The seriality dividend of American magazines

Thompson, Graham

Abstract

This essay argues that the preconsumption cycle of material creation and supply exerted powerful effects as periodicals journeyed from paper mill to reader. So powerful were these effects that they generated a “seriality dividend,” or a return on financial and cultural investment whose impact went beyond the significance of individual or groups of periodical titles, or their content, and turned the periodical into a cultural form of such significance that it produced effects larger than the sum of its parts. Periodicals became prosperous cultural forms in the nineteenth century because their serial production generated a capacity and scale that other forms, including books, could not match. The seriality dividend consolidated the periodical as a cultural form with structural significance. Focusing on literary periodicals and their relation to literary culture more generally, this essay argues that the dividend from magazine seriality helped establish the infrastructure—the publication outlets, jobs, careers, connections, and networks—that allowed literary culture to develop in America’s major geographical centers, where the seriality dividend exerted its effects most powerfully.

Citation

Thompson, G. (2018). The seriality dividend of American magazines. American Periodicals, 28(1),

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 26, 2017
• Publication Date: Mar 18, 2018
• Deposit Date: Mar 19, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 26, 2018
• Journal: American Periodicals
• Electronic ISSN: 1054-7479
• Publisher: Ohio State University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 28
• Issue: 1
• Keywords: literary culture, publishing infrastructure, seriality, technology, manufacturing
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/920491
• Publisher URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/688607#info_wrap
• Related Public URLs: http://muse.jhu.edu/article/688607