The seriality dividend of American magazines
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 b...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Ohio State University Press
2018
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50488/ |
| _version_ | 1848798263279353856 |
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| author | Thompson, Graham |
| author_facet | Thompson, Graham |
| author_sort | Thompson, Graham |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | 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. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:16:59Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-50488 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:16:59Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | Ohio State University Press |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-504882020-05-08T12:00:18Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50488/ The seriality dividend of American magazines Thompson, Graham 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. Ohio State University Press 2018-03-18 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50488/1/Seriality_Dividend_UoN_Repos.pdf Thompson, Graham (2018) The seriality dividend of American magazines. American Periodicals, 28 (1). pp. 1-20. ISSN 1054-7479 literary culture publishing infrastructure seriality technology manufacturing |
| spellingShingle | literary culture publishing infrastructure seriality technology manufacturing Thompson, Graham The seriality dividend of American magazines |
| title | The seriality dividend of American magazines |
| title_full | The seriality dividend of American magazines |
| title_fullStr | The seriality dividend of American magazines |
| title_full_unstemmed | The seriality dividend of American magazines |
| title_short | The seriality dividend of American magazines |
| title_sort | seriality dividend of american magazines |
| topic | literary culture publishing infrastructure seriality technology manufacturing |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50488/ |