Zeitschriften in der kommunikationswissenschaftlichen Forschung

Zusammenfassung

Trotz der gesellschaftlichen und ökonomischen Bedeutung, die Zeitschriften in modernen, differenzierten und individualisierten Gesellschaften zukommt, hat sich bisher in der Kommunikationswissenschaft keine befriedigende Definition und Typologie dieser Mediengattung durchsetzen können. Die Definitionen verorten Zeitschriften meist im Bereich der Presse, ohne die Spezifika dieser Gattung deutlich zu machen. Die Typologien sind nicht trennscharf und beruhen auf rein konzeptionellen Überlegungen. Der vorliegende Beitrag begegnet diesem Mangel, indem er erstens eine Definition entwickelt, die die spezifischen Leistungen von Zeitschriften im differenzierten Mediensystem sowie die veränderten Medienstrukturen berücksichtigt. Zeitschriften dienen demzufolge der Bereitstellung und dem Austausch über Themen von spezifischem Interesse und erfüllen die Funktion der Selbstorganisation gesellschaftlicher Akteure und sozialer Gruppen. Zweitens werden mit einem clusteranalytischen Verfahren erstmals empirisch Zeitschriftentypen entwickelt. Der Beitrag bietet damit eine trennscharfe Definition und eine Typologie, die für Grundlagenwerke oder Einführungsbücher des Fachs genutzt werden können. Zudem wird eine Grundlage für die synchrone und diachrone Vergleichbarkeit zukünftiger theoretisch-konzeptioneller und empirischer Beiträge innerhalb der Zeitschriften- und der Mediensystemforschung geschaffen.

Abstract

While we use the term “magazine” with a sense of obviousness in our every day lives, the scientific involvement with the term has proven to be rather unspecific and indistinct. So far, there are no common definitions of the “magazine” within communication science, that include characteristics or attributes concerning the performance of magazines. With all, magazines should be considered a relevant research object—even in the digital age—as they perform certain, societally relevant functions: They transfer specific, specialised knowledge and topical information, as to offer or present specific courses and consequences of action for our everyday worlds. In our modern, differentiated and highly individualised, plural societies, magazines provide deeper sources of information as opposed to up-to-the-minute mass media. The rising number and topical expansion of magazines indicate the significance of this media genre regarding processes of societal differentiation as well as the establishment of the knowledge society. Also from an economic perspective, one can regard magazines as a relevant media genre: Despite the daily news-press crisis, the magazine market volume has proven to be rather stable, forthcoming titles of the last decade achieved a growing reach, readers usage has remained stable as well and circulation has only regressed slightly. However, despite the social and economic importance of magazines (journals) in modern, differentiated, and individualised societies, no satisfactory definition and typology of this media genre has been able to prevail in communication science. This lack of a sufficient and adequate definition of the magazine has a couple of reasons: On the one hand, communication and/or media science has omitted the characterisation of the magazine and a detailed analysis of magazine structures. In magazine research as well as in introductory literature of the field, the definitions mostly attribute magazines to the category of “the press” (in the sense of periodical print publishing) without highlighting the specifics of the genre/type and the typologies are often not sufficiently distinct and are based on purely conceptual considerations. Magazines are thereby mostly regarded as a generalized genre and delineated from the daily and/or weekly press, which dominate communication science as objects of analysis. On the other hand, the high count, the relatively high volatility of the overall magazine market and the heterogeneity of the magazine supply (which is expressed by the range of topics, range of target audiences and/or the various intents of publication) complicate efforts to generate a distinct definition of the magazine. Furthermore, magazines—as opposed to e.g. daily newspapers—are often not or only partially archived, which further exacerbates the access to magazines as research objects and thus to magazine research itself.

Against this background, the present article confronts this research gap by firstly developing a definition, which incorporates the specific performance of magazines within differentiated media systems and altered media structures. Accordingly, magazines serve the provision and exchange of topics of specific interest, thereby performing the function of self-organisation of societal actors and social groups. This definition relies on a meta-analysis which serves to identify heretofore definitions and typologies of the magazine. The analysis includes scientific publications of primary research (research that explicitly and mostly exclusively focuses on magazines) as well as of secondary research (introductory literature, fundamental literature, encyclopaedias, lexica) from the German linguistic region. Regarding the definitions of magazines, the meta-analysis reveals 13 core characteristics, which can be summarised in three dimensions: manner of appearance, content and addressing. However, there is a distinct lack of accordance regarding which characteristics are deemed fundamental or regarding the minimal characteristic requirements for a publication to be called magazine. Regarding the typologies of magazines, the meta-analysis reveals that most of the hitherto typologies can be summarized to four mayor magazine types: General Interest, magazines with specific core themes, magazines with specific target audiences and a “residual group” wherein magazine types appear that cannot be categorised as any of the types above. We discuss the conceptual context and consequences of these definitions and typologies to articulate and debate a new definition of the magazine, which should have the potential of greater accordance and to offer more adequate magazine typologies. Our magazine definition is based on (critically debated) formal-phenomenological characteristics of existing literature and expanded by their specific societal performance: Thus, we define the magazine as a periodically appearing media genre that is non-universal but focuses on specific target audiences and exhibits specific journalistic resp. editorial programmes (types of texts) as well as specific communicators (specialised journalists, subject representatives), which all in all serves the (self)-organisation of groups and exchange of specific interests.

Additionally to the attempt of developing a more adequate magazine definition, the second goal of this paper is to present magazine types, which have been for the first time empirically derived by means of cluster-analysis. The necessary data for the empirical development of a magazine typology stems from a structure-analysis of Swiss and German magazines spanning from 1975–2016. The categories used for the structure analysis trace back to our magazine definition we have articulated above and are summarised by the following dimensions: subject area, level of publicity, addressor/publisher and intent of publication. By means of a two-step-cluster-analysis, we identify four specific types of magazines: specialist magazines for professional advanced education and networking, themed magazines for social networking, commercial magazines, specialist magazines for the communication between and to members of an organisation.

The present article therefore not only discloses the deficit of existing definitions, attributions and classifications of the magazine. It also offers a distinct definition and typology, which can be used for introductory literature of the field, by substantially including the specific characteristics and performance of this relevant media genre. Furthermore, the article hereby prompts a foundation for the synchronous and diachronous comparability of future theoretical-conceptual and empirical contributions within magazine and media system research.