Newspapers have retained their importance as vehicles for advertising—including display ads as well as classified advertisements. Even after classified advertising became available on the Internet, local papers retained a significant share of classified ads, especially in the categories of job recruitment and real estate. In smaller and rural communities, regional and local papers have remained essential for small businesses wishing to advertise.
Although newspapers had traditionally counted on the income from subscriptions and newsstand purchases, it became increasingly evident that advertising was a newspaper’s primary source of profit. One of the main developments of the 1970s and ’80s was the spread of free newspapers (known in the United Kingdom as free sheets), which are delivered door-to-door or distributed in public places. Many free newspapers are printed by smaller newspaper enterprises and are entirely financed by advertising revenue. In the early 21st century, large metropolitan newspaper publishers began experimenting with free tabloid versions of their daily papers; their goal was to build brand recognition among younger readers who were less likely to purchase or subscribe to traditional newspapers. However, by promoting a sense that one need not pay for news, the free papers and free news Web sites joined radio and television in posing a threat to the existence of paid-subscription newspapers. Although The Wall Street Journal began charging for its online content in 1996, most newspaper publishers thought that free access to the online versions of their papers would yield strong advertising income and help build the subscription base for their print-edition papers. Even 10 years later, as publishers increasingly saw the need to charge for online access, The Wall Street Journal remained the only American newspaper not offering free viewing of some—if not most—of its daily news.
Contemporary challenges
Besides working to retain their share of advertising, newspapers must compete for the attention of the consumer who can get the main points of the news from a variety of sources. Over the decades newspapers have done well to survive amid the proliferation of portable radios, radios in automobiles, cable and satellite-broadcast television channels, Internet news sites, and web logs. Readers may be attracted by the paper’s sports reporting, racing tips, editorials, cartoons, job advertisements, gossip columns, or, ironically, the daily listings of radio and television programming. The modern reader, in fact, is more likely to buy a newspaper to consult a special section than to read it from cover to cover.
Other mass media have nonetheless influenced the style and the substance of newspapers, especially as audiences seek entertainment in tandem with more straightforward news. One social change that newspapers have capitalized upon regards the increase in leisure time in developed countries. To accompany the growth of a diversity of leisure activities such as home improvement, gardening, and food and wine, newspapers have devoted special features to these activities, particularly in their weekend editions. Foreign travel has also become more common, creating a demand for informative articles on popular tourist destinations. Even the sports pages, an essential part of the modern newspaper, have been affected by the changing leisure patterns—there has been an increase in the number of sports of general interest, allowing the expansion of the sports section to cover less popular sports. The economic advantage of covering more leisure activities and interests comes from the ability of newspapers to attract advertising revenue from commercial suppliers of leisure goods and services. In expanding their coverage to include modern leisure interests, newspapers can be seen to reflect the society of which they are a part.
The role of the press
A free press is seen as a central component of a healthy democracy. This freedom does have its limits, however. Some constraints might stem from issues of defamation and national security, and news blackouts or restrictions on information have occurred during military crises. Of even more concern is the growing number of threats made to journalists reporting from areas of political or military tension, where at one time the press card gave the right to independent reporting.
In the developing countries of the Third World, newspapers can play a vital role in disseminating a balanced picture of national affairs and in contributing to the growth of literacy. Repression of independent opinion is common in such countries, however. The freedom of the press is by no means universal even in the industrialized West, despite the defense of such freedom as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 19).
In fact, for much of the world’s population, an independent press remains an unattainable goal. The People’s Republic of China, for example, has held the view that Western press freedom is illusory, because a wealthy minority controls what is to be printed, whereas access to the press is truly free in communist countries. Distortion of the truth can be said to arise wherever newspaper ownership approaches monopoly or even, as in some Western countries, if it is controlled by a small number of organizations. New technology—as evidenced by the blog and the Internet news site—does offer escape from this impasse because it makes possible the broad distribution of diverse perspectives. These new communication formats are able to publicize the views of minorities that traditionally have not been heard, but such specialized sources tend to reach very limited audiences, many of which comprise individuals who already agree with the views being presented.
Contemporary journalists are nonetheless intimidated, attacked, and killed for their role as witnesses to political, economic, and social developments wherever they may be in the world. The freedom to collect, disseminate, and publish news is recognized as so vital to human rights that UNESCO established World Press Freedom Day (May 3) in 1997 and began awarding an annual prize named for Guillermo Cano Isaza, a Colombian journalist slain in 1986, who advocated harsh punishments for narcotics traffickers. With support from UNESCO, several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) monitor threats made against journalists and publish reports assessing the status of press freedom around the world.
Censorship and fear of repression are not the only constraints to a free press; the cost of reporting and delivering news can bring significant limitations. While Internet publishing has made possible the affordable delivery of news and opinion, the more traditional business of journalism—television and radio broadcasting or journal and newspaper publishing—remains a costly and, frequently, a limiting factor in the free exchange of information. Such limits on access can occur in dictatorships, developing countries, and wealthy democracies alike.
Above all, the serious newspaper has moved toward providing in-depth detail, analysis, and opinion on many current events. In most countries of the West, the quality of newspaper coverage of business affairs, the arts, and social issues is increasingly important as publishers deal with more sophisticated readers. Even as newspapers adapt to the styles and the interests of an era, they nonetheless represent a forum for thoughtful debate, a medium for creative expression, and a safeguard of the written language.
Philip Soundy Unwin George Unwin David H. Tucker The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaMagazine publishing
Beginnings in the 17th century
Though there may have been published material similar to a magazine in antiquity, especially perhaps in China, the magazine as it is now known began only after the invention of printing in the West. It had its roots in the spate of pamphlets, broadsides, ballads, chapbooks, and almanacs that printing made possible. Much of the energy that went into these gradually became channeled into publications that appeared regularly and collected a variety of material designed to appeal to particular interests. The magazine thus came to occupy the large middle ground, incapable of sharp definition, between the book and the newspaper.
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. Soon after there appeared a group of learned periodicals: the Journal des Sçavans (later Journal des Savants; 1665), started in France by the author Denis de Sallo; the Philosophical Transactions (1665) of the Royal Society in England; and the Giornale de’ letterati (1668), published in Italy and issued by the scholar and ecclesiastic Francesco Nazzari. A similar journal was started in Germany a little later, the Acta eruditorum Lipsiensium (Leipzig; 1682); and mention may also be made of the exile-French Nouvelles de la République des Lettres (1684), published by the philosopher Pierre Bayle mainly in Holland to escape censorship. These sprang from the revival of learning, the need to review its fruits, and the wish to diffuse its spirit as widely as possible.
The learned journals summarized important new books, but there were as yet no literary reviews. Book advertisements, by about 1650 a regular feature of the newssheets, sometimes had brief comments added, and regular catalogs began to appear, such as the English quarterly Mercurius librarius, or A Catalogue of Books (1668–70). But in the 17th century the only periodicals devoted to books were short-lived: the Weekly Memorials for the Ingenious (1682–83), which offered some critical notes on books, and the Universal Historical Bibliothèque (January–March 1686). The latter invited scholarly contributions and could thus be regarded as the true forerunner of the literary review.
The lighter type of magazine, or “periodical of amusement,” may be dated from 1672, which saw the first appearance of Le Mercure Galant (renamed Mercure de France in 1714). It was founded by the writer Jean Donneau de Vizé and contained court news, anecdotes, and short pieces of verse—a recipe that was to prove endlessly popular and become widely imitated. This was followed in 1688 by a German periodical with an unwieldy title but one that well expressed the intention behind many a subsequent magazine: “Entertaining and Serious, Rational and Unsophisticated Ideas on All Kinds of Agreeable and Useful Books and Subjects.” It was issued in Leipzig by the jurist Christian Thomasius, who made a point of encouraging women readers. England was next in the field, with a penny weekly, the Athenian Gazette (better known later as the Athenian Mercury; 1690–97), run by a London publisher, John Dunton, to resolve “all the most Nice and Curious Questions.” Soon after came the Gentleman’s Journal (1692–94), started by the French-born Peter Anthony Motteux, with a monthly blend of news, prose, and poetry. In 1693, after devoting some experimental numbers of the Athenian Mercury to “the Fair Sex,” Dunton brought out the first magazine specifically for women, the Ladies’ Mercury. Finally, another note, taken up time and again later, was struck by The London Spy (1698–1700), issued by a tavern keeper, Ned Ward, and containing a running narrative of the sights and sounds of London.
Developments in the 18th century
Great Britain
With increasing literacy—especially among women—and a quickening interest in new ideas, the magazine filled out and became better established. In Britain, three early “essay periodicals” had enormous influence: Daniel Defoe’s The Review (1704–13; thrice weekly); Sir Richard Steele’s The Tatler (1709–11; thrice weekly), to which Joseph Addison soon contributed; and Addison and Steele’s The Spectator (1711–12, briefly revived in 1714; daily). Though they resembled newspapers in the frequency of their appearance, they were more like magazines in content. The Review introduced the opinion-forming political article on domestic and foreign affairs, while the cultivated essays of The Tatler and The Spectator, designed “to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality,” did much to shape the manners and taste of the age. The latter had countless imitators not only in Britain, where there were in addition the Female Tatler (1709–10) and the Female Spectator (1744–46), but also on the Continent and later in America. The Stamp Tax of 1712 had a damping effect, as intended, but magazines proved endlessly resilient, easy to start and easy to fail, then as now.
So far various themes had been tried out; they were first brought together convincingly by the English printer Edward Cave, who began to publish The Gentleman’s Magazine in 1731. It was originally a monthly collection of essays and articles culled from elsewhere, hence the term magazine—the first use of the word in this context. Cave was joined in 1738 by Dr. Johnson, who was later to publish his own Rambler (1750–52); thereafter The Gentleman’s Magazine contained mostly original matter, including parliamentary reports. Rivals and imitators quickly followed, notably the London Magazine (1732–85) and the Scots Magazine (1739–1817; to 1826 published as the Edinburgh Magazine); and, among the increasing number of women’s periodicals, there were a Ladies’ Magazine (1749–53) and a Lady’s Magazine (1770–1832). Their progenitor, however, outlived them all and perished only in 1907.
The literary and political rivalries of the day produced numerous short-lived periodicals, from which the critical review emerged as an established form. Robert Dodsley, a London publisher, started the Museum (1746–47), devoted mainly to books, and Ralph Griffiths, a Nonconformist bookseller, founded The Monthly Review (1749–1845), which had the novelist and poet Oliver Goldsmith as a contributor. To oppose the latter on behalf of the Tories and the Church of England, The Critical Review (1756–1817) was started by an Edinburgh printer, Archibald Hamilton, with the novelist Tobias Smollett as its first editor. Book reviews tended to be long and fulsome, with copious quotations; a more astringent note came in only with the founding of the Edinburgh Review in 1802 (see below).
Continental Europe
On the Continent development was similar but was hampered by censorship. French magazines containing new ideas had to appear in exile, such as the philosopher Pierre Bayle’s Nouvelles de la République des Lettres, which was published largely in Holland; some 30 titles were published in Holland up to the time of the French Revolution. Within France, there were the short-lived Spectateur Français (1722–23) and Spectateur Suisse (1723); and Le Pour et le Contre (1733–40; “For and Against”), issued by the Abbé Prévost (author of Manon Lescaut). Of more literary interest were the Gazette Littéraire de l’Europe (1764–84) and La Décade Philosophique, Littéraire et Politique (1794–1804).
In Leipzig the poet and philosopher Johann Christoph Gottsched issued a periodical for women, Die vernünftigen Tadlerinnen (1725–26; “The Rational Woman-Critics”), and the first German literary review, Beiträge zur kritischen Historie der deutschen Sprache (1732–44; “Contributions to the History of the German Language”). German literary movements were connected with the production of new magazines to a greater extent than in Britain. Examples of such vehicles include Friedrich von Schiller’s Horen (1795–97) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Propyläen (1798–1800), the influence of which was often greater than their duration. Of more general and lasting influence was the Allgemeine Literatur-zeitung (1785–1849), founded by Friedrich Justin Bertuch, “the father of the German periodical.”
The first Russian periodical, published by the Academy of Sciences, was a learned journal called “Monthly Works” (1755–64). The first privately published Russian magazine, a critical periodical with essays and translations from the British Spectator, was called “Industrious Bee” and began in 1759. Catherine II used her Vsiakaia Vsiachina (1769–70), also modeled on the Spectator, to attack opponents, among them Nikolay Novikov, whose “Drone” (1769–70) and “Windbag” (1770) were suspended and whose “Painter” (1770–72) escaped only by being dedicated to the Empress.
America
In America the first magazines were published in 1741. In that year appeared Andrew Bradford’s American Magazine, the first publication of its kind in the colonies. It was joined, a mere three days later, by Benjamin Franklin’s General Magazine. Both magazines appeared in Philadelphia; neither lasted very long, however—Bradford’s magazine survived only three months and Franklin’s six. Franklin was more widely known for another of his publications, Poor Richard’s Almanack (1732–57), which contained maxims and proverbs. Before the end of the 18th century, some 100 magazines had appeared, offering miscellaneous entertainment, uplift, or information, mostly on a very shaky, local, and brief basis. Among the more important were, in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Magazine (1775–76), edited by Thomas Paine, and the American Museum (1787–92) of the bookseller Mathew Carey; the Massachusetts Magazine (1789–96), published in Boston; and the New-York (City) Magazine (1790–97).