Communications Chapter 4 Homework New Yorker More Hip Timely And Colorful And Doing So She Became

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Chapter 4

Magazines in the Age of Specialization

CHAPTER OUTLINE

Chapter Opener: Cosmopolitan, launched in 1886 to focus on child care and home decoration,

has been reinvented several times and illustrates the ability of magazines to adapt to and shape

American society.

I. The Early History of Magazines

Magazines started in Europe as periodicals that were similar to newspapers and that covered

politics. They didn’t catch on in the United States until the development of specialized and

general–interest periodicals in the nineteenth century.

A. The First Magazines: European Origins. The first magazines, which focused on book

publishing, appeared in seventeenth–century France.

II. The Evolution of Modern American Magazines

Magazines became a true mass medium and reflected the societal changes in the country in

the twentieth century.

A. Distribution and Production Costs Plummet. Decreasing costs allowed publishers to cut

prices, which increased circulation and guaranteed a large readership for advertisers.

B. Muckrakers Expose Social Ills. Magazine investigative reporters—called muckrakers by

detractors—wrote about societal problems in in–depth articles, a number of which led to

reforms.

C. General–Interest Magazines Hit Their Stride. After World War I, general–interest

magazines that featured photojournalism and that were aimed at a broad national

audience became popular.

D. General–Interest Magazines Decline. General–interest magazine circulation fell largely

because of television, but new magazines also developed.

III. Types of Magazines: Domination of Specialization

Magazines adapted to the rise of television by becoming more specialized.

Men’s and Women’s Magazines. Magazines found niches in the age of television.

Playboy focused on adult subject matter; Better Homes and Gardens targeted women as

homemakers and consumers.

B. Entertainment, Leisure, and Sports Magazines. These periodicals appeal to fans of

everything from soap operas to gaming and include Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone.

C. Age–Specific Magazines. These magazines target narrow age markets often ignored by

mainstream television.

IV. The Organization and Economics of Magazines

Magazines have developed new business strategies to compete in the new media

environment, and many have merged into large chains. At larger magazines, work is divided

into departments.

A. Magazine Departments and Duties

1. Editorial and Production. The editorial department produces content, excluding

advertisements, while the production and technology department maintains the

computer hardware necessary to produce the magazine.

V. Magazines in a Democratic Society

Because of their dependence on advertising, some magazines avoid controversial content.

Magazines have less deadline pressure than other news media, however, and thus can offer

thoughtful analyses about the myriad topics they cover, inspiring lively discussion among

the reading public.

LECTURE TOPICS

1. Discuss how to launch a successful magazine in the digital age, noting how successful

magazines use convergence journalism.

2. Discuss magazines as important vehicles for democracy, including their history as political

pamphlets, a platform for muckrakers, and today’s political magazines.

LECTURE SPIN–OFFS

Muckrakers Expose Social Ills

Discuss Theodore Roosevelt and muckraking. (Students are often shocked when told that

Cosmopolitan was an early muckraking magazine.) Although he criticized the muckrakers,

Roosevelt was a reformer involved in many antitrust actions during his presidency.

Reader’s Digest

Entertainment, Leisure, and Sports Magazines

When Joe Weider launched a newsletter called Your Physique in the 1940s, he had a difficult

time finding fitness–equipment and nutritional–food companies to advertise in it. Frustrated, he

solved the problem by building his own line of fitness equipment, starting up a nutritional–

Age–Specific Magazines

• In the 1950s, businesses began to realize that teenagers were a potentially lucrative market

segment, with more than $9 billion in disposable income to spend. Rock and roll and movies

were targeted at teens, and magazines began targeting them, too. In the first edition of Teen

magazine in June 1957, the editors announced that their publication was “born into a

generation that has finally come to recognize persons between the ages of 13 and 19 as a

distinct cultural group.”

Online Magazines

As with newspapers, magazines and their publishers are immersed in digital initiatives:

• Time Inc. Features user–generated content; an in–house online production studio; and online

Editorial and Production

• One way to break into the magazine business is through the fact–checking department. Before

an article is published, fact–checkers carefully go over it, correcting inaccurate spellings,

double–checking dates and figures, and tracking down and verifying every tidbit of data,

including quotes.

• In the book Bright Lights, Big City (1984) by Jay McInerney, the main character is a fact–

Circulation and Distribution

• Women’s magazines have taken a hit because of the growth of superstores. With many

checkout lanes, not all of which are stocked with magazines, people are moving through the

supermarket more quickly and are no longer lingering as long in front of glossy magazine

titles.

• By 2003, Walmart accounted for 15 percent of all magazine sales in the country. That gave

the retailer more clout over magazine sales—and magazine content—than ever. Under

Major Magazine Chains

• Investigate the major magazine chains and their associated brands. How are they managing

digital convergence? How does their business model reflect consumption changes?

•

Personalities who work, or have worked, at Advance Publishing/Condé Nast:

Tina Brown: The British–born Brown was a prize–winning journalist and editor of

England’s Tatler at age twenty–four. She then headed up Vanity Fair in the United

States. At Vanity Fair, Brown turned the magazine around with daring cover designs

(Demi Moore pregnant and naked) and incisive writing. In 1992, Newhouse selected

Brown to be editor–in–chief of the New Yorker. She resolved to make the New Yorker

more hip, timely, and colorful, and by doing so, she became the most–talked–about

• InStyle magazine was the first U.S. magazine to implant product information immediately

adjacent to editorial images.

• The Japanese were the first to launch full–blown magalogs. The magalogs enjoyed immediate

success.

(Source: David Carr, “Publish Till You Drop,” The New York Times, August 2, 2004,

MEDIA LITERACY DISCUSSIONS AND EXERCISES

IN BRIEF: THE SHELF LIFE OF A MAGAZINE

Pre–Exercise Questions: Do we experience magazines more the way we do newspapers (read and

discarded each day) or books (read and stored on bookshelves)?

Ask your students to consider the way they or other people in their home use magazines. How

did the magazines get there? Which ones (if any) were part of a paid subscription, purchased at a

IN BRIEF: MAGAZINE ACTIVITY

Utilizing magazines in class is always useful. One activity I conduct is a basic critical analysis of

ads: finding ones that students think use stereotypes or are directed to a certain class, and so forth.

Second, I ask students to look at the ads of a certain magazine and show how the ads feed into or

IN DEPTH: IDEOLOGICAL DIVERSITY IN NEWSWEEKLIES

The purpose of this project is to appreciate the ideological diversity of weekly newsmagazines.

Work with a partner or in small groups. (This project could also be converted into a formal

argument paper.)

1. Description. Take a recent issue of the mainstream newsweekly Time and review all the

articles, including the various topics covered, the writing style and tone, the level of analysis

2. Analysis. Devise a chart to organize your findings according to (a) the stories covered and (b)

the way that the stories are covered. What patterns emerge? How do the publications differ?

What do you notice about the advertisers in each magazine?

3. Interpretation. The Weekly Standard and the Nation represent competing visions of society.

To what extent are their viewpoints also reflected in the mainstream media?

4. Evaluation. What value do magazines like the Weekly Standard and the Nation add to the

debate on various social issues? What other mass media (television, radio, etc.) cover the

same issues from their political perspective regularly? If people read only mainstream media,

what are they missing?

IN DEPTH: THE THIN LINE BETWEEN EDITORIAL CONTENT AND ADS

This Critical Process exercise looks at the relationship between editorial content and

advertisements in magazines.

1. Description. Select a magazine. Chart the kinds of ads that appear in the magazine. Then note

the editorial content of the magazine.

2. Analysis. How similar are the ads and the editorial content? Are ads placed in proximity to

editorial content on a related topic? How aesthetically similar are the ads and editorial content

(e.g., the style of a magazine’s photo shoot and its fashion ads)? Are there ads that seem to be

CLASSROOM MEDIA RESOURCES

VIDEOS/DVDS/CDS

The Devil Wears Prada (2006, 110 minutes). Anne Hathaway stars as the assistant to a

demanding editor (played by Meryl Streep) in the high–pressure atmosphere of a top fashion

magazine.

Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (2011, 92 minutes). Documentary about the fashion icon

and her work at Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue.

Good Girls Revolt (2015). Amazon original series that looks at the lives of women at an

American news magazine during the 1960s.

WEB SITES

Leader for data–driven insights and technology certification audits across the web, mobile,

email, and print.

Editorial leaders for most consumer and business magazines in both print and digital

versions.

Industry association for multiplatform magazines.

Founded in 1857, the Atlantic is a political magazine with a moderate approach to the U.S.

government.

Tracks media industry trends.