Time, the magazine had the tone of a single, knowledgeable, authoritative individual recapping the week's events and issues. Other copycats are Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report , and the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer.
The newspaper supplements are independently produced supplements that newspapers buy and stuff inside their weekend editions. They are designed for general family reading and have built-in advantages over other magazines and readers neither subscribe nor buy them directly. The supplements need only convince a newspaper to carry them, and they have instant circulation. Examples of newspaper supplements are Parade and USA Weekend.
Then, the women's magazines are magazines which highlights and uplift womanhood. It talks about fashions, morals, tastes, health, sewing, cooking and lifestyles of every women. Also, this would help men understand the essence of each and every women in the society, to be able to know their likes and dislikes, and most of all the significant roles it portrays. Lady's Magazine was the first U.S. Magazine edited to interest only a portion of the mass audience, but otherwise to be of general interest. It later became Godey's Lady's Book. Sarah Josepha Hale helped start a magazine in 1828 to uplift and glorify womanhood. Godey's tradition is maintained today in seven competing magazines known as the Seven Sisters: Better Homes & Gardens, Family Circle, Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal, McCall's, Redbook and Woman's Day. Each sister can be distinguished from her siblings, there is a thematic connection: concern for home, family and quality living from a traditional woman's perspective. An eight sister is Cosmopolitan, although more apply to its distant cousin. It geared itself for a subcategory of women readers--young, married and working. Other women's magazines are the following: Elle focusing on fashion, Playgirl with its soft pornography, Essence for black women, Seventeen for teenage girls, and Self for women of the “me generation”.
Last but not the least are the men's magazines which are of course designed and made for men. It is for every man in town, the topics embedded on it are for them that will best suit their interests. Nevertheless, girls can also read such stuffs for them to know the different personalities and aspects of men. Example of it is the Playboy having its lusty tone , Esquire ( the first classy men's magazine), and Penthouse. BUT not all men's magazines talked more about sex. The outdoor life exalted in Field & Stream, whose circulation tops 2M. Fix it magazines, led by Popular Science and Popular Mechanics, have a steady following.
Non-newsrack magazines
Non-newsrack magazines are made by certain groups or organizations for their members and for specific purposes as well. They are categorized as to sponsored magazines and trade journals.
Sponsored magazines are mostly magazines that carry advertisements and are self-sufficient. They are made by a particular organization to promote society and build membership among them. This is to encourage people to support them and of course use the dues to finance the group's research and expedition. Example of an organization is the National Geographic Society which created Geographic, the most recognized sponsored magazine in the nation. However, there are other sponsored magazines which do not seek advertising. These include many university magazines, which are considered something that a university should publish as an institutional expense to disseminate information about research and scholarly activities, not incidentally, to promote itself. Other sponsored magazines that typically do not carry advertising include publications of union members, in-house publications of employees, and company publications for customers.
Trade journals are made for trading or business purposes and are profit-based as well. Those people who want to be well updated of what is happening in their chosen field and profession most likely have this kind of magazine. Trade journals are essential reading for people in the industry and example of this is the Billboard magazine. Like consumer magazines, the “trades” rely mostly on advertising for their income and profits. Many trade magazines are parts of companies that produce related publications, some with overlapping staffs.
However, trade magazines are criticized because some of it are loaded with puffery exalting their advertisers and industries. These trades tend to be no more than boosters of the industries they pretend to cover. An example is when the America's Textile Reporter promoted the textile industry from a management perspective. Many trade magazines persist today in pandering to their trades, professions and industries, rather than approaching their subjects with journalistic truth-seeking and truth-telling.
Magazine Demassification
The Magazine had reached its peak when it was considered as its heyday. It was able to gather massive audiences—informing, persuading, and entertaining the public in various ways. Some magazines became well-known throughout the world and created change in the field of mass media. It became a part of many innovations throughout history. Millions of publications were made and lots of people had been fond of reading it. Magazines once were epitomized by Life. Henry Luce used the fortune he amassed from Time to launch Life in 1936. He had planned on an initial circulation of 250,000 but right away it was 500,000. Life was within the reach of almost everyone. It had daring—flamboyant photography that seemed to jump off huge, oversize pages. The term “photo essay” was a Life creation. Imitators followed. Look, introduced in 1937, was a knockoff in the same oversize dimension in Life. The historic Saturday Evening Post and Collier's were revamped as oversize magazines then.
However as time passes by, competitors evolved. The high-flying, oversize, massive magazine audiences decreased because of the assaults from television. Some magazine companies were bankrupt and was not able to capitalize that it suddenly had less competition. Even the most popular magazine way back then which was Life ran out of business. Advertisers shifted to television it is because for less, they could have one minute of network television and reach far more potential viewers—considering less time and effort. Unlike magazines which would take a long span of time to publish its write-ups and advertisements. And before, it is less expensive to advertise something for television compared to magazines that is why most advertisers had chosen television.
With the demise of Life, doomsayers predicted that magazines were a dying media. Today, relatively few magazines seek a truly mass audience. Special-interest magazines, whose content focused on limited subjects and whose advertising rates were lower, fit the bill better than either television or the giant mass audience for reaching customers with special interests. Among new magazines that emerged with the demassification in the 1960s were regional and city magazines, offering a geographically defined audience. This indeed is the time when magazines tuned down and had chosen a narrower focus for continuation. However, Norman Cousins, once editor of the high-brow Saturday Review and Literature, criticized demassified magazines for betraying their traditional role of enriching the culture. He said that specialization had diluted the intellectual role of magazines in the society. Scholar Dennis Holder put this “unholy alliance” of advertisers and readers this way. Cousins and Holder were right that most consumer magazines today tend to a frothy mix of light, upbeat features, with little that is thoughtful or hard-hitting. Profitability for most magazines and their advertisers is locked into providing information their target audiences are interested in rather than serving an indefinable “public interest”. Demassified magazines are edited to target selected audiences and thereby attract advertisers, make no pretense of broadening their readers' understanding of substantive issues by exploring diverse perspectives.
An ominous sign for magazines is the cable television industry which is eating into magazine advertising with an array of demassified channels. The demassified cable channels such as ESPN (sports channel) and CNBC (financial news network) are picking up advertisers that once used magazines almost exclusively to reach new slices of the mass audience with a presumed interest in their products and services. Another drain on magazine revenue is the growth of direct-mailing advertising. There had been many competitors that had risen and of course these surpassed magazines which was before on the its peak of success. New media technologies evolved which affects on the continuation of this particular print media.
Consumer and trade magazines adapted quickly to digital delivery in the late 1990s with World Wide Web editions. Time Warner created a massive web site, Pathfinder, for Time, Sports Illustrated, People and its other magazines. There were hopes that advertisers would flock to online magazine sites and make them profitable, but ad revenue only trickled in.
Report Wrap-up
Ever since, magazines became an effective tool for disseminating information. It was able to establish its role in shaping one's culture and society especially the American culture. It brought out lots of changes in the field of media industry. It open up many opportunities for some advertisers to introduce their products—informing, entertaining and persuading the public about it. Massive audience were gathered due to its fast publications before. People were so fond of reading it. Different magazines tried to reach up the public's general interest, however later on focused on a narrower one. As time passed by competitors arrived, and unlike before, magazines became demassified today.
