Exam 2 Flashcards
(152 cards)
The “Three Eras” of Magazine History
- The early industry - Elite Readership Era
- Mass-Circulation Era
- The Era of Specialization
The early industry - Elite Readership Era
By mid-1700s, magazines become a favorite medium
among the British elites.
Andres Bradford & Benjamin Franklin duplicated that
success in the New World.
Early magazines
Saturday Evening Post (1821), Harper’s (1850), Atlantic
Monthly (1857)
Mass-Circulation Era
(1870s)
McClure’s (-1929)
The Saturday Evening Post
Ladies’ Home Journal
Cosmopolitan
10–15 cents for working people.
Served for social change, esp. in the muckraking era of the first decades of the 20th century -Theodore Roosevelt
What was the first national mass medium? and what helped circulate…
Magazines
Railroad helped mass-circulation
magazines
Help developing national brands
Means to spread message nationwide = Magazines
What is the mass distribution of ideas
Magazine ads
(vs Mass Production & Distribution of Consumer Goods)
Mass consumer vs mass market
The top magazine ads
Toiletries & Cosmetics
Apparel & Accessories
Drugs & Remedies
Foods
Media
Retail
Direct Response
Companies
Where does the most magazine business revenue come from
ads
Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC, est. 1914) – Now
Alliance for Audited Media (AAM)
Providing reliability to announced circulation figures
Why are accurate figures important?
Pricing ad space based on circulation/# of people
Historically publishers often fabricated circ. #s to sell ad space at a higher price
What else matters?
Subscription vs. single-copy sales
Pass-along readership
Demography (e.g., socio economic status of readers)
3 types of magazines
- Trade, professional & business
for specific professions - Industrial, company & sponsored for within organizations
- Consumer
Controlled Circulation (Custom Publishing)
Providing a magazine at no cost to readers who meet some specific set of advertiser-attractive criteria.
ex. Hemispheres (United Airlines) for travelers
Free to take; airlines (and advertisers) expecting pass-along readership = bigger ad reach! (Day’s idea again!)
What’s wrong if this ad is in Hemisphere?
Expensive meat next to not expensive meat - makes it look bad
Advertise lots of destinations
Custom Magazines
Brand magazines:
consumer magazines by businesses & aimed at demographics that are similar to those of the businesses
Magalogue:
Designer catalogue looks like a consumer magazine
Advertorials
Ads that appear in the magazines, taking on the appearance of editorial content.
Complementary copy
Content that reinforces advertiser’s message, or at least does not negate it—is problematic if it becomes major influence in publication’s editorial decision making.
Ad-pull policy
Advertisers demanding right to prescreen content
Convergence with internet – Magazines as an online medium
80+% magazines produce online editions w/ interactive features.
Most online-only contents are free; contents appear in print are for fee.
Print ads are more effective than online ads.
Readers prefer print over online.
Online magazines’
competition with:
1) printed magazines
2) other online contents (NPs,
other websites).
QR codes (quick response)
embedded in print magazines
Where are people of color in magazine ads?
serving or entertaining, working
vs served and entertained, etc.
The Media Effects Debate
Argument 1:
Media content has limited impact on audiences because it’s only make-believe; people know it isn’t real.
Counterarguments:
News – Real
Ad - Supposed to tell truth
Kids confront the world through TV
= The early window (of social learning)
To enjoy the media, we willingly suspend disbelief.
The Media Effects Debate
Argument 2:
Media content has limited impact on us b/c it is only play or entertainment
Counterarguments:
News is not entertainment.
Even if media are for recreation, recreation is very
important to the way we develop our knowledge of
ourselves and our world.
The Media Effects Debate
Argument 5:
Media only affect unimportant things in our lives, such as fads & fashions
Counterarguments:
Fads & fashions are not unimportant
If media influence only unimportant things, why are billions of $ spent on media efforts to sway opinion about social issues?
The Media Effects Debate
Argument:
If media have any effects at all,
they are not the media’s fault.
Media simply hold a mirror to
society and reflect our world as
it is.
Counterargument:
Media = a very selective mirror,
and some things are
overrepresented, others
underrepresented, and some
things disappear altogether.
Agenda setting!
Administrative research
asks questions about the immediate, observable influence of mass comm
Transmission perspective
A liner sequential model of the
effect of communication