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A recent issue of Tokyo Journal

World Magazines are magazines about specific foreign countries that help people of different countries, languages, and cultures to understand that country. Magazines that focus on many different countries from the perspective of the reader country are not 'World Magazines.' They are 'Global Magazines,' while magazines that are sold in many countries, but with no consistent focus on the culture and society of one country, are 'International Magazines.'

For example, a person in America wishing to learn about Japan could pick up the National Geographic, which is both a global and an international magazine, but only if it had a feature on Japan. Someone with a stronger commitment to understanding that country would be better advised to subscribe to a magazine that focuses entirely on Japan but with articles in his native tongue, unless, of course, he was bilingual.

If he was an English speaker, he could select a magazine like Tokyo Journal or Kyoto Journal, both of which are produced in Japan in English. A German reader would be able to choose Japanmarkt, although this is limited to business issues, rather than cultrual and social areas. Someone wishing to undersytand more about Azerbaijan could subscribe to Azerbaijan International. Although this is not produced in Azerbaijan, it focuses entirely on Azerbaijan and helps to promote understanding of that country, so it is therefore a world magazine. Indeed, often, due to limitations on the freedom of the press or security issues, a World magazine may need to be based in a foreign country.

World magazines act as windows into the countries they focus on and help to describe and explain them to the wider World in a way that occasional media coverage in global or international publications can not.

One of the main problems of occasional coverage is that there is an inherent tendency to focus on the weird and the strange. For example, in the case of Japan, foreign readers are taught to expect the exotic, the alien, or the unbelievable, all of which is presented without a consistent frame of reference. This simply reinforces naive notions of Japan as 'other.' The same phenomenon is true of all countries that are subjected to occasional coverage by the media. This is why it is important, as much as possible, to read magazines regularly written and produced that focus on the countries in question to get a balanced and objective insight into them.

• Tokyo Journal website
• Azerbaijan International website