International audience ; Are journals famous unknowns? Omnipresent within the scientific, institutional and political realms and even everyday life, periodicals comprise abundant and interesting, but disparate international scientific literature. This is likely due to the fact that behind the apparent homogeneity of the object, a plurality of forms, temporalities, contents and actors is concealed. A number of sociologists , specialists of Literature , History , Political sciences and jurists , inter alia, have published numerous works about periodicals. Within the literature, their study is quite developed in Belgium , where it is often associated with a sociological approach . In Anglo-Saxon countries, such as England, an autonomous field of research has been built around periodical studies . This historiography reveals the relationship between periodicals and politics, their gender implications, and their structuring role.