This document discusses print media including books, newspapers, and magazines. It provides a history of each from their origins to modern developments. For books, it describes the transition from handwritten manuscripts by monks to the printing press and mass literacy. Newspapers evolved from commercial papers to the partisan press to the modern challenges of declining readership and revenue. Magazines began as serial novels and now specialize in targeted topics. All print media now face issues of adapting to the digital environment while maintaining audiences and revenue streams.

1. 5th edition
John V Pavlik & Shawn McIntosh
Chapter 3:
Print Media: Books, Newspapers and Magazines

2. E-PUBLISHING:
UNDERSTANDING CHANGES
IN PUBLISHING
 2012: Apple accused & convicted of price-fixing on e-
books
 Amazon: The leader in e-book sales; did the suit against
Apple inadvertently strengthen Amazon’s monopoly?
 How will traditional print publishing shift in an electronic
environment?

3. FUNCTIONS OF PRINT MEDIA
 Transmission of culture
 Diffusion of ideas and knowledge
 Entertainment

4. DISTINCTIVE FUNCTIONS OF BOOKS
 Compilation of comprehensive knowledge
in a single document considered a vital,
even sacred endeavor
 Book burning, protests and censorship
highlight importance of books like no other
medium

5. HISTORY OF BOOKS TO TODAY
Monastic scribes
 Specially trained monks, or scribes,
copied religious and classical works in
monastic writing rooms called scriptoria
 Largely dedicated to promoting the ideas
of the Christian Church, many books in
this era were written in beautiful
calligraphy and richly illustrated
Johannes Gutenberg
 Invented printing with lead, using movable
type and pressing oil-based ink on paper
with a converted wine press

6. HISTORY OF BOOKS TO TODAY
Mass communication and mass
literacy
 The printing press spread scientific
discoveries and religious beliefs
 Books and broadsheets printed in local
common languages (the vernacular) found an
eager audience as more common people
learned to read
 Most Europeans and Americans remained
illiterate until the nineteenth century with
development of textbooks to teach alphabet
Cheaper & smaller books
 Dime novels
 Print on demand
 Digital books

7. CURRENT BOOK INDUSTRY ISSUES
 Industry mergers and
consolidation enable
publishers to increase profit
margins by reducing operating
costs
 Book publishing industry is
intertwined with global media
and the entertainment industry
 Emergence of online
booksellers, electronic books,
and on-demand printing is
transforming sales and
distribution, growth that
renders the future of traditional
brick-and-mortar bookstores
uncertain

8. SALES AND READERSHIP OF BOOKS
 Patterns of book sales have been
unsteady: sales of
paperback/hardback have fluctuated
 Trade books produce the greatest
revenue
 Sales of children’s & young adult
literature on the rise – but adult books
cost more, so net profits can be
deceptive

9. OUTLOOK FOR BOOKS
Ebooks accounted for about 1% of total
book sales in 2008; 22% in 2012; and
are expected to top print sales for the
first time in the U.S. in 2013
Downloaded audio books increased 38.8
percent in 2010 to $81.9 million
What price consumers are willing to pay
for ebooks remains a question;
different publishers try different
pricing structures

10. DISTINCTIVE FUNCTIONS OF
NEWSPAPERS
Surveillance: informing the public of important events
Local newspapers
 Serve local geographic communities, monitoring their government, law enforcement,
business, religion, education, arts, and other institutions.
 Provide a legal record of the community’s public communications, running obituaries
and various announcements.
National newspapers
 The New York Times, the “paper of record” in the United States, offers especially
strong coverage of international events and issues
 The Wall Street Journal is the nation’s leading newspaper covering business and
finance
 USA Today, a strong mix of general-interest news featuring colorful graphics and easy-
to-read sections, an overall design inspired by television

11. HISTORY OF NEWSPAPERS TO TODAY
The commercial press & partisan press
 Commercial: Merchants published the
commercial papers, reported on ship
arrivals, departures, and cargo, as well as
weather and other items of commercial
interest
 Partisan: Between Independence -1830s,
most U.S. newspapers were affiliated with a
political party or platform
Colonial readership & finances
 Readership was largely limited to those
who supported the political position of the
paper and to society’s well-educated, land-
owning, and affluent groups
Golden age of newspapers
 1830s-1930s: Technological developments
transformed newspapers
 Penny press
 Appetite for news (and literacy) increased

12. CURRENT NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY
ISSUES
 Many newspapers defer to marketing
polls and focus groups when setting
standards for content, tone, and
layout: increased visual & sensational
content
 Experimentation with electronic
delivery
 Reduction, or elimination, of paper
printing (increased reliance on
electronic production)

13. CURRENT NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY
ISSUES
Newspaper chains
 U.S. newspapers traditionally
owned by families, individuals, or
political parties within communities
their newspapers served
 Pro: Chains offer shared
resources for news gathering
 Con: Chains can pressure local
newspapers for higher profits; can
weaken the connection between
the local media and the local
community

14. SALES AND READERSHIP OF
NEWSPAPERS
2/3 of the cost of publishing a newspaper:
Printing press, newsprint, ink, press
operators, delivery trucks and drivers,
and maintenance of subscriber
databases
Circulation & readership
 Readership: number or percentage who
read a newspaper
 Circulation: number of copies sold or
distributed
 Readership down, especially among the
young, though evidence of increased
readership online
Advertising
 Generate 2/3 of U.S. newspaper revenue

15. OUTLOOK FOR NEWSPAPERS
Trends in newspaper
publishing
 More newspaper executives are
outsiders, with little appreciation
or understanding of the industry’s
unique aspects
 Digital subscription models
progress slowly
 Understanding and measuring
audiences increasingly critical in
an online world

16. OUTLOOK FOR NEWSPAPERS
 Local coverage is increasingly important
 Smaller but more numerous revenue streams need to be
developed as alternatives to traditional advertising and
subscription-based models
 Advertising increased across all media channels, with
relaxed restrictions on political advertising that greatly
helped newspapers and other media

17. DISTINCTIVE FUNCTIONS OF MAGAZINES
 Magazines gained popularity in the
1800s with serial novels, released one
chapter at a time over many issues
 Magazines are published at regular but
less frequent intervals (than
newspapers), most typically monthly,
although weeklies and quarterlies are
also common
 Magazines typically published on high-
quality paper stock intended to be kept
considerably longer than newspapers

18. HISTORY OF MAGAZINES
 Early histories of magazines and newspapers are
interwoven: technological, business, and
journalistic/entertainment functions overlapped;
both helped spur the development of modern
mass media
 19th century: magazines helped America define
itself and reach a nationwide audience

19. CURRENT MAGAZINE
INDUSTRY ISSUES
1940s-1950s: Magazine
publishers stopped
publishing general-interest
magazines in favor of
specialized magazines on
almost every conceivable
topic; attracted advertisers
who wished to target
specific audiences

20. CURRENT MAGAZINE INDUSTRY ISSUES
Magazines specialize in several major
topic areas; the top ten include:
* news * fashion * women (with at least three major
subgroups: middle-aged and older women, women
under thirty-five, and teenage girls) * families
(especially aimed at parents of children under age
twelve) * sports * ethnic * medical/health * political *
farm * lifestyles (type of home, region, cooking, and
so forth)

21. SALES AND READERSHIP OF MAGAZINES
 Contemporary magazines subject to
ownership consolidation and media
concentration
 Circulation & revenue down since 2011, yet
every year, there are new magazine titles
published (most do not survive more than 2
years)

22. OUTLOOK FOR MAGAZINES
 Online reading trends point toward relatively short pieces as opposed
to long, in-depth features
 Changing media consumer behavior: greater competition for reader
attention makes people less willing to invest the time necessary to
read long articles
 Full-color pages and high-quality, glossy paper make print magazines
both expensive to produce and environmentally unfriendly