Film and Television Databases
These more specialized tools index journals core to the study of film and television, including more international and professional practice-focused journals and magazines.
- Performing Arts Periodicals Database This link opens in a new windowArticles and reviews from a broad spectrum of the arts and entertainment industry - including dance, drama, theater, stagecraft, circus, opera, pantomime, puppetry, magic, performance art, film, television, and more. Former database title: International Index to Performing Arts (IIPA) Full Text.
- FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals This link opens in a new windowSearches film and television articles in the International Index to Film Periodicals (1972-current) and Treasures from the Film Archives, which contains silent film-era listings from archives.
- Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive (EIMA) This link opens in a new window
EIMA is an historical archive of major trade and consumer magazines in film, television, music, radio, and theater, from their inception to 2000. Includes weekly Variety, Hollywood Reporter, American Cinematographer, Back Stage, Billboard, Broadcasting, Picturegoer, Screen International, Spin, and more. UCLA has access to parts I, II and III of this database.
- Media History Digital Library This link opens in a new windowFreely available online portal, featuring millions of pages of books and magazines from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowIndexes worldwide publications on literature, language, linguistics, folklore, film, television, and theater from 1923 to the present. See also the MLA Directory of Periodicals.
- Classic Mexican CinemaOnline collection of cinema periodicals, lobby cards, and flyers from the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema, including Cinema Reporter and Cine Mundial.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Full text back issues of core scholarly journals, browsable and searchable across multiple disciplines. Coverage starts with first issue, with moving wall for most recent 3-5 years. UCLA has access to selected JSTOR e-books only. JSTOR also includes primary source collections, including images from Artstor.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Full text of current issues (from about 1990) of scholarly journals published by university presses, chiefly in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Browsable by discipline and full-text searchable across all disciplines. UCLA has access to Muse e-books published from 2017-present, plus a selected number of other e-book titles.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowA multidisciplinary database that indexes over 10,000 publications, with the complete text of over 5,500 periodicals, including a mix of peer-reviewed journals, magazines, and newspapers.
- Alternative Press Index This link opens in a new windowAlternative, radical, and left periodicals, newspapers, and magazines. The index is international and interdisciplinary, spanning the social sciences and humanities, with its central focus on the practice and theory of socialism, national liberation, labor, indigenous peoples, gays/lesbians, feminism, ecology, democracy, and anarchism. Link searches both Alternative Press Index (1991-present) and Alternative Press Index Archive (1969-1990).
- BrowZine Library This link opens in a new windowBrowZine allows you to browse selected scholarly journals available from the UCLA Library or from open sources on your computer, tablet, iPhone or Android smartphone. Access the web version here, and learn more about both the app and BrowZine features via the Library guide.
- Critical Collective This link opens in a new windowOnline initiative by art curator and critic Gayatri Sinha, working towards building knowledge in the visual and cinematic arts in India. Includes essays, e-books, and other writing about exhibitions, art history, and lens-based arts such as photography and film.
- Internet Archive Scholar This link opens in a new windowIncludes over 25 million research articles and other scholarly documents preserved in the Internet Archive. The collection spans from digitized copies of eighteenth century journals through the latest Open Access conference proceedings and pre-prints crawled from the World Wide Web.
- Interwar Culture This link opens in a new windowIncludes popular and lesser-known periodicals published during the interwar period (1919-1939). With articles covering culture, entertainment, fashion, home and family life, world current affairs, class, social and welfare issues, these historically significant and highly visual magazines provide a rich insight into these dynamic yet turbulent decades.
- MasterFILE Premier This link opens in a new windowDesigned specifically for public libraries, this multidisciplinary database provides full text for more than 1,750 general reference publications dating as far back as 1975. Also includes biographies, full text primary source documents, and an image collection.
Although more focused on the social sciences than on aesthetics or history, Communications journals often contain scholarship on media, including television, gaming, social media, and more.
- ComAbstracts This link opens in a new windowAbstracts of articles published in the primary professional literature of the communication(s) field. Abstracts may be searched by word, phrase, or author. The database is updated at intervals throughout the year with both older and newer materials.
- Communication Studies: Sage Full-Text CollectionSmall full-text collection of communication studies journals, covering journalism, television, new media, and other topics.
- Business Source Complete This link opens in a new windowComprehensive business articles database covering more than 8,500 scholarly, professional, and trade periodicals in all areas of business. Coverages dates back to 1886. Content also includes books, case studies, Datamonitor company and industry profiles, conference proceedings, country reports (from CountryWatch, EIU, Icon International, and others), market research reports, SWOT analyses, profiles of the most-cited authors, and more. Sole electronic resource for full text of the Harvard Business Review and California Management Review.
- Factiva This link opens in a new windowFull-text business and general news content covering thousands of sources from more than 200 countries in 26 languages. Includes US and international newspapers, magazines, wire services, web sites, photographs, and trade and industry publications. Also: company and industry profiles; company-to-company/company-to-industry financial comparisons; stock price data; and stock charting.
NOTE: Text mining of Factiva is strictly prohibited.
- Global Think Tanks (via Policy Commons) This link opens in a new windowA collection of objective, fact-based research from the world’s leading policy experts, think tanks, IGOs and NGOs: policy reports, briefs, analyses, working papers, and datasets.
- HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Includes 2500 legal journals, the entire Congressional Record, Federal Register, and Code of Federal Regulations, complete coverage of the U.S. Reports back to 1754, and entire databases dedicated to treaties, constitutions, case law, world trials, classic treatises, international trade, foreign relations, U.S. Presidents, and much more.
- Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Full-text news (including broadcast transcripts), business, legal, and reference information. Useful for finding full-text of current performing arts and media industry news in major newspapers. Includes biographical information from Who's Who titles. Formerly LexisNexis Academic.
Major digitization projects that include historic entertainment magazines previously unavailable online.
- Ciné-ressources: Répertoire des périodiquesOnline historical French film periodicals, with coverage varying from the teens through mid-20th Century.
- Domitor Journals ProjectFreely available digitized periodicals of interest for early cinema studies, representing 20 countries.
- Ebony Magazine Archive This link opens in a new windowEbony Magazine Archive covers civil rights, education, entrepreneurship and other social topics with an African-American focus. It includes more than 800 issues providing a broad view of African-American culture from its first issue in 1945 through 2014.
- Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive (EIMA) This link opens in a new window
EIMA is an historical archive of major trade and consumer magazines in film, television, music, radio, and theater, from their inception to 2000. Includes weekly Variety, Hollywood Reporter, American Cinematographer, Back Stage, Billboard, Broadcasting, Picturegoer, Screen International, Spin, and more. UCLA has access to parts I, II and III of this database.
- Forbes Magazine Archive This link opens in a new windowForbes Magazine Archive is the world’s only complete digital version of the Forbes backfile. With coverage starting at the magazine’s first issue in 1917, the archive offers 70 years’ worth of content not available on any other EBSCO full-text product.
- Gallica (Bibliotheque nationale de France)More than one million digitized documents (books, periodicals, manuscripts, maps, images, scores, sound recordings, etc.) at the French National Library.
- Google Books: Advanced SearchThe Advanced search in Google Books allows you to limit to magazine content.
- Iskusstvo Kino Digital Archive This link opens in a new windowDigital archive of published reviews of contemporary Russian and foreign movies, articles on history and theory of Russian and world cinema as well as general essays on Russian culture and arts.
- Kinema (Swiss, 1911-1919)Digitized issues from the silent era Swiss film magazine.
- Kino-fot Digital Archive This link opens in a new windowThe Russian cinema and photographic art journal, published in 1922-1923. Issues illustrated throughout with typographic designs and photos of the abstract compositions by Rodchenko; articles by Kuleshov, Dziga Vertov and N. Bernstein, numerous letterpress designs. All advertisements are also designed in dynamic black and red Constructivist style. Photography and cinema were both still very new and exciting for a new emerging audience. Photomontage pictures, avant-garde layouts, unusual types and all other elements put the Kino-fot journal on the very edge of design and influenced the creative flow of 1920s.
- Kino zhurnal A.R.K. This link opens in a new windowKino-zhurnal A.R.K. [i.e. The Magazine of the Association of Revolutionary Cinematography] is a rare Soviet film magazine, published in Moscow by the Association of Revolutionary Cinematography in mid-1920s. Only eleven issues of this monthly magazine were published under this title (#1-12 for 1925 and #1-2, 1926).
- LGBT Magazine Archive This link opens in a new windowSearchable archive of major periodicals devoted to LGBT+ interests, dating from the 1950s to more recent years. Includes many of the most influential, long-running 20th/21st-century magazines in this field, including The Advocate. UCLA subscribes to Collection 1 of this database.
- Life Magazine Archive This link opens in a new windowLife Magazine Archive presents an extensive collection of the famed photojournalism magazine, spanning its very first issue in November 1936 through December 2000 in a comprehensive cover-to-cover format.
- Media History Digital Library This link opens in a new windowFreely available online portal, featuring millions of pages of books and magazines from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound.
- Motion Picture Periodicals, Books, and Pamphlets: Margaret Herrick LibraryDigitized issues of early cinema periodicals held at the Margaret Herrick Library, including Cinema Chat and Movie Monthly.
- New Republic Archive This link opens in a new windowThe New Republic Magazine Archive is a digital collection of the prominent political and cultural opinion magazine, covering issues from 1914 to the present. Providing full-text, indexing and abstracting, the archive is an essential tool for researchers of American politics, foreign policy, culture and arts.
- Newsweek Archive This link opens in a new windowAn archive of Newsweek magazine, with coverage from 1933 through 2012. It comprises 80 years of news reporting and commentary, charting key US and global events during this period.
- Online Silent Film Periodicals (Bioscope)List of international silent film periodicals that are available online via different European projects.
- People Magazine Archive This link opens in a new windowOnline collection of the prominent, popular entertainment magazine dating from its very first issue in March 1974 through December 2000, in a comprehensive cover-to-cover format.
- Radio's Online History ResourceFull text scans of historical broadcasting magazines in the fields of radio and television. Includes Broadcasting Magazine, Broadcasting Yearbook, Radio Annual, and more.
- Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 (H.W. Wilson) This link opens in a new windowProvides indexing of general-interest periodicals published in the United States and reflects the history of 20th century America
- Time Magazine Archive This link opens in a new windowThe Time Magazine Archive presents an extensive collection of the prominent weekly news magazine dating back to its first issue in March 1923 through December 2000, presented in a comprehensive cover-to-cover format.
- UNZ.orgSearches numerous mainstream English language magazines published over the last 150 years. Note that articles still in copyright are not available to read online, but may be found in Library collections.
- Vanity Fair Magazine Archive This link opens in a new windowPresents the popular magazine in a comprehensive cover-to-cover format, dating from its very first run from September 1913-1936, and relaunch from March 1983-October 2015. Chronicles popular culture, fashion, celebrity portraiture, politics, and more.
- Vogue Archive This link opens in a new windowContains the entire run of Vogue magazine (US edition) from 1892 to the present day.
- Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new windowContains historical backfiles of several leading consumer magazines: Better Homes and Gardens, Chatelaine, Cosmopolitan, Essence, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, Parents, Redbook, Seventeen, Town and Country, Woman's Day, and Women's International Network News. UCLA has access to collections 1 and 2 of this database.
Although more focused on the visual arts, these databases can be very helpful for identifying scholarship on video art and experimental film, animation, aesthetics, and other relevant topics.
- Art & Architecture Source This link opens in a new windowFull-text coverage of more than 600 journals and 220 books on "a broad range of related subjects, from fine, decorative and commercial art, to various areas of architecture and architectural design." It wholly incorporates and significantly expands on the coverage and contents of the Art Full Text and Art Index Retrospective databases. Indexes illustrations. Coverage: late 1920s-present.
- A&AePortal (Electronic Art and Architecture) This link opens in a new window
The Yale Art & Architecture ePortal is an authoritative e-book resource that features important works of scholarship in the history of art, architecture, decorative arts, photography, and design.
- ARTbibliographies Modern This link opens in a new windowAbstracts of journal articles, books, essays, exhibition catalogs, PhD dissertations, and exhibition reviews on all forms of modern and contemporary art from the late 19th century onwards. Coverage includes performance art and installation works, photography, video art, computer and electronic art, body art, graffiti, artists' books, theatre arts, conservation, crafts, ceramic and glass art, ethnic arts, graphic and museum design, fashion, and calligraphy, as well as traditional media.
- Artforum Archive This link opens in a new windowThe backfile of Artforum, a magazine for coverage of international contemporary art. Covers June 1962 to 2020. Coverage spans all forms of contemporary art, including painting, sculpture, installation, body art, video/audio art, performance art, and more.
Despite the number of article databases and online content now available, several important print indexes, bibliographies, and facsimile reprints provide crucial access to early film periodicals.
- Ulrichsweb: Global Serials Directory This link opens in a new windowLists publication details for more than 300,000 worldwide periodicals (journals, magazines, newspapers). Includes information on which databases index specific journals and online availability of periodicals.
- ScreenSite: Journals, Magazines, BlogsFrom SCMS, a list of major contemporary periodicals and blogs related to the study of cinema, television, and other media.
- International Film, Radio, and Television JournalsThis bibliography gives histories, name changes, and major editorial details about selected media-focused magazines and journals.
- CalindexTable of contents indexing and covers for selected French film periodicals.
Open access forums, journals, and less formal publication venues that contain emerging scholarship in media studies.
- Antenna"[A] collectively authored media and cultural studies blog committed to timely yet careful analysis of texts, news, and events from across the popular culture spectrum." Closed in 2016, but archived content still available.
- Flow"an online journal of television and media studies"
- In Media Res"dedicated to experimenting with collaborative, multi-modal forms of online scholarship."
- [in]Transition: A Media Commons and Cinema Journal ProjectPeer-reviewed academic journal of videographic film and moving image studies, encouraging video essays and exploration of digital technologies in research
- MediascapeUCLA's journal of Cinema and Media Studies.
- Realscreen"the best in non-fiction"
- SpectatorThe University of Southern California Journal of Film and Television, available online 1997-present. Older print issues located in Arts Library.
- Transformative Works and Cultures"publishes articles about transformative works, broadly conceived; articles about media studies; and articles about the fan community."