Magazine as a Medium
The following attributes make magazine a mass medium;
The Audience
The audience of a magazine are large – people who read print and online editions of a magazine are very many (mass audience); they are located in different parts of a country (for national magazines) or across the world (for international magazines) showing that the audience members are scattered; the readers of Time Magazine across the world do not personally know one another, neither do they personally know the publisher or journalists who write the stories (anonymous audience); magazine readers consist of people of different gender (male and female), race, economic class, occupation, psychological disposition etc. (heterogeneous audience).
Simultaneous dissemination of information
An edition of a magazine could be read at the same time by numerous audience members located in different parts of the world. Tell, The News and Newswatch magazines for instance, are well known Nigerian magazines with high international reckoning read across the world by people of different demographic aridpsychographic make up.
Organized process
Just like newspapers, magazines are published through an organized process. Various departments exist in a magazine establishment – editorial, production, administration, advertising and circulation department. They work together to achieve a common goal which is to communicate to a mass audience through well published magazines. This is a basic feature of any mass medium.
Gatekeepers
A magazine establishment has several gatekeepers who operate at various stages as a message moves from the sender (news sources and journalists) to the audience. The publisher, journalists, editors and proof-readers play one gate-keeping function or the other in ensuring that a meaningful message is passed across to the audience through a magazine.
Delayed feedback
The reaction of magazine readers to what they have read is often slow, usually coming long after they must have read the stories. Except online magazines which are interactive in nature, print or hard copy editions of magazine have delayed feedback as one of their attributes.
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
Strengths
Just like the newspapers, magazines could be read anywhere at anytime by different people as often as possible. Information in magazines remains accessible for as long as the magazines exists. Magazine contents are not transient. A copy can be read over and over by different people at different times.
Magazine makes use of graphic displays and colour to achieve aesthetic quality necessary in attracting audience attention to message content. Magazines look beautiful at the news-stands and this aesthetic factor helps in attracting audience attention to the medium.
Magazines are also portable. They can be carried around and read anywhere at the convenience of the audience. Magazine is also durable. Since it is bound, it is most likely going to last more than the newspaper which can be scattered since it is unbound, making its content unorganized and meaningless.
Weaknesses
The weaknesses of the newspaper basically apply to the magazine also. The reach of magazines is restricted because the receiver requires a level of literacy to decode the message.
Magazines are not easily affordable. Some celebrity magazines go for as high as NI,500 to N2000. This cannot be afforded by many audience members in developing nations especially in rural areas. The restricted nature of magazine audience poses a disadvantage in developing nations like Nigeria.
