ABSTRACT
This chapter examines scholars’ focus and methodological choices in peer-reviewed research on magazines, the magazine industry or both, published in refereed, scholarly journals of both the communication field and other disciplines. Communication scholars produced the largest number of research articles on magazines published in scholarly periodicals. Researchers from social studies, humanities, business, education, and physical and life sciences were all exploring topics relating to magazines from their distinct disciplinary perspectives. The chapter considers the importance of women’s studies scholarly journals as a forum for research on women’s magazines, the magazine industry and women readers. Magazines serve as an important lens through which researchers examine pressing health, environment and social issues, drawing on their disciplines’ theoretical perspectives to examine the content of the magazines themselves. While exploring health issues, for example, physicians, sociologists, psychologists and communication researchers focused on the content of magazines and used content analysis to chart the health messages published in magazines.
