“Economics of the Periodical: National and Transnational Values”

What should we consider when studying the economics of periodicals in relation to the transnational? All terms have a history of usage and meaning, and this chapter accordingly examines the changing values of its key terms: economics, the nation and the transnational. To do so, it explores two main corpora (nineteenth-century European and American histories of the press, and media economics textbooks standard today) followed by two case studies, ¡HOLA! / HELLO! and Informa, the holding company of Taylor & Francis. In the middle, there is brief discussion of a 1930s Nigerian provincial newspaper to critique the silent colonial assumptions in my initial research question and methods.