magazine book reviews — AEJMC Hot Topics

Book Review – Intellectuals Incorporated: Politics, Art and Ideas Inside Henry Luce’s Media Empire

October 25, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Intellectuals Incorporated: Politics, Art and Ideas Inside Henry Luce’s Media Empire. Robert Vanderlan. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. 384 pp.

This is a study about the intellectual tensions that filled the editorial side of Henry Luce’s Time, Fortune, and, to a much lesser degree, Life magazines. It is a study of self-defined intellectuals and how they operated within Luce’s control from the 1920s to the 1950s and eventually broke free—though often later fibbing about why they had really left the well-paying jobs they held with Luce’s magazines. [Read more...]

Book Review – Fashioning Teenagers: A Cultural History of Seventeen Magazine

October 25, 2011 By AEJMC 1 Comment

Fashioning Teenagers: A Cultural History of Seventeen Magazine. Kelley Massoni. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2010. 256 pp.

Walk into any shopping mall and you’ll see a variety of stores peddling merchandise aimed at teenagers—clothing, jewelry, music, etc. Although this focus on teen consumers might seem like the recent brainchild of a savvy marketing guru, its roots can actually be traced to a magazine.

When Seventeen made its debut in 1944, it was the first publication to recognize the potential of the teenage population, specifically, teenage girls. The magazine was initially created to provide information to teen readers who, up to that point, had no such written material produced specifically for them. The promotion of the magazine ultimately prompted an awareness of this population on the part of marketers and merchandisers, which led to the creation of an industry catering to their retail needs. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: aejmc quarterly, cultural book reviews, history book reviews, Kelley Massoni, magazine book reviews, quarterly autumn 2011

Book Review – The Magazine Century: American Magazines Since 1900

October 24, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

The Magazine Century: American Magazines Since 1900. David E. Sumner. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2010. 242 pp.

Magazines today are in trouble—some venerable titles have changed hands, others have disappeared entirely. For most, ad pages are down (often sharply) as are circulations. The periodical publishing industry is clearly seeking a new viable business model for the increasingly competitive digital world of the twenty-first century. Fewer than 20% of new titles survive for as long as three years.

That dour outlook recedes a bit as one reads this retrospective survey of a century when magazines ruled, or so it seemed. As the author, David E. Sumner of Ball State University, makes clear in his opening remarks, however, the very number of magazines that have been launched over the past century is daunting—as Sumner notes, the number of magazines grew by nearly 600% between 1900 and 2000. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: aejmc quarterly, American magazines, David E. Sumner, history book reviews, magazine book reviews, Quarterly Summer 2011

Book Review – The Magazine Century: American Magazines Since 1900

October 19, 2011 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

The Magazine Century: American Magazines Since 1900. Sumner, David E. (2010). New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing. pp. 242.

David E. Sumner, a journalism professor at Ball State University, tells us that the magazine industry is weathering the storm that newspapers seem to be facing in the first decade of the twenty-first century. He concludes that the magazine readers’ relationship with the publications of their choice is “a unique tactile, visual and sensory experience” (p. 209).