journal of digital research & publishing - The Sydney eScholarship ...

1 P M J O U R N A L O F D I G I T A L R ESEARCH & P UBLISHING
To conclude, it is a new form of communication with readers that magazine websites
have created, as a result of the ‘internet rapidly establishing itself as a major communication
network’ (Thompson 2005, p.309). Taylor (2007) states that magazine publishers are aware
that ‘readers are visual’ (p.24) so by directing the magazine reader to the website, more
opportunities for readers to feel visually stimulated are evident. NME and Cosmopolitan
both have hyperlinks on their site’s to subscribe to the print magazine, as well as links to
‘Inside the new issue. On News stands now!’ (IPC Media 2010, home page, para.6). This
form of cross­promotion demonstrates that value is still placed by publishers on both
versions of the magazines, as despite the differences in form, ‘the online magazine can
clearly be seen to have developed a life of its own’ (Ingham & Weedon 2008, p.209).
So whilst the purpose of this article was not to compare the print magazine to the
online magazine, it is evident that through the ‘use of visual strategies’ (Cranny­Francis
2005, p.38) used in the magazine websites, an interactive community is created with its
readers, one that would be impossible to replicate by the print version. It is the relationship
between the technological and visual formats that have created the cultural practice of
the interactive magazine community, highlighted through the acknowledgement of the
differing objectives in each medium. Magazine websites offer immediacy, more content,
involvement and choice to a much wider audience, making them ‘hugely popular,
communityled information providers that have their own identities and are not merely
self­conscious add­ons of their glamorous parents’ (Taylor 2007, p.24). Furthermore, NME
and Cosmopolitan, use differing web techniques to invite their readers in. In most cases
the web design used is functional rather than beautiful, proving that magazine website’s
have different objectives to their print titles. This acknowledgement of difference is what
complements the targeted readership even more and creates a broader community than
the print magazine’s readership.
Reference List
Cranny­Francis, A 2005, ‘Visuals,’ in Multimedia: texts and contexts, SAGE, London, pp. 27­54
Guardian News and Media Limited 2010, Cosmo website to get glossy makeover, viewed 20th April
2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/11/nationalmagazinecompany.digitalmedia
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