“USEFUL MEMORY” IN TIME INC. MAGAZINES

Abstract

This article examines the summary journalism of Time Inc. (the corporate core of the multimedia conglomerate that now also includes America Online, Warner Brothers, and Turner Broadcasting) at a time when mass media have become a primary means by which most people understand the past. The focus of this study is the world's leading magazine company, which pioneered retrospective journalism more than 80 years ago and continues to dominate this practice today. An analysis of its “special issues” and other memory products published over the past two decades reveals a number of rhetorical strategies by which their creators have taken on the work of public historians while creating products that blend the commercial and cultural functions of journalism. The large body of evidence provided by this one company further suggests that media memory products tend to characterize the past in five consistent ways: as permanent, as personal, as memorial, as visual, and as collectable.