House organ

The Silver Sheet, a house organ of Thomas H. Ince Studios in the early 1920s

A house organ (also variously known as an in-house magazine, in-house publication, house journal, shop paper, plant paper, or employee magazine) is a magazine or periodical published by a company for its customers or its employees. This name derives from the use of "organ" as referring to a periodical for a special interest group.

House organs come in two types, internal and external. An internal house organ is meant for consumption by the employees of the company as a channel of communication for the management. An external house organ is meant for consumption by the customers of the company, and may be either a free regular newsletter, or an actual commercial product in its own right.

An example of a commercial house organ is the Avalon Hill General. This had no outside advertising (usually a major portion of a magazine's budget). It featured news, strategy articles, variants, and essays on game design—all about Avalon Hill games.^[1]

References

Further reading

• Employee magazines in the United States. Studies in industrial relations problems. 110. National Industrial Conference Board. 1925. 
• Shel Holtz (2004). "Types of Employee Communications". Corporate conversations: a guide to crafting effective and appropriate internal communications. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. pp. 84–86. ISBN 978-0-8144-0770-7. 
• Hayes, Elinor (November 1922). "The Employees' Publication". University Journal of Business. The University of Chicago Press. 1 (1): 81–94. doi:10.1086/506641. JSTOR 2354751. 
• Peter Francis O'Shea (1920). Employees' Magazines for Factories, Offices, and Business Organizations. H. W. Wilson Company. 
• JoAnne Yates (1993). Control through communication: the rise of system in American management. Studies in Industry and Society. 6. JHU Press. pp. 17,74–77. ISBN 978-0-8018-4613-7. 
• Elspeth H. Brown (2008). The Corporate Eye: Photography and the Rationalization of American Commercial Culture, 1884–1929. JHU Press. pp. 137–143. ISBN 978-0-8018-8970-7. 
• Anthony Slide (1985). "In-House Journals". International film, radio, and television journals. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-23759-1. 
• Anthony F. Deyes (1994). "The Place of In-House Journals in Business Interaction: A Case Study". In Leila Barbara; Mike Scott; Antonieta Celani. Reflections on language learning. Multilingual Matters. ISBN 978-1-85359-257-7. 
• Jenny McKay (2006). The magazines handbook (2nd ed.). Taylor & Francis. p. 191. ISBN 978-0-415-37137-7. 
• Sandra Cleary (2008). Communication: a hands-on approach. Juta and Company Ltd. pp. 289–290. ISBN 978-0-7021-7714-9. 
• Arthur Judson Brewster & Herbert Hall Palmer (2001). Introduction to Advertising. The Minerva Group, Inc. pp. 252–253. ISBN 978-0-89875-506-0. 
• George Frederick Wilson (1915). The house organ: how to make it produce results. Washington Park Publishing. 
• Robert E. Ramsay (1920). Effective house organs: the principles and practice of editing and publishing successful house organs. D. Appleton and company. 
• Communication Through House Journals - a research study, authored by Dr.A.SreekumarMenon published in a book of Readings 'Emerging Challenges in Management' edited by Dr.A.S.Menon and Dr.K.Shyamanna C.B.H. Publications, Trivandrum, KeralaState, India, 1990, pages175-182