A fan magazine is a commercially written and published magazine intended for the amusement of fans of the

popular culture Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...

subject matter which it covers. It is distinguished from a scholarly, literary or trade magazine on the one hand, by the target audience of its contents, and from a fanzine on the other, by the commercial and for-profit nature of its production and distribution. Scholarly works on popular culture and fandoms do not always make this terminological distinction clear. In some relevant works, fanzines are called "fan magazines", possibly because the term "fanzine" is seen as

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-g ...

. American examples include '' Photoplay'', ''

Motion Picture Magazine ''Motion Picture'' was an American monthly fan magazine about film, published from 1911 to 1977.Fuller, Kathryn H. “Motion Picture Story Magazine and the Gendered Construction of the Movie Fan.” ''At the Picture Show: Small-Town Audiences a ...

'', '' Modern Screen'', ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twi ...

'' and ''

Cinefantastique ''Cinefantastique'' is an American horror, fantasy, and science fiction film magazine. History The magazine originally started as a mimeographed fanzine in 1967, then relaunched as a glossy, offset printed quarterly in 1970 by publisher/editor ...

''.

Film fan magazines

Content

The film fan magazines focused on promoting films and movie stars in a certain way, and in exchange for this control, the studios would purchase plentiful advertisements. Well known gossip columnists like Hedda Hopper, Walter Winchell, and Louella Parsons, among others, were published in various fan magazines. Readers of the fan magazines enjoyed reading about their favorite celebrities in "candid" articles supposedly penned by the stars themselves, even though they were most likely written by press agents and usually served to defend recent behavior or deflect rumors. The reporting on stars in this period by ''Photoplay'' and others was often positive due to the studios' influence over the publications.

''Photoplay''

'' Photoplay'' was one of the first American film fan magazines. Founded in Chicago in 1911 by Macfadden Publications, ''Photoplay'' was founded the same year as ''Stuart Blackton's Motion Picture Story'', a similar publication. ''Photoplay'', as one of the first and most popular fan magazines, is credited as the originator of celebrity media. ''Photoplay'' was published from 1911 until 1980, at several points merging with other publications. Other fan magazines include '' Modern Screen'' and ''

''.

''Confidential''

'' Confidential'' was founded in 1952 by Robert Harrison and published until 1978. More of a tabloid than a fan magazines because of its salacious content and irreverent celebrity gossip. Unlike other fan magazines, ''Confidential'' did not cooperate with the studios allowing for more scandalous content. Contrary to its reputation for double-checking its facts, the magazine knowingly published unverified allegations which opened themselves up to libel suits.Douglas O. Linder (2010, accessed December 9, 2014)
/ref>Scott, Henry E. "When Gossip Was Gritty: Confidential Magazine." ''Gawker''. 22 Jan. 2010. Web. 1 Oct. 2014.
/ref>

References

{{Authority control Entertainment magazines published in the United States