科学雑誌の市場構造(<特集>科学技術ジャーナリズムの課題)

抄録

This article describes the situation of popular scientific magazines in Japan from the mid-1970's to the present by referring to the "Shuppan Shihyo Nenpo" (Annual Report of Publications Index) and to comments by the chief editors of the popular scientific magazines. These magazines seem to be in decline as the decrease in the total number of their publications attests. The author suggests however they might show signs of growth again since they are not meant for the masses and are not regarded as advertising media in Japan. The best-selling popular scientific magazine in Japan, "Newton", started publication in 1981. In this period many other popular scientific magazines appeared. The sign of this boom lay in the rise of new popular scientific magazines in the United States that included many color-illustrated pages. This, in turn, influenced the existing popular scientific magazines in Japan. This boom declined in the latter half of the 1980's when many popular scientific magazines offered discounts or resorted to smaller print runs. In the 1990's the remaining magazines were able however to hold the decline of their publication numbers. The author cites various comments by the chief editors of popular scientific magazines pointing to the role of these magazines during the last fifteen years in making science accessible to the public, to the fact that no scientific magazine engages in scientific journalism in Japan, and that it is difficult to decide the issues for each number.