By 1995,we were looking at magazines as cultural artifacts in relation to how international women were represented on news magazine covers.Sammye Johnson and William G.Christ,“The Representation of Women:The News Magazine Cover as an International Cultural Artifact,”in Silent Voices,Doug A.Newsom and Bob J.Carrell,eds.,(Lanham,MD:University Press of America:1995),pp.215-235.We scoured Journalism&Mass Communication Quarterly,American Periodicals,Journal of Communication,Journalism History,Mass Comm Review,Journal of Popular Culture,and American Journalism for research about covers.We found none.There were some content analyses that briefly mentioned magazine covers as part of an overall study of a particular topic(presidential campaigns)or issue(cancer),but the research primarily focused on magazines'inside editorial pages.Depending on the topic,the inside editorial pages of Shape,Ebony,Ladies'Home Journal,Good Housekeeping,Ms.,and Vogue have been studied.But not their covers.Time and Newsweek are the magazines that stand out as research vehicles,primarily because it's easy to find a full run of them at libraries.Women's,young men's,health and fitness,shelter,and fashion publications are less likely to be available in complete bound copies.Bound copies offer the correct cover size and color,which are lacking if microfilm or microfiche are used.
Unfortunately,there isn't a lot of magazine research published in the journals of our field.Peter Gerlach revealed the scarcity of magazine research published in Journalism Quarterly from 1964 through 1983,finding only 6 percent of the articles dealt with magazines.Peter Gerlach,“Research about Magazines Appearing in Journalism Quarterly,”Journalism Quarterly,64:1(Spring 1987),pp.173-182.When Mark Popovich studied magazine research that had been published in Journalism Quarterly from 1983 through 1993,he noted that the percentage of published magazine research grew slightly,to 8 percent.Mark N.Popovich,“Research Review:Quantitative Magazine Studies,1983-1993,”in The American Magazine:Research Perspectives and Prospects,David Abrahamson,ed.(Ames,IA,Iowa State University Press,1995),pp.24-36.Popovich also pointed out that a similar study of Communication Abstracts found less than 1 percent of the scholarly articles focused on magazines.David Sumner's informal study of Journalism&Mass Communication Quarterly and Journalism History from 1995-1999 revealed less than 5 percent of the articles in Journalism&Mass Communication Quarterly related to magazines;Journalism History published only 6 percent of its content on magazine topics.David E.Sumner,“Letter from Our Division Head:Revisiting an Old Question,”Magazine Matter,20:2(Spring 2000),p.1.
Turning to academic journals in such disciplines as art,sociology,and gender studies,only a handful of articles focus on magazine cover research.In the April 1999 issue of Sex Roles,researchers examined the covers of 21 men's and women's magazines,looking at the images and the cover lines for conflicting messages about weight loss,diets,and appearance.Amy R.Malkin,Kimberlie Wornian,and Joan C.Chrisler,“Women and Weight:Gendered Messages on Magazine Covers,”Sex Roles,40:7/8(April 1999),pp.647-655.The entire issue of the Spring 1993 Art Journal was devoted to political journals published from 1910-1940,and included discussion of the covers of leftist and rightist magazines from Spain,Germany,France,Austria,Russia,and Mexico.“Political Journals and Art,1910-1940,”Virginia Hagelstein Marquardt,Art Journal,52:1(Spring 1993),pp.8-87.The August 1984 issue of American Sociological Review featured a study linking magazine covers and television,with the author arguing that television increased the use of symbols rather than identification labels on magazine covers.Karen A.Cerulo,“Television,Magazine Covers,and the Shared Symbolic Environment:1948-1970,”American Sociological Review,49:4(August 1984),pp.566-570.These studies didn't take industry concerns about how well a cover sells on the newsstand into consideration,nor were other magazine journalism factors addressed.
Finding the right keyword(s)-whether doing a physical or a computer search-is critical in discovering past research.Looking through the table of contents of bound volumes may not yield any magazine cover“hits,”because many titles fail to use the word“covers”or even“magazine”;the one-paragraph summary may not yield clues either.Recognition of magazine titles is helpful when skimming bound volumes.
The problem is that there's no systematic agreement on how to classify research.For example,the Cumulative Index for Volumes 61-70(1984-1993)of Journalism&Mass Communication Quarterly does not list every magazine article under“magazine journalism,”which would be the logical main listing.Articles about magazines also are found(but not duplicated under“magazine journalism”)in such categories as“advertising,”“content analysis,”“history and biography,”“international communication,”“photojournalism,”“press performance,”“readership,”and“typography and design.”I was surprised that my“Women Through Time:Who Gets Covered”research was not under“magazine journalism”and wondered why this article had been omitted from the index.I finally found it listed under“women and media.”
