ABSTRACT
Books and magazines play a pivotal role in the intellectual, cultural, and economic life of the United States (Daly, Henry, & Ryder, 1997; Greco, 1997a). However, between 1995 and 2001, there was a dramatic, unsettling shift in consumer book (i.e., adult, juvenile, mass-market paperback, religious, book clubs, and mail-order books) and consumer magazine (i.e., U.S. News and World Report, Time, Ms., etc.) usage and expenditure patterns of Americans, and the prognosis for 2002 through 2005 is equally disconcerting because Americans are spending less time perusing consumer books and consumer magazines. The impact of this trend on American culture and democracy has yet to be fully explored by social scientists.
