ABSTRACT
The panel has been asked to take up a topic that has received strangely little serious attention in the years gone by. There have been, for example, many weighty research reports on “The Social Impact of Television” and, prior to that, a still larger number on the role of broadcast radio in a changing world. Motion pictures have been the subject of innumerable investigations. But there is almost nothing on the significance of magazines and their special place in our society. Perhaps it is because they never appeared to be the dominant media, or merely because the printed word in any form — newspapers, books, or magazines — was old and familiar. It is almost as though we expect magic or some kind of super-impact from such 20th Century technical wonders as radio, TV and films but nothing other than comfortable security and loyalty from the old standbys of the printed word.
