The magazine has been described as "polite propaganda" and featured high-quality photography and articles about everyday life in the United States, as well as profiles of famous American people and institutions.

[citation needed] By the late 1940s, the State Department began to feel that radio and the Voice of America would be more effective propaganda tools and publication of Amerika was suspended in 1952.

[citation needed] Four years later, however, the American and Soviet governments agreed to exchange magazines; Amerika was reborn and published in return for distribution of The USSR in the United States.

In his study of the propaganda of the era, University of Akron history professor Walter L. Hixson writes that Amerika was wildly popular among Soviet readers and notes that long lines would form when the magazine went on sale.

Because the magazine sparked discussion among the Soviet intelligentsia and because each issue was widely shared, Amerika had impact and influence beyond its circulation of 50,000.