This document provides a history of magazines from their origins to modern forms. It discusses how magazines have changed over time from early publications like pamphlets and newsletters to standardized booklets in the 19th century. Examples are given of some early influential magazines including Harper's Weekly during the Civil War and Erbauliche Monaths Unterredungen, considered one of the earliest publications equivalent to a modern magazine. The document also notes how magazines began to be distributed by subscription and addressed different genres like fashion, education, and politics to specific audiences. While physical magazines still have audiences, the trend is moving toward online digital magazines being more prevalent.

1. Magazines: A History

2. Introduction
Magazines are a form of media, in print. Media in its literal
term means to communicate and so magazines are a way to
communicate with the world, just like newspapers, books,
visual images on screen and audios, all these are a form of
media. Media dates back to the time when men used to
convey messages using a piece of rock! and that was a
very...very long time ago, unless people count their children
playing in the dirt, which can also be perceived as an
unorthodox means of communication!

3. Magazines have undergone drastic changes over the years, from brochures to articles to black and white
comics to actual booklets with standardized piece of literature...joking! I'm sure it wasn't as mundane for
those people back in those days.
For example the Harper's Weekly was a very popular American publication during the 19th century, which
issued illustrations of some of the events from the civil war,
Mercure de France was a 17th century French publication,
Erbauliche Monaths Unterredungen was a German publication that was authored by a single man named
Johann Rist, the magazine inspired many other magazines to be fabricated and led a very ardent and
intellectual audience to come forth and partake in it. It is considered to be the earliest publications to be
equivalent to a modern magazine.
Many other magazines that have been more persistent over the years include the Cosmopolitan, first issued
in 1886, Times magazine, first issued in 1923, Vogue, first issued in 1892 and so on.
Different Kinds Of Magazines

4. Magazines like every other forms of media has genres and
are addressed to a particular crowd of people, example the
magazine, Vogue, is a fashion magazine for mostly women.
Other magazines would be based on education, politics,
art, music, travel, cooking and various other categories that
appeal to a particular kind of audience.
In its early stages, magazines were created to reach an
extensive amount of people all over the world. Writing down
books by hand was quite a task and when the printing
press was invented it brought a whole revolution to the
concept of publishing. Pamphlets, newsletters and religious
material was printed and published so the whole world
could have a chance to obtain knowledge that was pretty
much limited due to fewer resources. With the growing
population of magazines, authors began distributing them
as subscriptions which ensured that the subscriber would
acquire each new issue of the publication. Now magazines
are also sold on the basis of a subscription and can also be
read online as well as received for free such as airline
magazines.
About Magazines

5. There is a debate on the whether magazines will remain in their
physical form or be completely transmitted to digital form. People are
getting more engrossed in their personal and professional lives that
they don't seem to have the time to stop at a nearby store to purchase
a magazine and for certain people it is more easier to catch up on the
news or hot gossip by reading about it online.
However there are still an ample amount of conventional souls out
there who prefer the sweet smell of printed paper and will probably
have a whole stack of digests piled up on their book shelf! it honestly
depends from person to person really. But as we take another step
into the future it is more evident that online magazines will become a
trend. Hey! the mayans predicted the invention of aeroplanes didn't
they?
Epilogue