“USEFUL MEMORY” IN TIME INC. MAGAZINES
2006; Routledge; Volume: 7; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14616700500450384
ISSN1469-9699
Autores Tópico(s)Rhetoric and Communication Studies
ResumoAbstract This article examines the summary journalism of Time Inc. (the corporate core of the multimedia conglomerate that now also includes America Online, Warner Brothers, and Turner Broadcasting) at a time when mass media have become a primary means by which most people understand the past. The focus of this study is the world's leading magazine company, which pioneered retrospective journalism more than 80 years ago and continues to dominate this practice today. An analysis of its "special issues" and other memory products published over the past two decades reveals a number of rhetorical strategies by which their creators have taken on the work of public historians while creating products that blend the commercial and cultural functions of journalism. The large body of evidence provided by this one company further suggests that media memory products tend to characterize the past in five consistent ways: as permanent, as personal, as memorial, as visual, and as collectable. Keywords: American historyjournalismmagazinesmemoryTime Inc Notes 1. Time-Life Books direct-mail solicitation for Our American Century book series, dated December 1999, received by the author. 2. The publishing division of the company is still called Time Inc. Though this division is dominated by the magazines, it also houses the Time Warner Book Group, which includes Warner Books and Little, Brown and Company. 3. Paul Fussell (1979 Fussell , Paul (1979) "Time Life Goes to War!" , The New Republic , 18 August , pp. 21 – 2 . [Google Scholar]) used the word "library" in describing the company's books about World War II. 4. Since its founding in 1974, this magazine has streamlined its original title, People Weekly, to simply People. For the sake of consistency, just the current, single-word title will be used throughout this article, though some references contain the longer title. 5. Strangely complicating Rather's declaration that the series gave history a "more definitive shape" has been Time's recent reuse of the coverline "The Time 100" on special issues profiling different (updated) people, including figures such as California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry, and Pop Idol/American Idol judge Simon Cowell who rose to fame (or their most recent reason for fame) after the turn of the 21st century (see, for instance, the Time issue dated April 26, 2004). 6. This project might be seen as evidence that audience participation in creating media content does not necessarily result in a better product. The public's choices of the "greatest Americans" of all time were badly skewed by present popular-culture visibility, including figures such as television therapist Phil McGraw ("Dr. Phil"), actor Tom Cruise, radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, and Pat Tillman, a professional football player who died in the Iraq War. 7. Though both books bear a copyright date of 1995, the 150th anniversary of photography occurred in 1989, the year Time published a special issue on the subject. 8. Exhibit entitled "September 11: bearing witness to history" at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, visited by the author on April 5, 2003. 9. See: magazinememories.com; life.com/Life/classicpictures; shonbc.com; lifeposters.com; subs.timeinc.net/SI/coverstore; and subs.timeinc.net/SI/firstb.jhtm. 10. Future research also might ask to what extent the writers and editors of these special issues consider themselves historians, what distinctions they make between journalism and history, and how they make their choices of editorial content for retrospective "special" issues. Just as audience studies would enrich our understanding of media memory products, so would interviews with their producers—who, as Richard Stolley (1999 Sports Illustrated (1994) "Letters" , 16 August , p. 4 . [Google Scholar], 2000 Sports Illustrated. 2000. Greatest Athletes of the 20th Century, New York: Time Inc. Home Entertainment. [Google Scholar]) indicated in his century-summary books, take this work seriously and who, as experienced, nationally prominent journalists, are in fact more qualified than most Americans to create this sort of cultural product.
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