Magazines in spanish and portuguese America

This chapter examines industry and audience developments surrounding Latin American magazines, striving to provide a balanced perspective on magazine publishing and consumption in Spanish and Portuguese America. It also includes a discussion of Spanish-language magazines in the USA, which constitutes a significant national market for Spanish-language media, even though it is sometimes separated from research on Latin America. Print media has had a long history in Latin America since printing presses began operating in the sixteenth century. Modern magazines began circulating in the 1900s, their popularity propelled in part by advanced printing techniques that could reproduce high-quality images while simultaneously lowering the per-unit costs of production. Beginning in the 1990s, the traditional business models of magazines transformed in response to increased competition accompanied by decreases in readership and advertising revenues. Many news organizations, including news and political magazines, disappeared or were co-opted under the heavy political and economic pressure.