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This blog will be the last part of my ‘History of a Magazine’ blogs.
20th-Century Developments
Now we are fast forwarding to the 20th-century. The 20th-century brought on a whole new generation of magazines. By the 1900s, magazines already expanded to attract wider audiences and to have an increase in circulation to decrease issue prices. This already brought on a whole new span of readers and brought popularity to magazines in general. By this time, it doesn’t seem like the magazine business can improve anymore. However, in the 20th-century, new types of magazines started being introduced. This included news, business, and picture magazines. As a result, these types of magazines seemed to attract a whole new audience of readers and dominated the industry as a whole.
News/ Business magazines
As the world started developing, so did magazines. Magazines are meant to document and update people on what is happening in the world and make it interesting so people would want to read it. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, technology started advancing but not many people knew much about it. Technology made worldwide information very accessible, so publishers took advantage and created magazines based on this newfound information. These magazines were called the newsmagazine.
The first newsmagazine was in 1923 called Time. This magazine focused on world news. The purpose of this magazine was introduced with Time releasing their first publication with the proposition that “people are uninformed because no publication has adapted itself to the time which busy men are able to spend simply keeping informed”. At first, Time had a rough start, but in 1928, it’s popularity and audience grew due to the magazine’s well-researched information and it’s clear presentation.
Business magazines that started coming in as well:
- Business Week was founded in 1929 with a focus on the global market
- Forbes, currently one of the most popular financial magazines, began printing in 1917 as a biweekly publication
- In 1933, a former Time foreign editor founded Newsweek, which now has a circulation of nearly 4 million readers
Recently:
- Newsweek and Time continue to compete with each other, furthering a trend that began in the early years of Newsweek.
Picture Magazines: photojournalism
Photojournalism:the telling of stories through photography
Since the 19th century, illustrations in magazines have already been done (ex. The Saturday Evening Post). However, as much as illustrations were popular and “modern” at that time, photography grew going into the 20th century, which led to picture magazines growing in popularity. This was also called photojournalism (definition seen above).
Henry Luce’s Life: characterized as “the most influential picture magazine”. Published between 1936 and 1972.
The most interesting thing about this magazine is its purpose and format. With 96 large-format glossy pages and the opening photograph showed an obstetrician holding a newborn baby with the caption “Life begins.” A huge photograph on the cover in glossy pages wasn’t typical for a magazine. It attracted people just by its looks.
The purpose was very attracting as well, “to see life; to see the world; to witness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things”, said their publication. This purpose seemed grand and important, despite being contained in a magazine basically at the world’s fingertips, it was a new spread of information which couldn’t be ignored. Life was said to have established photojournalism. This fact was evident from Life having a circulation of 1 million.
Even though Life was a very popular magazine, it wasn’t the only one of its kind.
Look : biweekly picture magazine, printed between 1937 and 1971.
Look claimed to be Life’s competition because they reach a bigger audience. It’s popularity came from its similar format and style to Life. So, Look did become stiff competition however, Life was the original trendsetter which maintained loyal popularity all throughout.
Many more magazines which followed Life’s trend:
Into the 21st Century: The modern magazine
From the 20th century to the 21st century, magazines have had to adapt to the the evolution of technology. This change has given access to an even bigger audience because it reaches a wider spread of people all around the world. Publishers did have to change the structure, techniques, and perhaps format of their magazines to place them online however this small inconvenience would lead to an increasing online market.
Sources used for research:
https://open.lib.umn.edu/mediaandculture/chapter/5-2-history-of-magazine-publishing/
That’s the History of a Magazine!
