Science in Magazines

Role of Magazines

Magazines inform, entertain, and educate their audiences. They play other important roles as well. [Page 712]Consider how some families save their National Geographic issues for decades, using them as encyclopedias. Or how anniversary issues of the major newsweeklies help readers make sense of what was important in the last year or decade, or, as Life's special 1997 issue did, the previous millennium. Author Carolyn Kitch writes in her 2005 book Pages From the Past: History and Memory in American Magazines that magazines provide important social commentary on American life and a public history of our national culture. With respect to science, she found that the positive side of technology was one of six common themes that Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, and Life used to describe the decades of the 20th century.

Magazines also help to set the agenda for what is on the public's mind. For instance, researchers credit the New Yorker's 1960 publication of the series of articles “The Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson with jump-starting the national debate on the dangers of pesticides. Similarly, when the Journal of the American Medical Association, an influential industry magazine, published “The Battered Child Syndrome” in 1962, other media took note. According to scholar Barbara Nelson, increased media coverage made the public see child abuse in a new light as a treatable and preventable medical condition.

Yet another role magazines play is one of community building. Magazines such as Today's Chemist at Work and other industry publications bring together working professionals. Specific groups of individuals find other people who share their concerns when they read publications such as Palaestra, aimed at people with disabilities, or Diabetes Health, for people with diabetes and their caregivers.

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