YDS READING PASSAGES / TEST 1 49. Soru

-17.ADVERTISING in MAGAZINES

Publishers of magazines prior the 20th century had a single goal in mind — to provide good reading material to the public. They were not at all concerned with making huge profits, probably because they realised that it was not likely they ever would. Instead, publishers aimed to inform and to influence the opinion of their readers. The attitude of publishers toward the use of advertising was expressed in 1853 by the editor of Athenaeum in England. He felt it was his obligation, as far as possible, to protect the public from "the wily arts of the insidious, advertiser". A reversal of this attitude began during the 1880s and picked up momentum rapidly after World War I. Mass industrialisation produced an ever-increasing volume of goods for the public to buy. A few American and British publishers discovered that it was possible to increase circulation and to reduce costs by accepting advertising. One of the most successful early exponents of this view was Cyrus Curb's, the owner of Ladies' Home Journal. He bought the Saturday Evening Post in 1897, when it was about to cease publication. Through the extensive use of advertising and good articles, he made it a successful enterprise: By 1922, it had a circulation of more than 2 million. He, like many other publishers since, realised that it was possible to sell the public to advertising while selling reading material to the public.

As described above, in the mid-I800s, advertising was widely considered by publishers as .......... .