Research Review: Issues in Magazine Typology
***** PRIOR-MILLER ***** EJC/REC Vol. 4, Nos. 2-4, 1994 ****
RESEARCH REVIEW: ISSUES IN MAGAZINE TYPOLOGY
Marcia R. Prior-Miller
Iowa State University
Abstract: This article explores how magazine
type has been defined and on what criteria
categories of magazines have been based in
published reports of communication research. Four
definition strategies were observed in 223
research reports published from 1977 through 1991.
The approaches are critiqued on their apparent
ability to meet five generally accepted standards
for the usefulness of scientifically designed
typologies. Recommenda- tions for future research
follow the analysis.
Communication scholars generally agree that the
universe of magazines, journals and other non-newspaper
periodicals can be clustered by titles with shared
characteristics. However, they differ on category criteria,
on definitions for commonly used labels and on relationships
between characteristics. These differences hold even when
scholars appear to be classifying magazines for similar
purposes. Among the consequences of this confusion is a
lack of clarity about how to draw cross-sectional samples of
the universe of magazines for systematic, empirical studies
of communication behavior. Johnson and Schmidt also noted
the negative impacts for designing magazine research.
The ability to clearly identify trait patterns that
distinguish one group of magazines from another is basic to
systematic studies of magazines. Yet there are no published
analyses of the competing classification schemes. Neither is
the problem addressed in the research methods literature.
Because positioning new studies within the body of
literature is the first step in designing new research, one
starting point is to identify how past researchers have
classified magazines. The purpose of this paper is to
investigate how the concept of magazine type has been
defined and magazines categorized in published studies.
From that inquiry, suggestions for future research will be
Background: Magazine Type and
The Theory of Typologies
The lack of a clearly defined and empirically tested
method for classifying non-newspaper periodicals is a
problem that has theoretical and methodological implications
central to the study of magazines as a medium of
It can be argued that there is no single method of
defining and classifying magazines that will apply to all
research questions. Reynolds said that "any set of
concepts can be used to organize and classify the objects of
study." However, he also suggested that some classification
methods are more useful than others. He argued that naming,
organizing, and categorizing the "things" being studied are
the first tasks of science and the most basic roles of
scientific knowledge. Building on this base, the scientific
enterprise can move forward to the higher level tasks of
explaining and predicting. Conversely, if no agreement
can be found on how objects are to be named and classified,
explanation and prediction cannot occur.
This study is based on the assumption that the
importance of how magazines are categorized does not lie in
determining a single "right" way to categorize titles or in
identifying a method against which other methods can
measured as "wrong." Two needs exist: a framework within
which the existing body of research can be understood and
new research designed, and a means to determine valid
sampling frames for cross-sectional magazine studies.
Clarifying definitions and building classification
systems for scientific study are processes nearly as old as
the scientific enterprise. Developing typologies and
taxonomies has been traced to Aristotle. Contemporary
social scientists disagree on the value of taxonomic
research as a science in its own right, but generally agree
on the role typologies can play in developing and testing
theory. Bailey called the typology a form of nominal
measurement used to "delineate meaningful social types" and
to be based on one or more dimensions or variables. Babbie
recommended using typologies only as independent or
predictive variables for interpreting data.
The third function of typologies, to define groups for
sample designs, is indirectly related to building theory.
If a content analysis study shows a highly
significant decrease in sexual stereotyping in a
sample of full-page ads taken from two women's
magazines during the last 30 years, a natural
question is: To what other magazines or types of
content might this result be generalized?
Lowry's question was one of several designed to
illustrate the importance of sample population validity in
communication research, regardless of medium. He wrote:
The degree of population validity of a research
study, or of an entire field of research, is
largely a function of the types of samples
studied, and how similar those samples are to the
types of populations to which one would like to
generalize. However, the crucial point is: It is
impossible to determine to what populations a
study can be generalized unless the sampling
procedures used and the basic characteristics of
the people or objects studied are _clearly speci-
fied_. To put it another way, if this important
information is not clearly specified in a research
article, then such an article has _no demonstrated
Reynolds outlined three criteria for typologies: The
first, exhaustiveness, is the ability to place every object
into the scheme: in this case, magazines. The second,
mutual exclusivity, requires that there be no ambiguity
about where each periodical is to be placed in the scheme.
The third criterion, theoretical relevance, requires that a
typology be consistent with other concepts used to express
the purposes of science. These include questions of
parsimony, a common level of abstraction, explanatory and
predictive capability, and language with descriptive
relevance for building theory. Tiryakian also noted that
the dimension or dimensions that are "differentiated into
types must be explicitly stated." Of these criteria,
Reynolds suggests that the first two are the more obvious
but the third is the "most important."
Media professionals and scholars have long recognized
the need to classify media into groups, both to simplify
information processing and to conduct systematic studies.
Cannon and Williams observed that the most common and "most
obvious level of simplification" has been to divide the
media into general classes: radio, television, newspapers
and magazines. The communication literature almost
universally assumes the existence of magazine subgroups.
However, there are few systematic explorations of the
underlying characteristics for classifying magazines or how
differences in these characteristics affect communication
Exceptions can be found in the marketing and
advertising literature, which provides examples of multiple
efforts to subdivide the media beyond the primary levels.
Cannon and Williams concluded from their review of this
literature that efforts to classify television had been
relatively unproductive, but efforts to classify magazines
had identified "relatively stable classifications based on
editorial appeal." However, the usefulness of
classification systems identified from these studies is
somewhat limited. Marketing and advertising studies have
focused almost exclusively on magazines that carry
advertising for consumer products. Adless magazines are
absent from the studies, as are magazines that carry only
regional or local advertising. Also missing are studies of
a wide range of business, scholarly and organization
Compaine argued for a relationship between audience
size and the active-passive orientation of editorial content
in magazines. He laid out his argument using a range of
titles, but used only consumer titles to illustrate the
framework. He did not test the framework or reconcile it
with other approaches to classifying magazines. It would
seem reasonable to expect textbooks that focus on the
magazine publishing industry to provide empirically tested
typologies. But they do not. Comparing three of the texts
illustrates the conflicting perspectives available to
researchers. In 1965 Wolseley divided the universe of
magazines into two editorial "appeal" groups, based on
audience size: (a) consumer or general interest, and (b)
specialized. He then subdivided these two groups into 11 and
13 subgroups, respectively.
More recently, Mogel divided the universe of magazines
into four groups: consumer magazines (of which, he said,
there are both general and specialized interest titles),
business, scholarly or literary, and newsletters. Mogel
thus placed business and scholarly publications in separate
categories on an equal conceptual level with consumer
magazines. Wolseley included business, scholarly and
literary in the specialized, or limited circulation,
subgroup. Mogel used the term "specialized" only to
differentiate between two consumer magazine subgroups.
Click and Baird divided the universe of magazines first
into two circulation groups: mass and specialized. They
then identified consumer, business, farm, public relations,
and one-shot magazines as subgroups, and further subdivided
these five subgroups into an additional thirteen groups.
The relationships between the five subgroups and the mass
and specialized groupings are not stated. Readers of their
text might conclude that the specialized category has eight
subdivisions and the public relations category, five, for a
total of twenty magazine types.
Click and Baird placed organization magazines in a
separate category. Wolseley placed "industrial or company"
magazines in a subgroup of specialized, limited circulation
publications. Mogel did not include the category, and
neither Wolseley nor Click and Baird included newsletters.
Introductory mass media textbooks, the majority of
which are industry oriented, also give conflicting
perspectives. An examination of thirteen mass communication
texts and twelve magazine texts revealed only two
that used the same classificatory scheme: Gamble and Gamble
used Click and Baird's framework. Reynolds said developing a
method of organizing and categorizing the objects of study
is "the easiest [task of science] to achieve."
Nonetheless, five authors described the difficulty of
defining the population of magazines. Because
systematic, empirically tested typologies based on clearly
delineated dimensions are not present in the literature, one
can conclude that the existing classification methods are
best described as "common-sense" typologies.
Because the emphasis on empirically based inquiry in
communication research has increased in recent years,
and because scientifically designed research requires
carefully defined concepts and terms to be operationalized
for sampling and measurement, it is expected that an
exploration of the research literature might provide clarity
where textbooks do not. However, reviewing the body of
communication research on magazines is beyond the scope of
the typical literature review.
Faced with similar problems of reviewing sizable bodies
of literature, scholars in social and communication sciences
have used several strategies to compare and synthesize
findings in order to establish baselines for future
research. Among these are meta-research techniques and
integrative literature reviews. The meta-analysis has been
defined and applied primarily with quantitative procedures
to provide data points for statistical studies. The
integrative literature review, on the other hand, is a
method more suited to integrating theory and concepts.
To study the concept of magazine type, an integrative
literature review of published studies was conducted to find
answers to the following questions: (a) How do investigators
define the universe, or population, of magazines? (b) If
investigators subdivide the universe of magazines, on what
characteristic(s) are categories based?
Investigators' direct and implied definitions of the
"magazine type" concept were examined in 223 reports of
communication research on magazines indexed in Volumes 1
through 14 of _Communication Abstracts_. The studies were
published in the 14 years from 1977 through 1991, the most
recent available when data were collected. Hereafter
referred to as "magazine research," these reports included
studies on the visual and verbal elements of magazine
editorial and advertising content, as well as studies of the
history and social order of magazines and investigations of
communication problems and structure.
Following Cooper's protocol, the _CA_ volume, issue,
and abstract numbers, author, and journal were recorded for
each research report. Abstracts were copied and
reviewed. Duplicate and book abstracts were removed,
leaving a total of 228 articles. Also removed was a study
of the temporal variable indexed under the keyword "Time."
The remaining articles were located and copied. Four
additional reports were deleted because they were not
reports on magazines, though they had been indexed as such.
The study sample totaled 223 research reports.
Each study was examined to identify how researchers
identified the universe and categories of periodicals in
that universe. Descriptive terms and titles assigned to
categories of magazines were recorded, as were statements
about the magazine dimension(s), or characteristic(s), on
which category(ies) were based. Sampling frames and units of
analysis were noted as controls to prevent confusing
authors' statements about the universe of periodicals with
sample populations. No further analysis of these dimensions
Descriptors were clustered twice: First, by the
specific terms investigators used to describe the universe
of periodicals or study population. Any deviation in terms
was treated as a unique descriptor. Thus, "consumer
magazines," "general consumer magazines," and "general
magazines" were categorized as unique descriptors, as were
"large mass circulation" magazines and "wide circulation and
appeal" magazines. Two or more descriptors used in a single
study to describe a population and its subcategories were
treated as a conceptual unit, or a descriptor set.
Descriptors and descriptor sets were then grouped by 1)
authors' stated definitions, and when stated criteria were
not available, 2) the characteristics that underlay assigned
labels. Descriptor and descriptor set frequencies were
computed within and across clusters.
Analysis of author descriptions in 223 studies
identified 140 unique descriptor sets used to designate the
universe of periodicals or the population that was the focus
of the study. The most frequently used unique descriptors
were "news magazines" (in 11 of 223 studies); "women's
magazines" (9 studies); "consumer magazines" (8 studies);
"general audience [magazines], men's [magazines] and women's
magazines" (5 studies). In 37 studies (16.6 percent of
223), no population or universe of magazines was named or
In the remaining 186 studies, the population of
magazines was primarily defined as the sampling frame. The
majority, 97 of 186, based population categories on a single
characteristic (i.e., "magazines that serve general
audiences"). The remainder used clusters of characteristics
(i.e., "magazines with large mass circulation and a large
spectrum of genres").
Similarly, the majority of investigators defined the
study population without stating how the selected magazine
group fit into the universe of periodicals. In only three
(1.4 percent) of the 223 studies did authors state a goal of
designing the study within a framework of the universe of
periodicals. In only one of the three studies did the
author position the study within competing classificatory
Descriptors used in both qualitative and quantitative
research literature were less carefully defined than
expected. In general, they were similar to and somewhat more
specific than textbook descriptors. As a result,
research-based definitions highlighted subtleties less
easily discerned in textbook definitions.
Three primary approaches to categorizing magazines were
identified from the analysis of descriptors and descriptor
sets: (a) general-specialized dichotomy, (b) interest area,
and (c) information function approaches. Also identified was
a fourth approach, (d) the multiple characteristics approach,
which cut across the first three approaches and further
expanded the dimensions used to identify magazine populations.
The General-Specialized Dichotomy
The terms general and specialized were used without
definition in two studies. In the remaining 223 studies
approximately one third (N=65) operationalized this
dichotomous division of the magazine universe in one of
three ways: scope of the audience, scope of the
editorial content (or editorial appeal), and audience size.
Although these three characteristics are highly
interrelated, they are distinctly different. The first is
medium based, the second and third, audience based.
Audience Scope. The general-specialized dichotomy most
frequently referred to the nature of the audience. In 47 of
the 65 studies that used the general-specialized
perspective, the term "general" referred to audiences that
are geographically and/or demographically diverse;
"specialized" referred to more narrowly focused audiences
and was based on audiences' shared interest in a specific
subject area or one or more demographic or psychographic
characteristics. In 32 of the 47 studies that used the
audience scope definition, investigators selected magazines
that appealed to widely diversified audiences, but did not
use the "general" and "specialized" descriptors. However,
these studies were placed in the same group because they
used both the dichotomous breakdown of magazines and one of
the general or specialized operational definitions. Some
authors in this second group defined audience scope as
geographic diversity, equating national or international
circulation with general, and regional or even formal
organization circulations with general and specialized,
respectively. Both Mott and Fink used geographic and
demographic criteria for defining "general audiences."
Editorial Scope. The terms "general" and "specialized"
were also used to refer to a magazine's editorial content,
scope, or appeal, where general and specialized refer to the
breadth or diversity of topics included in the magazine's
Audience Size. A few scholars divided magazines into
"general and special publications" based on the
criterion of audience size. Although one author cited
Wolseley as source for the approach, in another 9
studies researchers used magazine circulation as the
criterion but did not cite a source. These also did not use
the general-specialized terms.
Some scholars who used the general-specialized
terminology for designating a population of magazines
interchanged terms and definitions, adding the terms
"mass" and "popular" as apparent synonyms for
general magazines, and limited size as a synonym for
specialized. Strickland et al compared "largest
circulation" magazines with "magazines targeted to selected
audiences." If a distinction is made between editorial
appeal, audience scope and audience size, the terms
"popular" and "mass" can also be defined with greater
precision. Both terms are primarily audience based, but
have connotations of audience identity that transcend
Several sources differentiated between editorial scope,
audience scope and audience size. Hayes defined city
magazines as having a general editorial orientation but
geographically restricted target audiences. City and
regional magazine audiences can also be defined as
demographically diverse for periodicals with geographically
specialized editorial orientations.
Editorial Interest Area Approach
Competing with the general-specialized dichotomy as the
most frequently used method for categorizing periodicals is
the editorial interest area approach. Using the editorial
subject or area of interest as the organizing criterion,
investigators in approximately one-third, or 61, of the 223
research reports studied women's magazines, news magazines,
farm, fashion, student interest, children's, and science
magazines, among others. Included in this group of studies
were only those studies for which authors used interest
area as the highest level descriptor for the universe or
population of magazines: "major magazine genres," or
The single most studied group of magazines was the news
magazines, identified in 22, or a third, of the 61 interest
area studies. Women's magazines were second, with 10
studies. Both news magazine and women's titles were also
frequently included in cross-category studies. Of the 61
interest based studies, more than half were designed to
focus on titles within a single interest area. The
remaining studies crossed interest areas, comparing, for
example, magazines for blacks, whites, men, and women.
The Information Function Approach
In the third most commonly used approach to classifying
magazines, authors based categories on information functions
for editorial or advertising content. A wide variety of
descriptors were identified in the 33 studies that used this
approach. Additional strategies were found in mass
communication textbooks. Analysis of category criteria
suggests this method was used in two ways: First, to
classify magazines according to the advertising purpose and
second, by editorial purpose or function.
Advertising Information Function. Of the two criteria,
advertising function was the more popular: magazines that
carry advertising for consumer products were categorized as
"consumer magazines," and magazines that carry advertising
for products and services to businesses and occupational
groups, as "business magazines." A third group, "farm"
magazines, carry advertising for agriculture-related
products. The categories are drawn from the standard
directories for magazine advertising rates.
Although authors of advertising and marketing studies
typically used this approach, the strategy was also used for
studies of nonadvertising communication phenomena. The term
"consumer magazines" was used as a unique descriptor in 8
studies; variations were used in an additional 16 studies,
for a total of 24 studies. An additional 8 studies used the
business magazine descriptor or a combination of business
and consumer, for a total of 32 studies.
Editorial Information Function. Editorial information
function approaches were used less frequently and with less
clarity in the research literature than advertising
information approaches. In 3 studies the approach was
clearly identifiable as a criterion for classifying
magazines: Investigators studied "muckraking" and "public
relations" magazines. Other studies might appropriately
have been placed in this category, but too little
information was available to make a call.
In general, investigators who used the editorial
function approach did not define categories in relation to a
universe of periodicals. Textbook authors, whose clearly
stated purpose was to categorize the universe of
periodicals, used a broader range of labels to categorize
editorial functions: escape and entertainment, news and
information, advocacy and opinion, public relations.
Textbook authors also introduced various synonyms for
advertising and information functions and interest areas
(e.g., lifestyle, trade, technical, religion, literary and
academic, organization magazines).
The Multiple Characteristics Approach
When examined apart from the findings of this study,
research that used the multiple characteristics approach
tended to further cloud the issue. Examined as part of this
study, however, the choice of descriptor sets that fell into
this category also began to evidence usage patterns.
Of the 223 studies that were examined, 63 could be
classified as using a multiple characteristics approach. In
these studies, investigators combined as many as two, and
sometimes a dimension of all of the three strategies
described above. The majority of mass media and magazine
textbook authors use this approach to classifying magazines.
Several strategies emerged from the analysis.
Comparison Groups Definition. Using Boolean logic,
investigators used multiple characteristics to define
samples for comparative study of a variable: That is,
characteristics were used to define title clusters.
The investigator then compared variable treatments
within and between the clusters. Lysonski, for example,
compared how men and women were differentially portrayed in
advertising that was carried in magazines with content
designed to appeal to general, men's, and women's audiences,
Sample Definition. Alternatively, and again using
Boolean logic, investigators used multiple characteristics
to carve out a group of magazines for study. Thus, for
example, a cluster of magazines might be defined to include
only "general consumer magazines with circulations over
Hierarchy of Characteristics. In this strategy,
investigators presented characteristics hierarchically.
That is, one characteristic or set of characteristics
established a first-level division of the universe. Then a
second set of criteria further divided the categories that
resulted from the first division: "general magazines:
women's and family titles," or "consumer magazines,
categories by content area."
The hierarchical approach had three primary
manifestations. The first two used two tiers, for which the
general/specialized dichotomy or information function was
combined with interest area categories. The third strategy
used a three-tiered hierarchy: The universe of periodicals
was first divided by information-function, then by audience
scope, size, or editorial scope, and then by interest area.
Both magazine and mass communication textbooks suggested the
hierarchical approach, but with the exception of Compaine's
analysis of mass-limited, active-passive framework, no one
described the relationships between the dimensions.
As was true in textbooks, researchers introduced
additional characteristics to define magazine clusters and
to target titles germane to a particular question. The
characteristics in these studies were unique; other studies
did not use the same strategies. Hynes, for example,
contrasted the fiction and nonfiction in "general and
quality" magazines. Thus both textbook authors and
researchers identified characteristics that highlighted a
title or group of magazines that more common descriptors
failed to emphasize. Among these were (a) publication; (b)
distribution method; (c) economic base (alternative media;
adless magazines); and (d) writing style and information
treatment (opinion, news, etc.). Other characteristics found
in textbooks were format and information purpose, e.g.,
Four strategies for defining magazine populations were
identified from the analysis of 223 research reports. The
evaluation of these strategies, using Reynolds' and
Tyriakian's five-point test for the usefulness of
typologies, suggests that no one strategy fully meets the
requisite tests of exhaustiveness, mutual exclusivity,
parsimony, common level of abstraction, and explanatory and
predictive power. However, of the four strategies, a
carefully defined multiple characteristics approach appears
to offer the most potential for future research.
The general-specialized dichotomy appears at first
glance to meet each of the usefulness tests: Using terms
that are on the same conceptual level, the schematic appears
to subsume all periodicals into one of two groups, making
the strategy exhaustive, mutually exclusive, and highly
parsimonious. At the most basic level, the strategy
suggests that all magazines that are not general are
specialized. Thus, a sufficiently large sample drawn from
each group would allow for a high level of explanatory and
predictive capability. However, appearances deceive: The
findings from this study suggest otherwise.
Because authors used several different operational
definitions of these terms, the number of magazine
categories in a given study that uses the
general-specialized approach would be determined by whether
audience scope, editorial scope, audience size, or some
combination of these criteria were used to define the
universe of periodicals. A researcher might divide the
universe into two categories, or add several variables and
thereby multiply the number of categories several times, as
Textbook authors and researchers differed on which
publications would be classified as general or specialized.
Defleur and Dennis said about 800 publications were
general-interest magazines. Agee et al said that no more
than 600 could be classified as general interest
publications. Some authors defined all consumer magazines
as "general" and all other publications as specialized.
Other scholars defined a select group of consumer magazines
as general magazines and both the remaining consumer and all
other magazines as specialized. Still others divided the
universe of magazines into three or four groups and
subdivided consumer magazines into general and specialized
sub-categories. When these problems are combined with
the fact that, over time, a change in a magazine's audience
size might result in that title's being shifted from one
category to the other, replicating studies that use the
audience size criterion is rendered virtually impossible.
There is also lack of clarity about whether the
general-specialized approach is exhaustive. Would all
non-newspaper periodicals be included? An argument can be
made that public relations magazines and academic journals
are not magazines. Working from this premise, a researcher
who wants to replicate Gerlach's 1987 study of research on
magazines published in _Journalism Quarterly_ would need to
know whether the replicated data base would include studies
of organizational magazines and scholarly publications.
Wolseley listed scholarly journals as a subdivision of
specialized periodicals in his 1965 text, but did not
mention them in the 1977 analysis from which Gerlach drew on
his definition of general and specialized publications.
Replicating Gerlach's study might thus logically exclude
research that had been conducted on these journals.
Editorial Interest Area Approach
The interest area strategy has several strengths that
commend it to the research enterprise. Based on the single
criterion of specific editorial content, or subject area,
the approach allows for matching the content of one or more
magazines with the subject of the question to be studied.
Thus, for example, if a scholar wishes to look at fiction it
is both intuitively accurate and methodologically sound to
select fiction published in magazines that are targeted to
female audiences. Of the four approaches, the interest
area strategy provides the greatest explanatory and
predictive capability within the scope of a given study.
However, in its strength lies its weakness: The
ability to match a periodical's subject area with a
substantive research question results in categories of
magazines with limited explanatory and predictive power
outside the interest area. Used without a hierarchical
context, the strategy suggests that scholars who seek
answers to questions of broad theoretical interest might
need to replicate studies on every interest group in the
universe of magazines.
Obviously this could be a daunting, if not impossible,
task. Although the criterion for clustering magazines is
simple, the strategy has mixed results. Sources suggest as
few as 19 and as many as 300 or more editorial interest
areas. The interest area approach can meet the
exhaustiveness test if a scholar is persistent in
identifying all possible editorial magazine groups. Having
done so, however, the strategy still does not easily meet
the mutual exclusivity test.
Not only do sources differ on the number of interest
areas that result from this approach, but investigators also
placed the same title in different interest areas. The
difficulty of determining the interest area category into
which a magazine might fall appears to derive in part from
the failure of the approach to meet the common level of
abstraction test. Investigators who selected the interest
area approach appeared uniformly to use editorial subject
area criterion. However, the disparities in title placement
suggest that a second dimension, nature of audience,
frequently entered into the determination.
Using the interest area approach, a magazine might be
categorized on the basis of either (a) editorial subject
area, or (b) the nature of the primary audience which the
magazine serves. The term "editorial appeal" itself has a
decided audience orientation. Two magazines with very
different editorial content can appeal primarily to female
audiences without having been specifically targeted to
women. The extent to which these two dimensions entered
into researchers' categorizations could not be determined.
An analysis of sampling strategies was beyond the scope
of this study. However, it appeared that advertising and
marketing research tended to sample across interest groups,
while research on non-advertising communication phenomena
tended to sample within both single interest areas and
advertising information functions.
Information Function Approach
Used alone, the information function approach appears
to have greater capacity for meeting the exhaustiveness
and mutual exclusivity tests than either the general-
specialized dichotomy or the interest area approach. This is
true because labels used for information function categories
were typically more descriptive than the "general-
specialized" terms; and they are typically on a higher level
of abstraction than the majority of editorial interest area
Many studies that used this approach sampled vertically
within a single information function category. A few
researchers drew samples that crossed two or more
categories. Bearden et al compared the ability of consumer
and trade publications to reach media buyers; Payne et al
found statistically significant differences in media use
motives for consumer magazine and trade publication
A single criterion frequently underlies the
information function strategy. As was true with each of
other single-criterion strategies, disparate numbers of
categories result. In general, advertising function
approaches result in fewer categories than editorial
function approaches. Unlike authors of magazine and mass
media texts, researchers tended to identify only those
categories that were directly related to a study. So, for
any given strategy, it was not possible to determine the
intended range of categories for the universe of
publications. Without this information, exhaustiveness,
mutual exclusivity and parsimony could not be determined.
No identifiable patterns emerged in the number of
categories, the labels or the criteria used for editorial
function approaches. In general, the range of categories
was narrower than those found in the interest area approach.
Authors of mass media and magazine texts used as few as
three and no more than eight categories, regardless of which
information function approach was used.
Researchers who used information function strategies
frequently used terms that were not on a common level of
abstraction and provided no dimension definition beyond the
category label. Several text authors combined labels from
the advertising and editorial information function
approaches within a single classificatory scheme.
Researchers tended to use more uniform terminology, drawing
heavily on the advertising information labels, consumer and
business. However, even those terms were used
interchangeably to refer to (a) type of advertising in the
publications and (b) audiences served.
If the editorial and advertising information functions
are defined strictly as single-criterion categories, several
interesting dimensions of their respective abilities to meet
the exhaustiveness and mutual exclusivity tests can be
observed. First, the advertising function approach suggests
two magazine groups: magazines with ads and adless
magazines. Few researchers refer to adless magazines as a
counterpoint to magazines that carry advertising. Only one
study of adless magazines was identified in the sample of
Researchers who used the advertising function approach
did not typically account for magazines funded by sources
other than advertising revenues. Textbook authors frequently
separated adless magazines or magazines for which
advertising is a limited source of funding from consumer and
business magazines. They typically labeled the resulting
category according to one of several primary funding
sources: company, association, or, more generically,
sponsored publications. However, this strategy did not
account for adless magazine differences in editorial
functions and target audiences. Some of these magazines
parallel the purposes and audiences of "consumer" magazines,
some cover occupational concerns. Still others are designed
to serve organizational goals. Each of these is logically
excluded if the primary criterion for inclusion is the use
of consumer product advertising.
Authors who used the advertising function strategy
typically appeared to include in their categories
publications that carry consumer, business, or farm
advertising even if the editorial purposes or audiences
differ markedly from other publications in the category.
For example, _SRDS Agri-media_ listings include both
scholarly and organization publications, and some
scholars follow this lead. Audiences that typically use
academic publications recognize that these periodicals serve
very different functions and audiences than business and
trade journals, even though they occasionally carry
advertising for occupation related products. Some scholars
refer to academic journals as "professional journals" to
distinguish them from "trade or technical" publications.
The editorial function approach would place these
periodicals in a separate category.
A similar problem can be observed for agricultural
publications. Click and Baird describe these publications
as "virtually the same as business publications." Using
an advertising function definition for the "farm" category
fails to account for magazines that deal solely with rural
lifestyles. The "farm" and "agriculture" labels would
appear conceptually to be topical, or interest based, as is
_Medical_, a more recent _SRDS_ directory breakout.
Multiple Characteristics Approach
Perhaps more than any one of the other approaches, the
multiple characteristics approach highlighted definition and
sampling problems that result from researchers' failure to
clarify definitions and state category criteria. The
multiple characteristics approach appears at first glance to
be the weakest of the classificatory methods. However,
depending on how characteristics and dimensions are defined
and used, and what relationships are established between the
characteristics, it also appears to have the greatest
Typologies have been defined as "classificatory schema
composed of two or more ideal or constructed types that
provide abstract categories" that are useful to social
scientists for organizing data, guiding research, and
developing theory. Howard Becker suggested that ideal types
can be regarded primarily as tentative formulations regarded
as the result of research. As noted earlier, typologies
can be based on one characteristic. However, it appears
that single criterion approaches to classifying the universe
of periodicals are too simple, too parsimonious. A single
criterion provides insufficient descriptive power to
determine how the broadest range of titles fit into a
classificatory scheme. Recognizing this, the majority of
researchers and text authors used multiple characteristics.
Yet, in the absence of carefully defined and
empirically tested frameworks, and given the multiple
meanings acquired by some of the most commonly used terms,
it was difficult to determine the extent to which multiple
characteristic frameworks met the typology tests. The
schematics were ambiguous; terms used to label groups of
magazines frequently appeared to mix levels of abstraction.
Schweitzer, for example, combined two dimensions of the
general-specialized framework (editorial scope and audience
size) with the interest area and information function
approaches when he compared "general editorial" magazines
with five categories of magazines: business, news, women's
service, science, and beauty/health. Magazines selected in
each category were further screened for high circulations.
Schweitzer did not clarify the extent to which the sample
was designed to represent the universe of publications.
Given the confusing array of options available to
researchers, selecting a multiple characteristics scheme
from the existing literature can be a daunting intellectual
exercise. Without a generally accepted framework with
empirically tested, relatively stable criteria on which to
base magazine samples, the present use of multiple criteria
results in fragmentation of the research literature.
A desire to establish explanatory and predictive
capability accentuates the problem. Using multiple
characteristics to define a purposive sample provides
greater clarity about which periodicals might logically fit
into a given cluster, but less clarity about how to
categorize the excluded publications.
The 223 research reports analyzed for this study
evidenced a bias toward studying consumer magazines, to the
exclusion of other publications. Furthermore, there were
few studies for which researchers developed samples that
crossed information function categories, although a few
scholars have moved in that direction.
Summary and Conclusions
This study was designed to determine how investigators
define the universe of non-newspaper periodicals and the
criteria on which they categorize periodicals. Four
definition patterns using 10 different criteria were
identified from a total of 193 descriptors, descriptor sets,
and the criteria on which the descriptors were based on 223
published reports of communication research using magazines.
Three dimensions defined the general-specialized
dichotomy: audience scope, editorial scope, and audience
size. Two dimensions, advertising and editorial, were used
to define the information function approach. Researchers
also used interest area strategies, based on the editorial
content, or subject area. Investigators also developed
categories of magazines based on multiple dimensions, by
developing single clusters, comparison groups and
hierarchies of categories to draw samples.
Terms used in the research literature to define
populations of magazines were consistent with terms used in
magazine and mass communication texts in two ways: They
reflected the spectrum of classificatory approaches and
category criteria. Second, definitions of terms differed
from one study to the next. Researchers either assumed
common definitions or defined terms within the context of
the study. Few investigators cited source definitions;
neither did they reconcile their classification systems with
other approaches to classifying periodicals. The study
findings suggest that the majority of researchers assume
that commonly used terms have single-valued, unambiguous
meanings, when, in fact, the terms carry multiple meanings.
Contemporary methodologists argue that researchers
should use typologies primarily as independent variables, to
organize and build theory. However, magazine
classifications were used primarily to develop purposive
samples. Few researchers positioned samples in a context of
carefully defined typological frameworks.
Assessing sample appropriateness was beyond the scope
of this study, as was analyzing the quality of samples and
sampling frames. However, sampling strategies in the
magazine research appeared to reflect the problems with
population validity described by both Liebert and
Schwartzberg, and Lowry.
Researchers who design research using magazines need to
give careful attention to reconciling and defining
typological frameworks. As they do so, they will increase
the external validity of samples. They will develop ideal
types that can serve as starting points for research on
magazines that will lead to empirically based, constructed
types that provide explanatory insights into how
communication occurs through the medium.
From this work, researchers can also begin to build a
body of knowledge that is theoretically integrated and that
will provide empirically based knowledge about magazine
dimensions that have theoretical significance for inquiry
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 Lowry, 63. Emphases in the original.
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Venkatesh and Clint B. Tankersley, "Magazine Readership by
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Audiences," in Introducing Mass Communication, 2nd
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"Magazines," in Mass Media in the Information Age
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Graham, "The Market for Magazine Articles," in
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 Citations on research about magazines were
identified by tracing research indexed under all keywords
listed in each volume's cumulative index that related to
magazines: Magazines, Magazine Advertising, Magazine
Content, Magazine History, Magazine Industry, Magazine
Management, Magazine Readership, Black Magazines, Children's
Magazines, City Magazines, Company Publications, News
Magazines, Periodicals, and Periodical Indexes. All
magazine research indexed by specific countries or magazine
titles was also included: British Magazines, Japanese
Magazines, Korean Magazines, Ladies' Home Journal, and Time.
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Five Volumes, 421-4 22); Fink, 137.
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U.S.A.," Gazette 21 (June 1977): 20-26; Understanding
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"Images of the Elderly in Life and Ebony, 1978-1987,"
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in Popular Magazines," Science, Technology, & Human Values
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"Alcoholic Beverage Advertising: 1964-1983, A Longitudinal
Analysis," in N. Stephen, ed., Proceedings of the 1986
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American Academy of Advertising, 1985), R23-R27.
 Donald E. Strickland, T. Andrew Finn, and M. Dow
Lambert, "A Content Analysis of Beverage Alcohol
Advertising" Journal of Studies on Alcohol 43:7 (1982):
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of Communication (Spring 1977): 44-48.
 John P. Hayes, "City/Regional Magazines: A
Survey, Census," Journalism Quarterly 58 (Summer 1981):
 Merrill et al, 158-159.
 Because these totals include both unique
designators and designator sets, they differ from earlier
 Standard Rates and Data Service directories,
(Wilmette, IL: Standard Rate & Data Service, Monthly, 1992).
 Black and Whitney, 137; Dominick, 138; Click and
 Steven Lysonski, "Female and Male Portrayals in
Magazine Advertisements: A Re-examination," Akron Business
and Economic Review 14:2 (1983): 45-50; "Role Portrayals in
British Magazine Advertisements," European Journal of
Marketing 19:7 (1985): 37-55.
 Terry Hynes, "Magazine Portrayal of Women,
1911-1930," Journalism Monograph No. 72.(Minneapolis:
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 DeFleur and Dennis, 165; Agee et al, 156.
 Gerlach; Wolseley, Understanding Magazines, 8;
Role of Magazines, 20-26.
 Muriel G. Cantor and Elizabeth Jones, "Creating
Fiction for Women," Communication Research 10:1 (1983):
 David H. Weaver and G. Cleveland Wilhoit, The
American Journalist: A Portrait of U.S. News People and
Their Work (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986).
 Taft, 19 categories; Ford, 9; Black and Whitney,
27, 137-139; Gamble and Gamble, 100, 138-139; SRDS, 300 or
 Richard W. Pollay, "Twentieth-Century Magazine
Advertising: Determinants of Informativeness," Written
Communication 1:1 (1984): 56-77; Jae-Hyun Choe, Gary B.
Wilcox, and Andrew P. Hardy, "Facial Expressions in Magazine
Ads: A Cross-Cultural Comparison," Journalism Quarterly 63
(Spring 1986): 122-126; Consumer and Agri-Media SRDS.
 William O. Bearden, Jesse E. Teel, Richard M.
Durand and Robert H. Williams, "Consumer Magazines--An
Efficient Medium for Reaching Organizational Buyers,"
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Jessica J. H. Severn, and David M. Dozier, "Uses and
Gratifications Motives As Indicators of Magazine
Readership," Journalism Quarterly 65 (Winter 1988):
 Vincent P. Norris, "Mad Economics: An Analysis of
an Adless Magazine," Journal of Communication 34 (1984):
 Farrar, 167-169; Wilson, 135; DeFleur and Dennis,
166; Dennis W. Jeffers and David N. Bateman, "Redefining the
Role of the Company Magazine," Public Relations Review 6:2
(1980): 11-29. Some organizations that fund magazines are
not comfortably labeled "companies." See, for example,
Catherine C. Mitchell and C. Joan Schnyder, "Public
Relations for Appalachia: Berea's Mountain Life and Work,"
Journalism Quarterly 66 (Winter 1989): 974-978; Elmo Scott
Watson, "The Organization Press: Methods of Administration,"
Journalism Quarterly 23 (September 1946): 302-306.
 See, for example, the Alumni and Airline magazine
categories 1, 9B; Consumer SRDS; Quill, category 75,
Business SRDS; Spokesman, category 2, Agri-Media SRDS;
 Taft, 85-99; Click and Baird, p. 7.
 Click and Baird, 8.
 Country and Country Woman, published by Reiman
Publications (5600 S. 60th St., Greendale, WI).
 George A. Theodorson and Achilles G. Theodorson, A
Modern Dictionary of Sociology, (New York: Barnes & Noble,
1969), 74-75, 445; Howard Becker, in Twentieth Century
Sociology, eds. Georges Gurvitch and Wlbert E. Moore, (New
York: Philosophical Library, 1945), 21.
 John C. Schweitzer, "How Valuable to an Advertiser
Are Secondary Audiences?" Journalism Quarterly 63 (Winter
1986): 279-288; Black and Whitney, 137-139; Mann, 8.
 Stephen R. Barley, Gordon W. Meyer, Debra C.
Gash, "Cultures of Culture: Academics, Practitioners and the
Pragmatics of Normative Control," Administrative Science
Quarterly 33 (1988): 24-60.
 Robert M. Liebert and Neala S. Schwartzberg,
"Effects of Mass Media," Annual Review of Psychology 28
(1977): 142; Lowry.
 This paper is drawn from "Toward an Empirically
Based Typology of Magazines and Non-Newspaper Periodicals,"
presented to the Association for Education in Journalism and
Mass Communication, Montreal, Canada, 1992.
Author Information: Marcia Prior-Miller
Department of Journalism and
Iowa State University
Ames, IA 50011
Communication Institute for Online Scholarship, Inc.
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