Defining the lesbian/gay community? Market research and the lesbian/gay press

The development of marketing information on the readership of the lesbian/g ay press attests to the press's success as a medium and its attraction to a dvertisers. Yet such marketing data, highly skewed towards affluent, urban, white-angle gay males, raise some serious problems. Such data has been mis used by opponents of lesbian/gay rights as representing the entire lesbian/ gay community. They also reflect the change of the lesbian/gay press from a medium representing a minority community to one representing an important niche market. An examination of readership data from five major urban lesbi an/gay newspapers illustrates these problems.