3PMjournal_2010s2

3pm Journal of Digital Research & Publishing
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between the print form of a
magazine title and it’s website. In addition the paper will consider how the identity of the
magazine is changing due to the presence of its online counterpart.
This paper is concerned with a genre of magazines publications known as independent
magazines. The Independents as defined by Megan Le Masurier have an editorial focus of
“under-represented manifestations of popular culture and creative work for independent
producers of fashion, design, the visual arts, photography, music and film although a few
are overtly political.” (2010: 4)
Their growing presence is explained by the contemporary trend where creativity is
becoming more valued and cultivated in our time as identified by Richard Florida (2002).
This trend places the independents as a micro-business of the ‘creative industries’ of design,
music, fashion, computer graphics and games, film and television (Leadbeater and Oakley,
1999:9). The Independents have also been labeled the ‘last magazines’ as they are tied
primarily to the print medium. (Renard, 2006) Yet they use the marketing, distribution
and social networking possibilities enabled by digital technologies (Le Masurier,2010:
24).
The medium specificity that defines the independents as a genre in the magazine industry
hence will offer an apt case study to look at the idea of media change and furthermore the
place for the printed form within our digital age. Hence their paradoxical presence within
this digital age demands a more appropriate definition of a magazine which is the goal of
this paper.
Comparative textual analysis will be used in order to analyze this online/offline
relationship. Yet when studying a body of material as diverse as magazines, it is nearly
impossible to make claims about representativeness hence three magazines have been
chosen for anlaysis to act as case studies without being models. (Piepmeier, 2008) The
three publications that will be analysed are AnOther, Interview and COLORS. All three are
members of the above Independents but they all have very different publication histories.
Their differences offer an appropriate comparison to look at a magazine’s presence into
the digital realm.
The point of view from which we will frame this analysis is ‘the reader’. A magazine
does not exist without a readership. “The mantra of magazine publishing is always to pay
attention to the needs, desires, hopes, fears and aspirations of ‘the reader’.”(Holmes, 2008:
xii) Therefore a community forms between readers and makers of the magazine. The
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