Definition: Newspapers and periodicals

Category: General concept

All printed periodic publications which are published in a particular country and made available to the public, and, in general, which should be included in the national bibliographies of the various countries, including government periodicals, academic and scientific journals, periodicals of professional, trade union, political or sports organizations, etc., even if they are distributed only to their own members, publications appearing annually or less frequently, parish magazines, school magazines and school newspapers, house organs, entertainment, radio and television programmes. A publication is considered to be periodic if it constitutes one issue in a continuous series under the same title, published at regular or irregular intervals, over an indefinite period, individual issues in the series being numbered consecutively or each issue being dated. The term printed includes reproduction by any method of mechanical impression whatever it may be. A publication is considered to be published in a particular country if the publisher has his registered office in the country where the statistics are compiled, the place of printing or place of circulation here being irrelevant. When a publication is issued by one or more publishers who have registered offices in two or more countries, it is considered as having been published in the country or countries where it is issued. A publication is considered as being made available to the public when it is obtainable either by purchase or by distribution free of charge. Publications intended for a restricted public, such as certain government publications, those of learned societies, political or professional organizations, etc., are also considered as being available to the public at large. Newspapers are periodic publications intended for the general public and mainly designed to be a primary source of written information on current events connected with public affairs, international questions, politics, etc. including: (i) daily newspapers, i.e. newspapers mainly reporting events that have occurred in the 24-hour period before going to press; (ii) non-daily newspapers which give news covering a longer period but which, either owing to their local nature or for other reasons, provide their readers with a primary source of general information. Periodicals are those periodic publications which are either concerned with subjects of general interest or else mainly carry studies and factual information on such specialized subjects as legislation, finance, trade, medicine, fashion, sports, etc. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/cdb/cdb_list_dicts.asp