This document provides an overview of the history and development of magazines in the United States. It discusses how magazines evolved from early political publications in the 1700s to today's wide variety of specialized magazines. Key developments include the rise of national magazines in the 1800s, the growth of general interest magazines and muckraking journalism in the 1900s, and the current dominance of specialized magazines targeting specific audiences. The modern magazine industry continues to adapt to new technologies while still providing a diversity of voices.

1. MAGAZINES IN THE
AGE OF
SPECIALIZATION
Chapter 9

2. Magazines in the Age of Specialization
◦ Since the 1740s, magazines have played a role in our social and cultural lives, and are America’s
earliest mass medium
◦ Today, more than 20,000 magazines are published in the U.S.
◦ When did you first start reading magazines, and what magazines were they?
◦ What magazines do you read today?
◦ How do you think print magazines can best adapt to the internet?

3. THE EARLY HISTORY
OF MAGAZINES

4. The First Magazines
◦ Magazine: Collections of articles, stories, and advertisements appearing in nondaily (such as
weekly or monthly) periodicals that are published in the smaller tabloid style rather than the
larger broadsheet newspaper style
◦ The first political magazine—Review—appeared in London in 1704
◦ Early magazines looked like newspapers of the time, but they appeared less frequently and were
oriented toward broad domestic and political commentary rather than recent news
◦ Other magazines offered poetry, politics, and philosophy for London’s elite

5. Magazines in Colonial America
◦ The first colonial magazines appeared in Philadelphia in 1741
◦ Andrew Bradford started it all with American Magazine, but Benjamin Franklin put him out of
business after 3 issues (he had started his own magazine 3 days after Bradford) by rigging the
postal system—which he was in charge of
◦ Franklin’s magazine only lasted 6 months
◦ By 1776, about a 100 colonial magazines had appeared and disappeared

6. U.S. Magazines in the 19th Century
◦ The magazine business was slow to start, but many communities had their own weekly
magazines
◦ As the 19thcentury progressed, the idea of specialized magazines devoted to certain categories
of readers developed
◦ Religious, literary, and professional magazines arose
◦ In 1821, the Saturday Evening Post was launched—the first general interest magazine

7. National, Women’s and Illustrated
Magazines
◦ With increases in literacy and better mail service due to the railroad, national magazines were
created
◦ Women’s magazines like Ladies’ Magazine began to appear in 1828
◦ The other major development during this time was the arrival of illustration
◦ By the mid 1850s, drawings, engravings, woodcuts, and other forms of illustrations became a
major feature of magazines

8. THE DEVELOPMENT
OF MODERN
AMERICAN
MAGAZINES

9. The Development of Modern American
Magazines
◦ By 1906, more than 6,000 American magazines existed
◦ The Postal Act of 1879 assigned magazines lower postage rates and put them on an equal
footing with newspapers
◦ Advances in technology made large-circulation national magazines possible
◦ Prices dropped and the middle class were able to purchase national publications
◦ Advertising became a viable option for magazine publishers as audiences for national
magazines grew

10. Social Reform and the Muckrakers
◦ In order to attract readers, many magazines used a technique of yellow journalism—crusading
for social reform on behalf of the public good
◦ The rise in magazine circulation coincided with rapid social change in America—people moved
from the countryside to urban areas in search of industrial jobs, and immigrants flooded in from
Europe
◦ Magazines began to feature topics such as corruption in big business and government, urban
problems faced by immigrants, labor conflicts, and race relations
◦ Muckrakers: Investigative reporters who were willing to crawl through society’s muck to uncover
a story
◦ In response to Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, as well as many stories published in magazines,
in 1906 Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act

11. The Rise of General-Interest Magazines
◦ General-interest magazines were the most prominent publications during the early 20th century,
offering occasional investigative articles but also covering a wide variety of topics aimed at a
broad, national audience
◦ Photojournalism: The use of photographs to document daily life
◦ High-quality photos gave general-interest magazines a visual advantage over radio, the most
popular medium of the day

12. Saturday Evening Post
◦ Although it was successful in the 1800s, the Saturday Evening Post was reinvigorated in the
1920s
◦ It featured popular fiction writing and romanticized American virtues through words and
pictures (and Norman Rockwell illustrations)
◦ The Post was the first magazine to reach two million in circulation

13. Reader’s Digest
◦ Started in 1922, Reader’s Digest printed condensed versions of select articles from other
magazines
◦ The owners refused to sell advertising and relied on subscriptions
◦ It was inexpensive and fit in your pocket, and was the nation’s most popular magazine by 1946.
It was the world’s most popular by the mid 1980s with a circulation of 20 million in the U.S.
◦ By 2014 it was in bankruptcy and circulation had dropped to 4.2 million

14. Time
◦ Begun in 1923, Time developed interpretive journalism, assigning reporters to cover stories and
an editor would rewrite them in narrative form
◦ Time had a circulation of 3 million in the 1960s
◦ By 2014, Time’s circulation stagnated at 3.2 million

15. Life
◦ Life magazine was an oversized pictorial weekly which advanced photojournalism
◦ Life appealed to the public’s fascination with images, advertising, and fashion photography
◦ Pass along readership: Life came in contact with 17 million people

16. The Fall of General-Interest Magazines
◦ The decline of general-interest magazines began in the 1950s as a result of changing consumer
tastes, rising postal costs, falling ad revenues, and most importantly, TV

17. TV Guide is Born
◦ TV Guide appeared in 1953 and began to make sense of the impact of TV on their readers
◦ It showed TV listings and was sold in grocery stores
◦ TV Guide highlighted America’s new interest in specialized magazines
◦ It demonstrated the growing power of the nation’s checkout lines

18. Saturday Evening Post, Life, and Look
Expire
◦ All three magazines folded between 1969 and 1972
◦ Publishers were selling the magazines for far less than the cost of production
◦ Less people were reading magazines, thus advertising prices fell, but TV was still cheaper
◦ Postal rates rose 400 percent
◦ The magazines that survived were generally ones that were sold in supermarkets as opposed to
those that relied on mail subscriptions

19. People Puts Life Back into Magazines
◦ Launched in 1974, People featured an abundance of celebrity profiles and human-interest
stories
◦ It was the first successful mass-market magazine to appear in decades
◦ It featured many photos and short articles, and was small in size and sold in grocery stores and
supermarkets

20. Convergence: Magazines Confront the
Digital Age
◦ Although the internet was initially viewed as the death knell of print magazines, the industry
now embraces it
◦ The internet has become the place where print magazines can extend their reach and survive
when their print versions end, or where online-exclusive magazines can exist

21. Magazines Move Online
◦ Creating magazine companion websites is a popular method for expanding the reach of
consumer magazines
◦ Web and app formats give magazines unlimited space and the opportunity to do things that
print versions can’t—blogs, videos, music, podcasts, social networks, or games
◦ Webzines like Salon, Slate, and Wonderwall only appear online

22. THE DOMINATION OF
SPECIALIZATION

23. The Domination of Specialization
◦ Magazines traded their mass audiences for smaller, discrete audiences that could be guaranteed
to advertisers
◦ Magazine subscriptions now are often tied to specific organizations—AARP, AAA, NRA, or the
American Legion
◦ Magazines are now divided into:
◦ Consumer magazines—carry a host of general consumer ads, O, Cosmopolitan
◦ Business or trade magazines—which include ads for products and services for various
occupational groups, Advertising Age, Progressive Grocer
◦ Farm magazines—contain ads for agricultural products and farming lifestyles

24. Men’s and Women’s Magazines
◦ Playboy, started in 1953, features photographs of nude women and articles directed at men’s
interests—criticism of alimony payments and gold digging women
◦ Playboy reached it’s peak circulation in the 1960s
◦ October 2015, Playboy announced it will no longer feature nude photographs, only articles
◦ Women’s magazines focused on cultivating the image of women as homemakers and
consumers—Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping
◦ Women’s magazines gradually became more contemporary and sophisticated, incorporating
feminism and sexuality, career and politics—Cosmopolitan

25. Sports, Entertainment, and Leisure
Magazines
◦ The most popular sports and leisure magazine is Sports Illustrated
◦ Music magazines focus on everything from hip-hop’s The Source, to country music’s Country
Weekly, but the all-time circulation champ is Rolling Stone
◦ National Geographic promoted “humanized geography” and helped develop color photography

26. Magazines for the Ages
◦ Directed at elementary-school-age children, Highlights for Children tops the children’s
magazine category
◦ Seventeen targets 13 to 19-year-olds with a circulation of about 2 million, also Teen Vogue and
Girl’s Life
◦ Maxim targets men in their 20s with headlines about sex, sports, beer, gadgets, clothes, and
fitness
◦ The most dramatic success in magazines targeted at a specific age is in the over-fifty category,
America’s fastest-growing age segment
◦ AARP The Magazine has a circulation over 22 million—far surpassing all other magazines

27. Elite Magazines
◦ Elite magazines are characterized by their combination of literature, criticism, humor, and
journalism, and appeal to highly-educated audiences
◦ The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, and Harper’s lead the pack
◦ The most widely circulated elite magazine is the New Yorker

28. Minority-Targeted Magazines
◦ Ebony, Jet, and Essence are targeted at African American readers
◦ In 2014, Jet announced that it would publish online-only
◦ The Advocate is directed at the LGBT community
◦ Spanish-language editions of English-language magazines—Cosmopolitan en Espanol, Harper’s
Bazaar en Espanol
◦ Latina magazine started in 1996 and is an English-language directed at Hispanic women

29. Supermarket Tabloids
◦ Supermarket tabloids push the limits of decency and credibility
◦ The Enquirer publishes bizarre human-interest stories, gruesome murder tales, violent accident
accounts, unexplained-phenomena stories, and malicious celebrity gossip

30. THE ORGANIZATION
AND ECONOMICS OF
MAGAZINES

31. Editorial and Production
◦ The editorial department produces content, excluding advertising
◦ Includes a publisher and editor-in-chief, who directs subeditors in charge of photography,
illustrations, reporting and writing, copyediting, layout, print, or multimedia
◦ The production and technology department maintains the computer and printing hardware
necessary for mass-market production

32. Advertising and Sales
◦ The advertising and sales department secures clients, arranges promotions, and places ads
◦ The average magazine contains about 45 percent ad copy and 55 percent editorial material
◦ Regional editions are national magazines whose content is tailored to the interests of different
geographic areas—Sports Illustrated prints regional versions of its College Football Preview and
March Madness Preview
◦ Split-run editions: The editorial content remains the same, but the magazine includes a few
pages of ads purchased by local or regional companies
◦ Demographic editions: Targeted at a particular group of consumers. Time magazine promotes
special editions aimed at ultrahigh-income households

33. Circulation and Distribution
◦ The circulation and distribution department of a magazine monitors single-copy and
subscription sales
◦ Subscriptions account for about 91 percent of print magazine distribution, and 75 percent of the
revenue
◦ Evergreen subscriptions automatically renew on a credit card unless the person stops the
subscription
◦ Controlled circulations: Magazines that target a captive audience, such as airline passengers or
association members
◦ Many magazines now have iPad apps where a person can purchase a subscription and receive
the digital version of the magazine

34. Major Magazine Chains
◦ Time Inc. is the largest U.S. magazine chain with 23 print titles—including People, Time, Sports
Illustrated, and InStyle
◦ They also own 70 international magazines and 45 online titles
◦ The Hearst Corporation remains a formidable publisher with titles like Cosmopolitan, Esquire,
Elle, and O: The Oprah Magazine
◦ Conde Nast group controls several key magazines, including Vanity Fair, GQ, and Vogue

35. Alternative Voices
◦ Only 85 of the 20,000 American magazines have circulations over a million, so most alternative
magazines struggle to satisfy small but loyal groups of readers
◦ Alternative magazines have historically defined themselves in terms of politics
◦ Occasionally, alternative magazines become mainstream—for example, Mother Jones, which
champions muckraking and investigative journalism

36. Magazines in a Democratic Society
◦ Magazines have increasingly viewed their audiences as consumers of advertising, rather than
readers
◦ However, more magazine voices circulate in the marketplace than do broadcast or cable
television channels
◦ Magazines often serve individual communities of people, allowing people to have access to
information targeted to their interests