- Branża: Printing & publishing
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Routledge is a global publisher of academic books, journals and online resources in the humanities and social sciences.
American middle and upper classes live between ideologies of mobility, equality and opportunity and expressions of status valuing that which is old, inherited or unique.
While elite collectors raided Europe over the past century (and eventually contributed to museums as rich store-houses of the global past), antiques as inherited and acquired goods have wider domestic meanings. While memories and family histories may be linked to humble objects from the past—quilts, furniture, books, paintings and photographs—more extensive antique sales have also drained Europe and, increasingly, the Third World in order to supply proof of connoisseurship, status and even ethnic heritage. For offices, hotels and other institutions as well, antiques (or quality reproductions) project status and sobriety. These evaluations, in turn, sustain an everhotter market among serious collectors and museums for the best specimens of both American and foreign production in the past.
This burgeoning market, ranging from flea markets, shops and decorators to elegant auction houses, nonetheless limits the accessibility of the past while opening the door to reproductions as cultural capital. Often sold through museum stores or high-end retailers, these may be direct reproductions of jewelry artworks or furniture, but also entail reproduction of motifs—indicating knowledge as much as copying—transposed to ties, appointment books, children’s toys, etc. Gentrification and home-ownership have also fostered markets for “antique” fixtures or adaptations of modern conveniences, while hotels and offices have affirmed these tastes. Reproduction posters, dolls and collectibles extend this marketing of the past into lower-end sales, generally without questioning the heritage reproduced or the divisions embodied in both “authentic” and “fake” appropriation.
Industry:Culture
American parentage is culturally based on shared blood, and, more recently on shared DNA. The basis for “real” parentage has produced ambivalent feelings towards adoption.
While Americans have long adopted, early adoptions were typically within the extended family or were highly guarded secrets with all records sealed. These early adoptions were frequently the result of out-of-wedlock births, which were socially taboo. In recent years, closed adoption has become a hotly contested issue, with advocacy groups like Bastard Nation seeking to end closed records. The search for birth parents and for biological children is a frequent topic of television talk shows. Highly publicized cases in which adopted children have been returned to birth families have led to a mistrust of domestic adoptions for most Americans. Open adoption, in which the birth parents may remain a part of the child’s life, provides a new, highly demanding option, but one limited in numbers.
Moreover, identity politics, combined with an emphasis on blood relationships, have made transracial adoptions very controversial within the US: the National Association of Black Social Workers has publicly condemned such adoptions. This controversy is combined with a rising national out-of-wedlock birth rate, as well as a declining rate of adoption to make the process more difficult. The ability to determine paternity through DNA testing has made the termination of biological parental rights more problematic.
State governments and the social services establishment are less favorable to adoption, even while the American fosterparent system is coming under attack.
These obstacles, combined with the apparent rise in infertility, have forced more middle-class white couples to seek to adopt privately or internationally. Private adoptions are typically handled through lawyers and are quite expensive. Advertisements for healthy white infants, who are in high demand, appear in college newspapers across the county, illustrating the growing demand for these adoptions. Although international adoptions are not new, the search for infants has expanded from Korea (in the 1950s and 1960s) to China, Russia, Yugoslavia, as well as Latin America and other parts of Asia.
Transnational adoption has also sparked the debate on the unequal power relationship between the first-world adopting parents and the third-world adoptees.
The cherished ideal of the nuclear family with two biological children has come under assault as single parents and gay parents turn to adoption as well. Like the blended families resulting from divorce, these new family forms do not correspond with popular views of what a real family is in America. Adoption is becoming one of the important elements in the redefinition of the American family. The “triad” of relationships resulting from adoption—the adoptive parents, the adoptees and the birth parents—represents new forms of American kinship informed both by the longstanding cultural logic of biological relationships that define what constitutes the American family and the reality of new social relationships that produce something different.
Industry:Culture
American pharmaceutical companies have proven successful in a postwar global marketplace, competing in the 1990s with ever-growing multinationals like the Glaxo Welcome/Smith-Kline Beecham merger. Large research investments, generally wellcontrolled testing and aggressive marketing have made American products household names throughout the world. At the same time, continuing price increases have made these companies domestic targets for healthcare reform. They have also raised ethical and political questions when necessary medications are not available to the poor in the US, much less for epidemics like AIDS in the Third World.
Drugs are big business—American companies like E.I. Lilly, Schering Plough, Merck, and PfizerWarner Lambert are among the largest international producers. These companies took to the airwaves in a new way in the late 1990s, with the FCC’s relaxation of a longstanding ban on ads for prescription drugs. Now, $1.3 billion goes annually to sell Claritin, Viagra (with former presidential candidate Bob Dole as spokesman), Zyban, Rogaine and other prescription drugs in addition to Tylenol, Tums and other “over-thecounter” (non-prescription) drugs. In addition, manufacturers also seek to influence opinion leaders among physicians and hospitals. Over forty new prescription drugs enter the market annually, coming from $24 billion in research.
Yet pharmaceutical development also responds to existing markets. Hence, in 1999, 25 percent of new developments were linked to senses and the nervous system, while miniscule research moneys focused on tropical diseases not generally found in the US.
Merck, to give one example, gains more than 30 percent of its sales from drugs whose syndromes can be related to America’s problematic foodways—including cardiac issues, hypertension and high cholesterol. Since these companies are heavily involved in the funding of university research, their interests may influence entire areas of study This disparity in potential consumption creates the specter of so-called orphan diseases, dramatized in Lorenzo’s Oil (1992). Early money for AIDS research also was raised outside of corporate channels.
Consumer resistance to the power of big pharmaceuticals emerges in complaints, through negotiations via insurance and through a turn to generics that do not carry patented prices (although the drug industry fights to modify and repatent drugs so as to avoid generic competition). One might also see resistance in holistic/alternative health.
Yet it is hard to fight an industry that may provide life to a loved one or even oneself.
Drug marketing in the US is controlled through the Food and Drug Administration, which gained fame for its rigor—especially with regards to the thalidomide crisis of the 1960s. Since 1992 the FDA has developed a fast track, demanded by AIDS patients and others looking for rapid drug approval; this twelve-month process demands that pharmaceutical companies pay $200,000 per drug. Monitoring afterwards also remains important—four drugs have been recalled in the last decade, including the diet combination Phen-Fen.
Industry:Culture
American radio has played a prominent role in both utilitarian applications and in the transmission of American news and popular culture. The proliferation of programming options and technological development since its early days is staggering.
From those early days, radio has served for utilitarian purposes of ship-to-shore communication and military uses, as well as entertaining the nation with game shows, children’s story hours, mysteries, soap operas, science fiction, operas, news and sports.
The golden age of radio is generally considered to be the period between the mid-1930s and 1950. Radio provided “free” entertainment during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and brought the war into the living rooms of the American public.
As television asserted its emerging role in the late 1940s and early 1950s, radio had to re-define itself. As programming once only heard on radio moved into the new medium, the FM band emerged, public broadcasting developed, and new opportunities for programming arose.
FM stations account for 75 percent of radio listeners today and about 60 percent of advertising dollars. Stations live or die by the ratings they receive from the Arbitron company which produces a “book” on each major market for advertisers. The advertisers see the demographic breakdown of each station’s listeners, and purchase the time and format most likely to reach their target audience.
The most popular formats for radio programming in the late 1990s are (in order of decreasing popularity) country, adult contemporary, news/ talk/business/sports, religion, rock and oldies. More than half of US radio stations play country music, particularly in the Deep South and West. Its standing as the number one program format attests to its grassroots popularity.
Adult contemporary integrates soft rock with what used to be considered “middle of the road” or “chicken rock” from the 1950s. Talk radio/ news/business/sports provides local stations, especially AM stations, a niche for attracting listeners and revenues. While satellite delivers pre-packaged talk programming, such as Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy, a community’s individual personalities can host talk and interview programs that meet the interests and needs of a station’s hometown.
Public radio provides programming that might not be commercially viable and also that is educational, to some extent. National Public Radio and Public Radio International disburse government and private funds to non-commercial radio stations.
Their content includes All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Prairie Home Companion.
Important legislation regarding radio includes the Radio Act of 1927, the Federal Communications Act of 1934, which replaced it, and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The 1934 Act provides the legislative foundation governing broadcast and radio transmission in the United States. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has affected ownership restrictions and technological requirements, among other issues related to radio.
Industry:Culture
American sedans retooled to hug the ground (or “dance” through manipulation of their hydraulic system), especially popular among Mexican Americans in the western borderlands. Since the late 1970s, low riders have become assertive “vehicles of display” boasting elaborate paint jobs, murals and interior additions. They have increasingly been recognized in the 1990s as ethnic symbols, while gaining visibility in car shows and Low Rider magazine (founded 1978). The disjunction of automobile and culture they imply becomes visible in Bulworth (1998) when the white hero finds his borrowed car rocking hysterically as he tries to drive it.
Industry:Culture
American sports teams, professional, college, high-school and children’s leagues have often adopted animals, mythic humans, or other symbols as emblems and animators for their activities. Many of these names are relatively unmarked culturally except for images of strength, unity and locality—the Denver Broncos, San Francisco, CA 49-ers, or Boston Red Sox, among professional teams, or the Harvard Crimson, University of Southern California Trojans, or Nebraska Cornhuskers among colleges. One strongly embedded cultural tradition, however, of using Native American names or representations—Redskins, Chiefs, Florida Seminoles, or Atlanta Braves (and their “tomahawk chop”) came under increasing attack in the 1990s for the derogatory mythologizations they impose upon a living Native American population. While some supporters argue that such names honor Native Americans and more suggest that they have nothing to do with living peoples (precisely the problem), pressure has grown to drop these names and attendant representations. The Los Angeles, CA school system adopted this policy in 1997, as have other institutions like Stanford. Recent expansion franchises in major-league sports have also care-fully chosen animals or other phenomena—Ravens, Jazz, Saints, Kixx (soccer), etc.—and often rely on more fanciful figures like the San Diego Chicken or Philly Phanatic (Philadelphia Phillies) to raise fans’ spirits.
Industry:Culture
American striptease, with its roots in nineteenth-century French striptease, came to prominence in the mid-1920s when burlesque theater began to feature it as a way to attract audiences.
By the 1930s, when both G-string-clad chorus girls and police raids on clubs where they performed were common, striptease artists would combine skits and musical performance with elaborate costumes in order to avoid prosecution. Great striptease artists of this period included Gyspy Rose Lee and Ann Corio. Later on, exotic dancers turned showgirls in Las Vegas’ hotels and casinos had begun performing elaborately choreographed and costumed shows.
Dancers in many strip clubs perform stage shows (known colloquially as “airdancing”) as well as “table dances,” in which the dancer performs on a small, more private stage for individual patrons. In the 1990s, clubs in many states began to offer “lap dances,” in which a nude or semi-nude dancer performed gyrations while sitting on the lap of the fully clothed patron. Depending on the clubs where they dance, strippers may work exclusively for tips, receive a minimal “shift pay,” or even be required to pay the club for time spent on stage. In the 1990s, dancers at San Francisco’s Lusty Lady became the first group of exotic dancers to form a union, and this movement to unionize is now growing throughout the country.
Several American movies have focused on strippers, including Gypsy (1962, 1993), based on the life of Gypsy Rose Lee, Showgirls (1995) and Striptease (1996), starring Demi Moore, who received a fee of $12 million for her role in the film. Striptease and burlesque have also served as inspiration for mainstream dancers and choreographers, most notably Bob Fosse, whose jazz choreography drew extensively on the burlesque tradition.
Exotic dancing came under renewed scrutiny in late 1990s New York City, where Mayor Rudolph Giuliani successfully lobbied for legislation to prevent strip clubs and other adult establishments from operating within 500 feet of residences, schools, day-care centers and places of worship. This trend has resulted in a return to shows more in the burlesque tradition, with both more substance and more clothing.
Industry:Culture
American trust territory in the Marianas (Western Pacific), controlled under UN aegis from the Second World War until 1986. It provoked a US scandal in the 1990s because of sweatshop production conditions in factories “legally” entitled to use made-in-America labels. A class-action lawsuit, settled in 1999, resulted in a settlement for 50,000 guest workers.
Industry:Culture
American’s fascination with automobiles has altered homes and public spaces. For houses, these range from suburban extensions of the roof to ward off weather—the carport—to separate structures that may include additional spaces for storage or work.
These are especially associated with male activities or escape in mass media representations of the home. Suburban sprawl and status have created a demand for twoand three-car garages even in subdivisions. Garages are also part of the family life cycle: garage apartments (upstairs) may provide rental income or may be used for older children or relatives; garages may also be converted into living spaces for growing families.
In cities, garage space may be premium real estate for apartment and house dwellers, creating a labyrinth of garage privileges and street regulations. Public garages (and the asphalt scars of parking lots) have become frequent postwar urban projects for urban commuter populations. In contrast to private garages, these spaces are often seen as dangerous, especially for women, while they become the scenes of countless car chases and crime shows in mass media. Meanwhile, in suburbs, public parking for malls, business campuses, schools and motels eats up new acres across the US daily.
Industry:Culture
Americans have a love affair with magazines, creating thousands of periodical publications serving every taste and interest. Magazines communicate ideas, convey popular tastes and persuade the people to think, vote, behave and appear in specific ways.
The average American reads almost ten different magazine issues each month. Sixty percent of these readers are married and almost 80 percent live in a metropolitan area— with income and tastes advertisers and publishers want to reach.
Magazines have a lively tradition in the United States of exposing corruption and individual’s vices, chronicling American history, as well as informing, entertaining and persuading their readers. The power of the visual wedded to the printed word could persuade Americans that Kennedy-Camelot years were perfect, while the faces of famine in Africa aroused sympathy and paternalism. Magazines, however, like other mass media, are also businesses, selling themselves and advertising goods and services to targeted readers. With the merger climate of the 1990s, the most widely circulated American magazines were owned by a few conglomerates, like Time Warner (TW), Hearst and News Corporations (NC).
The top five US magazines in advertising revenue at the end of the century were People Weekly (TW), Sports Illustrated (TW), Time (TW), TV Guide (NC) and Newsweek (Washington Post Co.). In terms of circulation per issue, the top five include Modern Maturity (for all American Association of Retired Persons members), Reader’s Digest, TV Guide, National Geographic and Better Homes and Gardens (all associated with older readers). Time Warner thus owns the three most profitable magazines in the country Moreover, these are linked to its other media interests: TW ran a thirty-two-page advertising insert to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of Warner Brothers’ Bugs Bunny in its Time, Life, People, Fortune and Entertainment Weekly, reaching over 80 million readers.
Magazines have changed greatly over time. The first American magazines appeared in 1741– Andrew Bradford’s The American Magazine and Benjamin Franklin’s The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle. Most early magazines lasted less than three years. They lacked a large, literate population, cheap paper, technology for mass printings, means for easy distribution and a solid financial base. In the early 1800s, education, transportation, population and printing technology changed rapidly and magazines became instrumental in educating and entertaining the growing American Republic. Cheap postal rates and the ability to deliver across a greater area increased circulation. Magazines contained novels in serial form, social and political debate, fashion, advice for the home, religious and philosophical advice and travel accounts.
Major titles included The Literary Digest, Ladies Home Journal, Saturday Evening Post, Harper’s Weekly and Scribner’s Monthly.
Until the end of the First World War, magazines also took an aggressive role in social reform. Investigative reporters (muckrakers) exposed corruption in politics and industry and took on causes such as birth control, child labor, sanitation and the meat-packing industry. Their dogged pursuit of records, interviews and the truth changed the way journalists investigated tough issues.
With postwar development, collegiate readers sought H.L. Mencken’s American Mercury and George Jean Nathan’s Smart Set during the Roaring Twenties. During the 1930s, photo-filled magazines such as Look and Life were born, providing a pictorial chronicle of American culture. Along with The Saturday Evening Post, these largecirculation reviews dominated the national market until the advent of television affected the numbers of readers and advertisers. General-interest magazines that have maintained their popularity through the decades include Reader’s Digest, National Geographic and the postwar TV Guide; in 1947 Reader’s Digest became the first magazine to have a circulation of more than 9 million. News magazines such as Time, Newsweek and U.S.
News and World Report have also had large circulation figures, but must compete with other information sources.
Magazines in the new millenium succeed when they attract the market niche for which they are positioned. In addition to general consumer magazines and news, the largest categories of magazines (with examples) are trade journals reflecting specific economic niches; sponsored publications (American Legion, college alumni magazines); sports; sex (Playboy, Penthouse); intellectual/ opinion (Commentary, The National Review, The Nation); humor (National Lampoon, MAD); business (Forbes, Business Week); religion (Christian Century, Focus on the Family); teens; and city publications (New York, Philadelphid). Large markets are also gendered into “women’s” interest (Good Housekeeping, McCall’s) and men’s interest (Gentleman’s Quarterly, Argosy), as well as gay and lesbian interest. Magazines targeting blacks and Hispanics suggest the normative readers of other magazines. The Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media (1998) includes 7,141 trade/technical/professional publications, 2,591 magazines of general circulation, 459 religious, 391 agricultural, 208 college, 177 women’s, 154 foreign language, 61 fraternal, 56 Hispanic, 38 Jewish and 29 black publications. There are also roughly 10,000 company and technical publications.
Various milestones in postwar American magazine publishing reflect changing market demands and consumer trends. The satirical MAD, targeting advertising and media, was founded in 1952. Playboy appeared in 1953 with Marilyn Monroe as its first centerfold.
People magazine—sold in newspaper checkout lines—appeared in 1974 with glitzy pictures in the Life tradition, but more celebrity gossip. Cosmopolitan and Ms also challenged “women’s” publications in the 1970s. Meanwhile, Life, Look and Saturday Evening Post disappeared, victims of television and more media choices. By contrast, Vanity Fair, a magazine that had enjoyed decades of popularity before dying in 1936, was revived in 1983; it continues to set trends for an affluent society Other milestones refer to business. Advertising constitutes almost half of the economic basis for most magazines. Key sources of advertisement revenue include automobiles, cosmetics, direct response, business, food, pharmaceuticals, fashion, tourism, computers, alcohol and tobacco. The Audit Bureau of Circulation provides circulation information to advertisers, stockholders and the magazine industry itself.
Circulation and subscriptions account for the other half. The prices of magazines have skyrocketed with increasing costs of printing, paper, delivery services and salaries.
However, the cost of actually producing the magazine has fallen with the advent of desktop publishing methods and some other technological advancements.
Since the 1980s, niche marketing of magazines has sought to deliver the demographic and psychographic audience publishers and advertisers want. Demographic information such as age, educational and income level, geographic location and sex helps advertisers and editorial directors plan content for readers. Information about readers’ values and lifestyles (VALS and VALS 2) also helps deliver the audience to writers and advertisers.
Publications failing to respond to market demand cease, despite generations of tradition like The Saturday Evening Post, whose Norman Rockwell covers once epitomized smalltown nostalgia. Magazines also target audiences and geographic regions through special editions. Advertisements for local and regional clients as well as articles appropriate for a target audience (e.g. Latinos) or region (e.g. tobacco farmers in the South) attempt to increase circulation and revenues.
In the 1990s, electronic magazines began to appear. This development has increased access to information and editorial content in colleges, libraries and among those with electronic access. They also stretch form and expression within writing and illustration, as well as intersecting with emergent commercialism on the Web.
Industry:Culture
