ABSTRACT
This chapter examines mainly of the juke-box boys, taking them as lay-figures in the discussion of lower levels of reading among urban adolescents. It suggests some married people and a large number of conscript servicemen who, more than the other groups pass the books from hand to hand. The magazines appear to have a particular appeal for adolescents of below average intelligence and for others who, for one reason or another, have not developed or do not feel themselves adequate. Most of these magazines aim to be very smart and modern, although in general their layout is hardly slicker than that of some family magazines. They establish their claim to modernity and sophistication largely by using artists in the newer style. They form a depressing group and one by no means typical of working-class people; perhaps most of them are rather less intelligent than the average, and even more exposed than others to the debilitating mass-trends of the day.
