Periodicals

Even before the printing press was invented, periodicals, newspapers, journals, and magazines, have been bringing us information on our world every day by day and month by month.

Newspapers
Magazines
Advertising

Advertising
Books
Censorship
Journalism

Newspaper Association of America
Well written articles on current trends in newspaper publishing.
Pathfinder
Web Service of the Time-Warner family of newspapers and magazines.

A book is considered to be an independent volume. But some information is too timely, such as news and weather, to be included in a book. For this reason, there are thousands of periodicals produced. Periodicals include magazines, journals, and newspapers, though the latter is much different from its counterparts.

Newspapers
Newspapers are usually issued every day on large, unbound pulp paper. This method of production is efficient for its purpose: to delivery mass quantities of information to many people in a short period of time. Most daily newspapers are produced to reflect the events and interests of a particular town or city, and are available every morning for a small sum. Larger papers also publish an evening edition to cover stories that occurred during the day.

Magazines
Magazines and journals are released at regular intervals, though usually not daily. They are usually printed on full-colour glossy paper at a size comparable to normal writing paper. Magazines are geared towards particular audiences, with stories and articles that only appeal to some people. This allows the actual content to be more in-depth than newspapers, which try to appeal to everyone.

Advertising
As television competed against books and periodicals for the public’s leisure time, readership dropped for many magazines. In 1955 Reader’s Digest was forced to accept advertising to defray production costs. Today this concept is common practice. With the exception of educational journals, most periodicals, including magazines and newspapers, rely on corporate sponsorship. Due to the high cost involved in producing each issue, and the low cost the publisher is required to sell at to attract readers, a large percentage of the periodical’s space is consumed by advertisements. Today there are thousands of regularly published periodicals, many celebrating anniversaries of a century or more.

Sources
Click here for a list of sources used in this project.
Glossary
All the words in bold are found in the Glossary. If you don't understand a word, click on the beside it, to go directly to the Glossary Page.
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