eprintid: 10166041
rev_number: 6
eprint_status: archive
userid: 699
dir: disk0/10/16/60/41
datestamp: 2023-03-07 14:05:07
lastmod: 2023-03-07 14:05:07
status_changed: 2023-03-07 14:05:07
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
sword_depositor: 699
creators_name: West, E James
title: Johnson Publishing Company and the Search for a White Audience
ispublished: pub
divisions: UCL
divisions: B03
divisions: C01
divisions: K22
note: � 2022 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialNoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered,
transformed, or built upon in any way.
abstract: Johnson Publishing Company, the publisher of Negro Digest and Ebony, made efforts to expand its white audience during the 1940s and early 1950s. Johnson Publishing aggressively sought “to sell white readers the idea that a Negro magazine is worth buying,” through the regular publication of letters from “white” readers, consistent references to its influence among whites, fundraising and subscription drives to circulate its magazines among white readers and within white institutions, advertising campaigns in major national publications, and other projects and editorial content. This study argues that these efforts can be situated within both a longer history of white readership of Black periodicals and are connected to a broader turn toward Black literature by white Americans during—and immediately following—World War II. In doing so, Johnson was able to position his publications as both recognizably Black periodicals and the “interracial magazine[s] that America needs.”
date: 2022-07-19
date_type: published
publisher: Informa UK Limited
official_url: https://doi.org/10.1080/08821127.2022.2098206
oa_status: green
full_text_type: pub
language: eng
primo: open
primo_central: open_green
verified: verified_manual
elements_id: 2008904
doi: 10.1080/08821127.2022.2098206
lyricists_name: West, Edmund
lyricists_id: EJWES56
actors_name: West, Edmund
actors_id: EJWES56
actors_role: owner
full_text_status: public
publication: American Journalism
volume: 39
number: 3
pagerange: 293-314
issn: 0882-1127
citation:        West, E James;      (2022)    Johnson Publishing Company and the Search for a White Audience.                   American Journalism , 39  (3)   pp. 293-314.    10.1080/08821127.2022.2098206 <https://doi.org/10.1080/08821127.2022.2098206>.       Green open access   
 
document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10166041/1/Johnson%20Publishing%20Company%20and%20the%20Search%20for%20a%20White%20Audience.pdf