An archival research resource containing the essential primary sources for studying the history of the film and entertainment industries, from the era of vaudeville and silent movies through to the 21st century. The core US and UK popular and trade magazines covering film, music, broadcasting, theatre and video gaming are included, together with film fan magazines and music press titles. Magazines have been scanned cover-to-cover in high-resolution color, with articles, covers, ads and reviews individually indexed. There are small gaps (issues or pages) in the runs of some publications.
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive is available in five separate collections.
- Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive Collection 1: Music, Radio and the Stage includes 15 trade and popular magazines covering all aspects of the music industry, theatre and broadcast radio in the US and UK covering the period 1880-2000.
- Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive Collection 2: Cinema, Film and Television (part 1) features ten long-running and highly influential magazines which document all aspects of cinema going, the film industry and the evolution of television and popular culture between 1905 and 2000.
- Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive Collection 3: Cinema, Film and Television (part 2) includes 12 further major consumer and trade publications from the US and the UK on film and television, from 1907 to 2015.
- Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive Collection 4: Rock, Folk and Hip-Hop comprises the backfiles of music magazines devoted to these key 20th/21st popular music genres. Titles from outside of the mainstream, published between 1959 and 2020, document the history of these musical movements as well as the cultural, aesthetic, and political responses to their historical period.
- Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive Collection 5: Video Gaming consists of the backfiles of more than 40 gaming magazines from the 1980s through to 2020. These titles cover a wide variety of consoles / platforms and aspects of the industry.
Trade papers have long been recognized as potentially the single most valuable research material for scholars of the film and media industries. These collections include several trade magazines which have effectively provided the main historical record for their subject areas throughout the 20th century, such as Variety (1905-2000), The Hollywood Reporter (1930-2015), Billboard (1894-2000), Broadcasting (1931-2000) and The Stage (1880-2000). Although these titles focus primarily on film, music, TV/radio, and theatre, they have between them covered the full range of popular entertainments throughout their history, from music halls, circuses and fairs to video games, jukeboxes, and gambling machines.
For students of popular music, a selection of specialist magazines give in-depth coverage of musical genres and eras, such as ‘British Invasion’ pop (Rave, 1964-70), hip-hop (Vibe, 1993-2014), folk (New City Songster, 1968-1995), reggae, African and Caribbean music (The Beat, 1982-2000), or the rave scene (Mixmag, 1983-2000).
Video gaming magazine backfiles offer students and researchers offer insights into the history of the gaming industry (how games have been marketed and consumed, the fortunes of different games developers and console brands), developments and trends in game design, and the response of games to their social and political climate.
These collections give researchers the opportunity to find comprehensive information on specific films, plays, theaters, actors, directors, TV series, film studios, musicians, genres, record labels, game developers, subcultures and youth movements. The inclusion of consumer and fan magazines such as Picturegoer (1911-1960), American Film (1975-1992) and Musician (1976-1999) means that searches can retrieve industry news items, features on technological breakthroughs and in-depth interviews with major artists, together with photographs and illustrations, gossip columns, listings, reviews, charts and statistics. Items such as advertisements, covers and short reviews of films, music singles or other works have been indexed as separate documents with accurately-captured titles in order to help researchers find all the relevant material for their search topic.
Subject coverage
- Film industry
- Music business
- Rock and pop
- Jazz and blues
- Theater
- Television
- Radio