The American people have been glutenous from the birth of its nation. Disregarding the overwhelming obesity rate, the American people have always been glutenous regarding anything, especially politics. The original settlers wanted religious freedom so bad that they were willing to come to a new and unestablished world to do so. When America finally works itself out and establishes a series of amendments to protect themselves, all is well, until it is not.
The founding fathers and patriots at the time demanded that their people get to do and say what they want. The only problem was those founding the laws did not consider what would happen when the people did not agree with the lawmakers ideas. Before America was even technically a nation, in 1735 John Peter Zenger ran stories about the Governor of New York City that he did not approve of. While the stories may have been true, they did not show the Governor in the best light. So the governor brought Zenger to trail to throw him in jail for saying such things.
The court acquitted Zenger because what he said was true and this became one of the most famous cases of freedom of the press in American history. But, not thirty years after America becomes a nation in 1798 the “Alien and Sedition” laws are passed that mean any person that is a so called “threat” to the United States, may very easily be deported. The foundation on which freedom of press has been built on is unstable. The American people have so much power in how their country is run, it frightens those men and women who are in charge.
From the beginning it can be said that the American politicians are huge fans of “take-backsies” and will only endorse freedom of press as long as it does not disturb the peace and most importantly shows the politicians in a good light. On paper the American freedom of press looks quite good, but in reality it is not better than what England was doing in the first place. Question #2 The craze of digital has turned into more of a wave that does not seem to be leaving anytime soon. All things these days seem to be going digital, even books.
But is it for the better? Electronic books took off only a few years ago and have only gained more popularity since then. E-books are an incredible idea because it cuts out almost all of the cost. Publishers no longer have to worry about printing one million copies of one book and hopefully selling out. Now, all a publisher has to do is worry about getting their books into a digital form and selling them for the same cost. This new way or reading will cut out almost all expenses that books come with.
It also is genius because it is that much less waste to be produced. Finally, this gives any author the chance to publish their work without having to go through a big name publisher. But is that a good thing? Any person can become an author will quite literally mean that any person will become an author. Much like it would be absurd for a substitute teacher to tell all his friends he is now a licensed surgeon and he’d be willing to give them a freebie a the bar later, not everyone should be an author.
While there may be hundreds of sob stories about how some small-time author didn’t get published because he or she wasn’t showy enough, the possibility still stands that he or she was not a good writer. The point of publishing a book through a publisher is not only to mass-market your product, it is also to make sure it is good. A publisher has to sift through spelling errors and plot-holes to decide if your material is readable or not. But with the new invention of e-books the publisher is now no more than a middle man for local authors.
Why would any author who isn’t credible go through a publisher if he or she knew their idea could be shot down? While it may filter out some of the terrible authors for the publisher, it also removes a lot of unknown authors that may have a new best selling novel that they decided to not have properly published instead. Question #3 The American magazine industry very much is targeted to whoever will listen. There is a magazine for every profession, hobby, and niche now. There is not one set strategy that works better than another to sell more magazine in America.
For instance, Maxim is a magazine that is targeted towards younger adult males. While this is not Maxim’s only audience, it is the largest demographic that they cater towards. Looking at the numbers it can be quite astonishing to think that a magazine can make profit off of just one group of people. The trick is that if you only cater to one group, you only have to please one set of people with similar ideals and interests. The writers of the magazine do not have to worry about offending some of their audience because they know thats why their audience reads the magazine.
Maxim, for instance, features young and popular female celebrities in little to no clothing, which is almost the whole premise of the magazine. If any other magazine not in the same genre as Maxim did that, they would be ridiculed to no end. Likewise, Slate Magazine is also shaping the way of the American magazine industry. Slate was one of the first magazine to go completely online. This concept was foreign to most people at the time of its conception because it was pre-smartphone and the majority of people reading magazines did not want to use a computer to read a magazine.
But today, Slate is recognized as one of the pioneers of the online magazine world. Both of these examples of magazines clearly show where the magazine industry is heading today. With the progression of online magazines, it will be even easier for magazine companies to cater to the small niches of the American people. This is a great example of how the American people want things specifically for them and at the utmost convenience. The magazine industry will have to follow suit if they want to continue producing their content.
