History and Industrial context

Industrial Context 

 

 

Origin:

Magazines are found to be sourced in the spate of pamphlets, broadsides, ballads, chapbooks, and almanacs that made printing possible. The earliest magazine appears to have been the German Erbauliche Monaths-Unterredungen (1663–68; “Edifying Monthly Discussions”), started by Johann Rist, a theologian and poet of Hamburg. 

 

 

17^th Century to now:

In the 17^th century, magazines were a way of finding out news, reading poetry and prose. The idea was for a magazine to be  ‘entertaining and serious, rational and unsophisticated’. However, in today’s society, whilst having many similarities to original magazines, they have to provide information on particular niches and focus on trends or issues, giving background information on important news events whilst also being entertaining for audiences to read. 

Both of the magazines on the left were written in the 1700’s. As you can see, they both lack colour and illustrations and are in a different format to the modern day examples of the lifestyle magazines on the right. It shows clear coverlines to represent the topics and stories in the magazine, highlighting a ‘try-before-buy’ technique. 

The impact of social media and competition:

The growth of social media and the internet has highly impacted not only the magazine industry but the way content is consumed and viewed.  Most magazines and newspapers now have their own website, with the same Stories, access to an online version of the product and the chance to subscribe to the online magazine also. On a statistia survey, it showed that between 2008 and 2020 the average readership of online magazines in the UK had risen by 36%, from 34% to 70%. By surveys like these, it shows the importance of online content of a magazine to be equal or a little superior to that of the print copy. Although it is evident that print is on the decline, many people are shown to still like to buy print, whether for experience or collection purposes, therefore, companies must still offer a print issue at this point in the 21st century. 

HEARST Magazine

Owners: William Randolph Hearst III (chairman) & Frank A. Bennack Jr. (executive vice chairman) & Steve Swartz (president and CEO)

HEARST communications was founded in 1887 in San Francisco, USA and is now based in New York City, 300 West 57th Street. Steven R. Swartz is the Chief Executive Officer of Hearst. It is a multi-media conglomerate and mass media business, who own several different magazines, newspapers, television stations and channels. 

The brand peaked as a whole between the 1920's and 1930's, they owned the biggest media conglomerate in the world, this included magazines in multiple cities and the merge of Hearst and Cosmpolitan magazine. The company's readership in the first decade grew from a readership of around 15,000 to a staggering 20 million. This figure highlights the popularity of this form of media and the success that the company have created. They circulate around 4 million magazines a month, with 26 million digital users and more than 79 million follows, likes, and shares on social media platforms.

They produce magazines such as:

• Cosmpolitan
• Bazaar
• Red
• Women's Health
• ELLE (US and UK)

Due to Hearst being the conglomerate on the brief and of my magazine, this information will help me in the planning and the creation as I can edit and match my style and genres similar to their own magazines. Therefore, I will also be reviewing magazines of similar style to Hearst's magazines (like Vogue), whilst also analysing Hearst' own (Cosmpolitan). This way I can gain more insite into lifestyle magazines and niche genre magazines in essence.