Deck 9: Magazines in the Age of Specialization

Question 1

For many years Reader's Digest was the most popular magazine in the world.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

The first colonial magazines published by Andrew Bradford and Benjamin Franklin enjoyed instant success and continued for several years.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

The Ladies' Home Journal reached a circulation of one million in 1903 by focusing solely on women's interests in baking and fashion.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The Saturday Evening Post continued the muckraking tradition-especially by criticizing business corruption-into the 1920s.

Question 5

Muckraking journalists exposed corruption and abuses in the oil, meatpacking, and patent medicine industries.

Question 6

Some of the most influential magazines of the nineteenth century were targeted at women.

Question 7

TV Guide succeeded, in part, because it was readily available at the nation's supermarket checkout lines.

Question 8

The first magazines primarily offered entertainment news and gossip.

Question 9

In what might be the earliest example of media synergy, some of the first magazines in France were aimed at marketing literary work.

Question 10

President Theodore Roosevelt criticized magazine journalists who exposed corruption in government and business by calling them muckrakers.

Question 11

The first magazines in America were edited for the working classes.

Question 12

In a desperate attempt to compete with television in the late 1960s, the Saturday Evening Post and Life cut their cover prices and thereby increased circulation by millions of copies.

Question 13

The word magazine comes from the French term magasin, meaning ''storehouse.''

Question 14

The magazine industry continues to shun the Internet because of its threat to printed journals.

Question 15

By the end of the nineteenth century, some magazine cover prices actually went down-from thirty-five cents to ten cents.

Question 16

Life magazine was able to compete with the popular radio programs of the 1930s and 1940s by running popular fiction, first-person news reports, and other text-based features.

Question 17

Women's magazines, such as Good Housekeeping and Woman's Day, survived the competition for ad dollars better than magazines like Life and Look.

Question 18

Specialized magazines were published in America throughout the nineteenth century.

Question 19

Collier's and Woman's Home Companion failed in the 1950s because of poor management.

Question 20

Webzines such as Salon and Slate have opened new doors for online journalism.

Question 21

To avoid offending readers, Sports Illustrated does not publish investigative articles.

Question 22

The typical consumer magazine distributes far more copies through newsstand sales than through subscriptions.

Question 23

Magazines survived the coming of television in part by developing demographic and regional editions.

Question 24

Demographic editions of national magazines are able to charge higher rates for advertising.

Question 25

Almost all magazines offer 25 to 50 percent discounts from their rate cards to advertisers.

Question 26

The AARP Bulletin and AARP The Magazine have the largest circulations of any U.S. magazines.

Question 27

The average magazine contains about 45 percent ad copy and 55 percent editorial material.

Question 28

Specialized magazines outside the mainstream publish information and viewpoints for readers not served by other media channels.

Question 29

Evergreen magazine subscriptions are those that are automatically renewed on the subscriber's credit card.

Question 30

Alternative magazines such as the Progressive and the National Review have historically defined themselves in terms of gender and race.

Question 31

Split-run editions allow national magazines to tailor ads to different geographic areas.

Question 32

The New Yorker was the first city magazine aimed at a national upscale audience.

Question 33

The circulation of tabloid newspapers such as the National Enquirer declined after their peak in the 1980s.

Question 34

Demographic editions of national magazines are tailored to the interests of different geographic areas.

Question 35

Until Playboy entered the marketplace, most large-circulation magazines were targeted at women.

Question 36

Though they resemble newspapers, supermarket tabloids are considered to be a type of magazine.

Question 37

The circulation of Rolling Stone has dropped in recent years because readers objected to its irreverent, left-wing viewpoint.

Question 38

Controlled-circulation magazines are provided to readers at no charge.

Question 39

Large companies are increasingly beginning to dominate the magazine business.

Question 40

Some advertisers and companies have canceled ads when a magazine featured an unflattering or critical article about a company or industry.

Question 41

An example of a magazine that was conceived as online-only is _.

A) Time
B) TV Guide
C) Wired
D) Entertainment Weekly
E) Slate

Question 42

Early European magazines were oriented toward .

A) broad political commentary
B) discussions of women's issues
C) medical and health advice
D) hunting and fishing tips
E) recent news

Question 43

What factor had an effect on the dramatic growth in magazine circulation around the end of the nineteenth century?

A) Cheaper postal rates
B) Advances in mass-production printing
C) Lower cover price
D) Dramatic growth of drugstores and dime stores
E) All of the options are correct.

Question 44

In 1828, Sarah Josepha Hale started the first magazine directed exclusively to a female audience, called _.

A) Godey's Ladies Book
B) Harper's
C) Youth's Companion
D) Ladies' Magazine
E) Ladies' Home Journal

Question 45

Which of the following statements about colonial American magazines is true?

A) George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and Benjamin
B) Circulation was relatively small and typically limited to politicians, the educated, and merchant classes.
C) Some magazines helped rally the colonies against British rule.
D) The very first colonial magazines had difficulty catching on.
E) All of the options are correct.

Question 46

Which popular magazine was launched in 1974 by Time Inc.?

A) Sports Illustrated
B) The Saturday Evening Post
C) People
D) Life
E) TV Guide

Question 47

Media baron Rupert Murdoch bought TV Guide in 1988 because _.

A) it was one of the world's most profitable magazines
B) he wanted to ensure that programs for his Fox network would be listed
C) he wanted to change the magazine's liberal editorial policy
D) he enjoyed reading the magazine
E) he was afraid it would go out of business without him

Question 48

Which of the following is not a result of muckraking journalism in magazines around the start of the twentieth century?

A) Antitrust laws for increased government oversight of business
B) The creation of government oversight of food and drugs
C) A progressive income tax
D) The direct election of U.S. senators
E) A drop in attention paid to the plight of immigrants in big cities

Question 49

Which of the following statements about general-interest magazines is false?

A) They became popular starting in the mid-to-late-nineteenth century.
B) With one or two exceptions, they had mostly gone out of business by about 1910.
C) Television played a big role in signaling the demise of general-interest magazines.
D) Photojournalism was a key aspect of general-interest magazines.
E) None of the above options is false.

Question 50

With so many specialized magazines appealing to distinct groups, magazines today don't have as strong a role in creating a sense of national identity.

Question 51

Who wrote The Jungle, a fictional account of Chicago's meatpacking industry?

A) Lincoln Steffens
B) Ida Tarbell
C) Tim Allen
D) Upton Sinclair
E) Frank Norris

Question 52

Which of the following was designed as a general-interest or mass audience magazine?

A) The Saturday Evening Post
B) Reader's Digest
C) Time
D) People
E) All of the options are correct.

Question 53

One of Cyrus Curtis's strategies for reinvigorating the Saturday Evening Post was to _.

A) appeal to farmers
B) romanticize American virtues through images like Norman Rockwell paintings
C) denigrate American values
D) continue the muckraking tradition
E) publish risqué pictures

Question 54

The term muckraker _.

A) was coined by President Theodore Roosevelt because he was angry with negative reporting
B) described investigative reporters who only wrote about American institutions in a positive light
C) was seen as an insult by leading investigative reporters
D) described reporters who wanted to write in the simplistic and conventional style of newspaper journalism
E) None of the above options is correct.

Question 55

Which of the following is not a reason Life and Look magazines went out of business in the early 1970s?

A) Their paid circulation had plummeted, with the magazines falling out of the Top 10 magazines in the nation.
B) Advertisers were shifting their money toward television.
C) Postage rates had increased for oversized magazines.
D) They had relatively small supermarket sales.
E) They were being sold for far less than the cost of production.

Question 56

One of the reasons for TV Guide's popularity was that _.

A) its first issue featured Elvis
B) it offered lurid commentary about TV stars
C) it was initially free
D) many newspapers hadn't yet started publishing TV listings
E) All of the options are correct.

Question 57

Which magazine was the foremost outlet for photojournalism in the mid-twentieth century?

A) Life
B) The North American Review
C) The Nation
D) The Saturday Evening Post
E) Harper's

Question 58

Zines are usually noncommercial, small-circulation magazine projects self-published by individuals.

Question 59

Who wrote History of the Standard Oil Company, first serialized in McClure's magazine?

A) Ida Tarbell
B) Upton Sinclair
C) Joseph Pulitzer
D) Nellie Bly
E) Frederick Douglass

Question 60

In July 2009, created perhaps the most ambitious print-digital hybrid project at the time.

A) Redbook
B) Wired
C) Popular Science
D) Salon
E) Slate

Question 61

A magazine's rate card lists .

A) what it costs to advertise in the magazine
B) how often the magazine is published
C) the price of a one-, two-, or three-year subscription
D) how much the magazine pays its freelance writers
E) None of the above options is correct.

Question 62

Within the magazine publishing industry, the department that typically monitors single-copy and subscription sales is known as the _.

A) advertising and sales department
B) circulation and distribution department
C) table of contents department
D) editorial department
E) production and technology department

Question 63

A national magazine with regional editions .

A) tailors ads to different age groups
B) contains different stories for different geographic regions
C) relies solely on subscription sales
D) relies solely on newsstand sales
E) sends special editorial content to readers with high incomes

Question 64

Which of the following is an example of a consumer magazine?

A) Progressive Grocer
B) Dakota Farmer
C) Dairy Herd Management
D) Advertising Age
E) O: The Oprah Magazine

Question 65

In terms of ownership structure and business models, the magazine industry has the most in common with which other form of mass media?

A) Book publishing
B) The recording industry
C) The Internet
D) Movies
E) Cable television

Question 66

Of the following magazines, which has the largest circulation in the United States?

A) Maxim
B) AARP The Magazine
C) Time
D) Reader's Digest
E) TV Guide

Question 67

Claiming over 15.8 million unique monthly visitors, is currently the leading online magazine.

A) Salon
B) Slate
C) Wonderwall
D) Wired.com
E) Elle Girl

Question 68

Like advertising and public relations, magazines have played an important role in _.

A) exposing government corruption
B) transforming the United States from a producer society to a consumer society
C) forcing change in powerful institutions
D) giving a voice to ordinary American citizens
E) None of the above options is correct.

Question 69

A main purpose of split-run and demographic editions of magazines is to .

A) move the magazine industry back to more general-interest publications
B) make sure that local and regional companies are cut off from advertising in nationally distributed magazines
C) create fewer places for advertisers to spend their money
D) attract more targeted advertisers and compete with television advertising
E) None of the options is correct.

Question 70

Online-only and online versions of magazines are _.

A) having trouble attracting an audience
B) more expensive to produce and distribute compared to printed versions
C) able to add interactive components to their articles
D) struggling with space limitations in the online format
E) All of the options are correct.

Question 71

An example of the way in which an online magazine might be different from a print magazine is to .

A) feature interactive 3-D models
B) allow readers to click on an item on a digital page and be taken to an online store where they can purchase it
C) feature video and audio
D) use an innovative layout that is only possible online
E) All of the options are correct.

Question 72

Which of the following statements about the relationship between magazines and the Internet is false?

A) The Internet was initially seen as a medium that would kill print magazines.
B) Some print magazines that have folded are finding new life on the Internet.
C) Online-only magazines have gained journalistic credibility.
D) The Internet gives magazines the ability to do things that they couldn't do in print.
E) The Internet is still widely considered to be putting the final nails into the coffin of print magazines.

Question 73

Within the magazine publishing industry, the department that usually produces the nonadvertising content of a magazine is known as the .

A) advertising and sales department
B) production and technology department
C) editorial department
D) circulation and distribution department
E) table of contents department

Question 74

The bilingual magazine was started with the help of Essence Communications in 1996.

A) Latina
B) Essence
C) Tikkun
D) ESPN Deportes
E) None of the above options is correct.

Question 75

Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine became an instant success in 1953, thanks in part to .

A) an expensive TV ad campaign
B) sending free copies to one million male college students
C) articles that criticized divorced and working women
D) a nude calendar foldout of Marilyn Monroe
E) insightful feminist articles

Question 76

Advertisers frequently pressure magazines to publish .

A) gatefold covers
B) more complementary copy
C) investigative stories
D) color photos
E) more often

Question 77

Which of the following is true about minority-targeted magazines?

A) They have a history dating back to before the Civil War, with titles like Emancipator and Reformer.
B) They have a history dating back to the first half of the twentieth century, with titles like
C) Minority-targeted magazines cover only racial minorities.
D) They were popular during the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, but they have mostly gone out of business since then.
E) Most of them started up as Webzines in the last ten years.

Question 78

Which of the following is true about the magazine Sports Illustrated?

A) It is an example of a general-interest magazine.
B) It is never criticized for its annual swimsuit edition.
C) It is never credited with major investigative reporting.
D) It was originally aimed at well-educated, middle-class men.
E) It originally promoted its content as ''humanized geography.''

Question 79

The top children's magazine in 2013 was .

A) Ranger Rick
B) Maxim
C) Boy's Life
D) Highlights for Children
E) Youth's Companion

Question 80

Split-run editions are .

A) magazines that publish two issues a month
B) a new ownership strategy-such as when Bertelsmann bought Random House
C) magazines that have ads that are tailored for geographic areas
D) national magazines that tailor their content for specific groups of readers
E) None of the above options is correct.