Awake!
Encyclopedia
Awake! is a monthly illustrated magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

 published by Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...

 via the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania is a non-stock, not-for-profit organization headquartered in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, United States. It is the main legal entity used worldwide by Jehovah's Witnesses to direct, administer and develop doctrines for the religion...

 and printed in various branch offices around the world. It is considered to be a companion magazine of The Watchtower
The Watchtower
The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom is an illustrated religious magazine, published semi-monthly in 194 languages by Jehovah's Witnesses via the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania and printed in various branch offices around the world...

, and is distributed by Jehovah's Witnesses in their door-to-door ministry. Awake! is considered to be the second most widely distributed magazine in the world (after The Watchtower), with a total worldwide printing of 41,042,000 copies in 84 languages per month.

History

The magazine was originally published semi-monthly under the name The Golden Age in October 1919 by the International Bible Students Association. (In 1930 it was published in Danish under the name New World.) In October 1937 it was renamed Consolation. In August 1946 the magazine was renamed Awake!, and was published semi-monthly in major languages, monthly in many languages, and quarterly in a few languages. Since January 2006, Awake! has been published monthly.

The magazine has frequently suggested the nearness of apocalyptic events. Issues printed during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

 years of the 1950s
1950s
The 1950s or The Fifties was the decade that began on January 1, 1950 and ended on December 31, 1959. The decade was the sixth decade of the 20th century...

 and 1960s
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...

 reported heavily on conferences of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...

 and other notable events in the USSR, particularly as they pertained to the possibility of Nuclear War.

Purpose

The stated purpose of the magazine has changed over time. Until 1982, each issue of the magazine included a mission statement which stated "this magazine builds confidence in the Creator's promise of a peaceful and secure new order before the generation that saw 1914 passes away". When their belief regarding the "generation" of 1914 was changed to a less literal sense, the aim was restated as "this magazine builds confidence in the Creator’s promise of a peaceful and secure new world that is about to replace the present wicked, lawless system of things".

Content

Awake! contains articles about the Bible and biblical history, as well as general-interest topics such as nature, geography, and family life, from the Watchtower Bible And Tract Society's often unique perspective. It has also presented current medical opinions of various medical conditions. Conditions that have been featured in Awake! include dementia
Dementia
Dementia is a serious loss of cognitive ability in a previously unimpaired person, beyond what might be expected from normal aging...

, stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...

, infectious diseases, bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...

, and postpartum depression
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...

. Many issues claim that mankind is living in the end times, and often include negative portrayals of leaders from mainline Christendom.

The magazine includes a number of regular features:
  • The Bible's Viewpoint, a column which applies Jehovah Witnesses' interpretations of the Bible to current issues;
  • Young People Ask, Bible-based advice aimed at teens and young adults;
  • Watching the World, a selection of single-paragraph news items from a variety of sources;
  • From Our Readers, a selection of letters commenting on previous Awake! articles;
  • How Would You Answer?, a compilation of biblical trivia, including a section for children to search for pictures throughout the magazine.


Autobiographical articles by individual members regarding their experiences and circumstances also appear periodically, and are notable as the only regularly credited writings in any Society publication.

Authorship

The magazine's editor under the titles of The Golden Age and Consolation was Clayton J. Woodworth. Woodworth was a former editor and textbook writer, and later served on the boards of several corporations of Jehovah's Witnesses
Corporations of Jehovah's Witnesses
A number of corporations are in use by Jehovah's Witnesses. They publish literature and perform other operational and administrative functions, representing the interests of the religious organization...

 until just a few years before his death in 1951 at the age of 81. When the magazine was renamed Awake!, the journal's editorship became anonymous. Its publication is overseen by the Writing Committee of the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses. Awake! is published in 83 languages.

Distribution

The magazine is printed in nineteen different countries; about 25% of the total is printed at one of the organization's printeries in Toronto, Canada.

Awake! is considered to be the second most widely distributed magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

 in the world (after The Watchtower), with a total worldwide circulation of 41,042,000.

Accessibility

Awake! is available, in selected languages, on audio compact disc and via download in MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

, AAC
Advanced Audio Coding
Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....

, PDF
Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....

 and EPUB
EPUB
EPUB is a free and open e-book standard by the International Digital Publishing Forum...

 formats.

Cost

Until March 1990, Awake! was available for a small charge that varied over time and in different countries. For example, in the United States, the suggested donation per issue was $0.05 in 1950, gradually increasing to $0.25 in 1989. On January 17, 1990, the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

 ruled that sales of religious literature were subject to taxation, which introduced ambiguity into the formerly tax-free practice of suggesting a particular donation in exchange for the magazines. The Watch Tower Society filed an amicus curiae
Amicus curiae
An amicus curiae is someone, not a party to a case, who volunteers to offer information to assist a court in deciding a matter before it...

 ("friend of the court") brief arguing that the perceived sale of religious literature should be exempt from taxation.
From March 1, 1990, the journals were made available at no cost, on a freewill donation basis in the United States, with the stated purpose of simplifying their Bible educational work and distinguishing themselves from those who commercialize religion. The article "Use Our Literature Wisely", which appeared in the May 1990 issue of Our Kingdom Ministry, stated that "there are growing pressures against all religious elements", and it went on to say that their main concern was to move ahead in the worldwide Kingdom preaching work, "without hindrance."

The sale of Jehovah's Witnesses' literature was gradually phased out in other countries, and Awake! has been distributed free of charge worldwide since early 2000, its printing being funded by voluntary donations from Jehovah's Witnesses and members of the public.

See also

  • Jehovah's Witnesses publications
    Jehovah's Witnesses publications
    The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society produces a large amount of literature for use by Jehovah's Witnesses; their best known publications are the magazines, The Watchtower and Awake!. The Watchtower was first published by Charles Taze Russell, founder of the Bible Student movement, in 1879,...

  • List of Watch Tower Society publications
  • List of magazines by circulation

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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