In the early days of the industry, individual magazines had a powerful national voice and united separate communities around important political and social issues, such as abolition and suffrage. Muckrackers promoted social reform in the pages of general-interest magazines. Today, with so many specialized magazines appealing to ever-narrower groups of consumers, magazines no longer foster such a strong sense of national identity.

To be sure, contemporary commercial magazines still provide essential information about politics, society, and culture. Thus, they help us form opinions about the big issues of the day and make decisions—key activities in any democracy. However, owing to their increasing dependence on advertising revenue, some publications view their readers as consumers first (viewers of displayed products and purchasers of material goods) and citizens second. To keep advertising dollars flowing in, editorial staffs may decide to keep controversial content out of their magazine’s pages, which constrains debate and thus hurts the democratic process.

At the same time, magazines have arguably had more freedom than other media to encourage and participate in democratic debate. More magazines circulate in the marketplace than do broadcast or cable television channels. And many new magazines are uniting dispersed groups of readers by, for example, giving cultural minorities or newly arrived immigrants a sense of membership in a broader community.

In addition, because magazines are distributed weekly, monthly, or bimonthly, their publishers are less restricted by deadline pressure than are newspaper publishers and radio and television broadcasters. Journalists writing for magazines can thus take time to offer more rigorous and thoughtful analyses of the topics they cover. The biweekly Rolling Stone, for example, often mounts more detailed, comprehensive political pieces than you might find in a daily news source. However, this is changing in some cases, as online publications attempt to cover breaking news and face the kinds of constant deadline pressure that used to be associated only with daily newspapers and broadcasters.

Amid today’s swirl of images, magazines and their advertisements certainly contribute to the commotion. But good magazines—especially those offering carefully researched, thoughtful, or entertaining articles and photos—have continued to inspire lively discussion among readers. And if they’re also well designed, they maintain readers’ connection to words—no small feat in today’s increasingly image-driven world.

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