Anne Pickles - Cumbria Newspapers

My meeting with Anne Pickles from Cumbria Newspapers was arranged for me to find out what impact the Internet and technology has had on local print media.

The following points are what I discovered:

• Websites generally need to use print as a promotion to get people to visit a website. A website cannot be discovered if the web address isn’t printed anywhere.
•  Websites need a strategy for making money. If all stories were posted on the website, people could view them for free instead of buying the printed version for 50p. The strategy is usually through advertising because space can be sold to advertisers just like it is in print.
•  Some people have only have the Internet as a way of access and vice-versa so print and digital work well alongside each other.
•  Sometimes using the website to provide only a headline or the beginning of a story can leave readers short-changed and can give the newspaper as a whole a bad reputation. Therefore, it needs to be selective. Print will always be decided first before anything is put on the website. The website then doesn’t included every story just a selected amount.
•  Social networking is used to promote the newspaper. It helps build contacts and relationships with the readers as well as interacting with them e.g. competitions. The Twitter feed and Facebook status can display breaking news like when roads or schools are closed. People need to know these things immediately and the Internet can provide that. Vital information can be distributed much more efficiently online.  
•  Iphone and Android apps are used selectively in the same way that the website is used. This provides accessibility for people wherever they are as well as promotion for the newspaper.
• These elements, whether it is print, website, social networking or apps, work to support each other.
•  There is a fight to hold onto print so it is vital that credible media still exists. With bloggers, you are not always guaranteed the truth as they are hidden behind a computer screen. You don’t know who the writer is and are unsure of certainty in the information that is given.
•   iPads haven’t really had any affect on the local media around Cumbria. Competitions are held in the newsprint to win an iPad as they have not been a threat mainly because of them being so expensive along with signal being unreliable just like with mobile phones.
•  There is a nervousness of Permanence V Fleeting. People seem to think that newsrooms nowadays are paper-free offices because we all sit at computer screens. However, hard copies of everything are always printed in case of unexpected crashing or files can be lost easily. I’ve still got print work that I have kept for years so that I can keep going back to it. This is something that isn’t as easy with online media.
•  The Internet has opened media up to a whole new size audience. The twitter page attracts people from different countires and all over the world who comment on articles they have read and enjoyed.
• The Daily Mail are still successful in print alongside a great website with fully written stories. They spend a lot of money on the website and printed version is still as popular as ever. This is probably down to personal taste and obviously they appeal to different audiences.
•  There is no good reason why the two shouldn’t coexist, they just need a proper strategy. Advertising needs to be sold to both and in an effective way.
•  Personally, print will always have the upper hand in media. There is nothing better than holding what you are about to read in your hand – it makes the experience much more personal. In the mean time, we are gradually becoming more prepared for a time where digital could take over print sales. 

Rocker Zine

http://www.rockerzine.com/

Rocker is an online lifetsyle zine for mature hipsters. I contacted the editor to find out why they chose the online route instead of a printed copy.
Here is the email i received back.

Hello Katie,

Thanks for getting in touch, I've posted some answers to your
questions below. Best of luck with your dissertation 

> How was it decided that Rockerzine would be best produced online? 

To be honest, when I started Rockerzine I wanted it to be a print
magazine, but the startup costs involved with such a venture were so
high I went with online first. For me, it's been a learning curve
having come from a print media background. So realizing for online
ventures it's important to have video in every story, that you can use
links to things you allude to in your writing (rather than explaining
them), that it is pretty much impossible to protect your copyright,...
all of these things are challenges/differences in online media that
are very different than print. 

> Do you think there is now a decline in print media because of the advance in technology and the Internet? 

It seems beyond disputing this is true, and it's sad. The obvious
reason is cost. It costs money to print items you hold in your hand,
and cost far less to put things up on a website. But I think that
something can be lost from the tactile experience of print as well as
the archival nature of it. As a professional, I've written for a
number of websites that no longer exist, so my writing for them also
no longer exists. Imagine having written a book, people buy it and
read it, but then the publisher of your book goes out of business, so
it's not that they just stop selling your book, they actually go to
the house of everyone who bought your book and take away their copy so
they can't read it again. That is what writing on the internet is
like.

The internet is a transient place that exists in the now, but in 10-20
years there will be no box of old photographs or keepsakes to look
through and recall the meme you loved today. All your LOLcats will
have gone to kitty cat heaven. If I gave you a bunch of computer
files which were 20 years old full of photos etc from the past it's
unlikely they'd even be in a format your computer could read. So then
what happens to these "memories" we share only there in spaces
controlled by other companies? Facebook, like any other company
(Friendster anyone?), may one day shut down and take all your clever
posts and connections to friends with it. In some ways the internet
is another part of our throwaway culture, and I find that sad. 

> I have noticed that there is a Twitter page for Rockerzine. What role does
> social networking play in the distribution of the magazine? 

Social networking allows Rockerzine to interact with other
professional entities - artists we write about, fan groups,
nightclubs, record labels,... to let them know about our coverage of
either their work, or things they are a fan of. Our ability to grow
and find new readers relies on making these connections in lieu of, or
in addition to, advertising. In one way it's positive because you can
find and connect with pockets of people who are interested in what you
do, but the downside is you could spend a lifetime trying to find each
of these groups due to the spread out and obscenely specialized nature
of the internet. For instance, if you write an article about a band,
you would do well to try and connect with the twitter and facebook of:
The band, each band member, the many fan groups for the band, the fan
groups in various countries / languages for band, any groups about the
genre the artist you reported on,... finding and connecting with each
of these groups takes time. I feel like social media marketing is a
job that is a hungry baby that you could feed forever but always wants
more. I'd say the best part of the work our Facebook page is seeing
our fans talking about music while indirectly talking about their
shared experience of being rock fans who are over a certain age. It's
made me understand how lucky I and many of our staff are here in
Boston to have a supportive community of people no longer in their 20s
who still go out to rock shows. Many of our readers talk about their
isolation from others to share their excitement about music with and
that is a hard thing. It also gives you a very easy way to find out
what your readers want and need from you. 

> Has a printed version of Rockerzine ever been considered or do you think it
> will be considered in the future? 

Yes and yes. For our target demographic (music fans 35+) I think a
print magazine would be of more interest to them and be able to
capture their attention better. I'd like it to be the kind with bells
and whistles - a flexi-disc or premium to come with it. Again, it's
really a matter of cost. I think that in the not too distant future
we're going to see a big opening for premium print publications, in
the same way that kids now have a lot of interest in vinyl, I think
that print also is going to come back in that way. Big publishers
will probably never return to the level that they were at before, but
I do see a future for print, just a more dynamic one than its past. 

Not sure if you are covering this in your dissertation, but you are
aware I hope that writers incomes have changed due to internet
publishing? That the very profession of journalism has been deeply
devalued due to the rise of online media? 

Best to you - Erin

Andy Schwartz - New York Rocker

I contacted the publisher of New York Rocker fanzine to find out why the printed version ended and why he now uses a blog. 
Andy Schwartz replied straight away with answers presented below my questions. This is great for my primary research. 


Hi Andy,

Thanks for the reply. What was the reason for New York Rocker magazine ending in 1982?

Long run on a shoestring, the magazine finally ran out of money. Major record labels, our most important advertisers, began moving money from print ad budgets into video production.

How do you think magazines and fanzines been affected by technology and the Internet?

The most adroit and/or best-financed publications such as Rolling Stone or Wax Poetics have incorporated the Internet into their overall publishing and marketing strategies.

Do you think there has been a decline in print as people can easily view the media online, using their phones, iPads etc?

Internet access has brought on a decline in newsstand sales of music magazines the same as for The New York Times.

Social networking and blogging make it so much easier for people to interact now. What are the reasons for you setting up a New York Rocker blog?

Only to have an outlet for my own occasional writing, and to make sure the domain names weren't bought by someone else.

Will print always be the best form of design?

There can be excellence in print design and excellence in Web design. 

If you were to set up New York Rocker as a zine again, would you take the print or online route for distribution?

Both, in the manner of Rolling Stone or Wax Poetics.

Thanks for your time,

Katie Roberts

Jean Baudrillard Hyper-reality

http://cyndiconn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Jean-Baudrillard-1.pdf

In his essay The Hyper-realism of Simulation (originally published in 1976), Jean Baudrillard asserts that the use and abundance of media, signs, and symbols has so bombarded our culture that “reality itself, as something separable from signs of it ...vanished in the information-saturated, media-dominated contemporary world” (1018). Photography, mass production, television, and advertising have shaped and altered authentic experience to the point that “reality” is recognized only when it is re-produced in simulation. Truth and reality are mediated and interpreted to an extent that culture can no longer distinguish reality from fantasy. Baudrillard terms this blurring of mediated experience and reality “hyper-reality.”

Further removed from their original meaning, signs and symbols become imitations of facsimiles and reality and fiction dissolve into indistinguishable imitations. Baudrillard considered this culture of hyper-reality an advanced stage of life-as-art: “it manages to efface even this contradiction between the real and the imaginary. Unreality no longer resides in the dream or fantasy, or in the beyond, but in the real’s hallucinatory resemblance to itself.” (1018)

The signs ultimately mean nothing and therefore form their own abstracted meaning, and in Baudrillard’s words, “an air of nondeliberate parody clings to everything” (1020). Simulation, abstraction, and hyper-reality ultimately define contemporary reality.

Subculutres Evaluation

WHAT I HAVE DISCOVERED SO FAR...

A subculture is a group of people who differentiate from the parent culture and brings together individuals to allow them to develop a sense of identity. There is a distinction between an accepted majority style and a subculture as an active minority style. Dick Hebdige argued that a subculture is subversion to normality. They are critiscised and perceived as negative.  Subcultures are difficult to imagine without their own type of music as they come together around a certain music genre, however, there is much more to them.

Compared to the clear balance of gender in the mainstream, punks and skinheads had an influence of transgender fashion. I think this could have been influenced by the clear gender difference during the 1950’s which they rebelled against. Watching the BBC’s 1952 show taught me what could have influenced subcultures to emerge. DIY became popular in the 50’s, which later created DIY fashion and bricolage in the Punk subculture as an anti-consumerist statement. Bricolage is a postmodern term to represent taking elements and regurgitating them to create something new. This means incorporating items typically utilised for other purposes e.g. the safety pin shifting the purpose from practicality to fashion and bin bags were warn as part of the bin men strike during the ‘winter of discontent’.

The punk movement was all handmade, cheap design and was deliberately crude and energetic with the use of collage and hand lettering. Cheap fanzines were published and most famously were Jamie Reid’s Sex Pistols designs. This style of work represented the fashion and beliefs of the subculture. 

Although a subculture may be revolutionary, differentiating itself from parent culture, eventually it will be brought back into the system. The subculture will be turned into a commodity, a style that people can buy. Everything that is 'different' will become normal by making it familiar or part of mass culture e.g. punk rock fashion becoming mainstream with stores like ‘Claire’s Accessories’ selling safety pin jewelry and studded dog collars to teenagers as fashion. Globalisation plays an important part as brands have strong associations and become a ‘sponge’ to subcultures but sometimes they also get absorbed by the mainstream. A great example is Dr.Martens. Once being adopted by the punks, they are now part of the parent culture with high street stores like Topshop selling them. People become more aware which makes them popular, usually influenced by celebrities.

Punk music had a very anti-commercial sentiment that then turned into commercial success.

They started making money and becoming successful which meant their ideology lost all meaning. Punk fashion was then in advertisements and high street stores or magazines. This idea of Punks being anti-commercial is contradicted by The Sex Pistols reforming on many occasions. Cyberspace played an important part, especially because Myspace was so music based. Maybe cyberspace is going to become the route of subcultures as it becomes more popular. 

Marshall Mcluhan

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/nov/01/comment.internet




This Youtube clip of Marshall Mcluhan discussing his theory explains how all information at the time was taken from books - libraries were extremely busy. He talks about 'moving out of a print culture' because the nature of print's importance is changing. Books roles are changing and we are moving into a 'Global Village.' Mcluhan hints towards a description of The Internet and how people will be able to communicate all over the world.

http://www.thenation.com/article/162567/fifty-years-global-village-remembering-marshall-mcluhan-his-100th-birthday#

We Make Zines

The effects of the iPad

http://new.pentagram.com/2010/01/five-ways-the-ipad-will-cha-1/

Five Ways the iPad Will Change Magazine Design

If the iPad ushers in a new golden age of information design, things like New York's Approval Matrix, designed by Luke Hayman in 2005, may become the new norm.

The new iPad from Apple, presented in typical Steve Jobs fashion as game-changing, will, in fact, revolutionize the way we read magazines. Combining the rich visual content of a print publication, the ever-changing immediacy of a website, and the portability of an e-book reader, the iPad is something new.

Pentagram’s Luke Hayman, designer of, among others, Time, New York, and Travel + Leisure, was asked how this new format would change the world of magazines and came up with five ways off the top of his head.

A reversal of a decades-long trend

“For as long as I’m been alive, publication formats have been getting smaller. First, oversized magazines like Life and Esquire either disappeared or switched to conventional formats to save money on paper and mailing. Then editorial content started moving online, shrinking to fit computer screens and then even smaller for PDAs and 140-character tweets. The iPad represents the first time this trend has been reversed. Instead of smaller, more low-res content, we have the chance to get bigger, brighter, sharper content. Designers used to making it smaller may have trouble learning to go the other way.”

The end of frequency

“Say goodbye to the idea of monthly magazines, or weeklies, or dailies. Print publications, already under siege by the Internet and 24-hour news cycle, will have to learn to adapt to a world of instantaneous updates. This is most obvious for news and business publications, but it’s just as true for fashion, entertainment and specialized titles.”

A reset on advertising

“The mean little conventions of online advertising—banner ads, pop ups, and so forth—aren’t popular with readers, with advertisers, and certainly not with designers. The iPad’s a new medium that will create a whole range of opportunities. Once people start exploiting what it can do, we may see the kind of creative renaissance that will deliver the next George Lois or Lee Clow. People will start subscribing to certain i-mags just for the ads alone.”

A new way of telling stories

“Editors have been telling us for years that people won’t read long stories online. Yet they will read 1,000-page novels on their Kindles. What will they be willing to read on their iPad? I predict the return of long-form journalism. At the same time, visual storytelling will take deeper, richer forms. Information design will be more important than ever. Something like New York’s Approval Matrix that we designed back in 2005 with Adam Moss is popular in print but will really come to life in this format. Some people might subscribe to it all by itself.”

A new role for print

“If digital magazines with rich, uncompromised, real-time content corner the market on delivering what you need to know right now, what’s the point of print? I think that the publications that end up enduring will be the ones that exploit what print alone can do. The best ones will be things that you want to save, not toss in the recycling bin. They’ll project a sense of craftsmanship and permanence. And each one should be an object that just feels terrific in your hand. If you’re spending most of your free-time holding an iPad, you just might welcome a change of pace.”

• Editorial Design
• Luke Hayman
• New York

01/27/2010 | Permalink

http://blog.kelseygroup.com/index.php/2010/02/18/ipads-impact-on-newspapers-too-little-too-late/

IPad’s Impact on Newspapers: Too Little, Too Late?

But what will be the impact of iPads and tablets from other companies on traditional media? Many are considering it to be the new magazine form factor. Newspapers will look great, too. Look at The New York Times’ demo. My guess, however, is that the iPad’s impact on newspapers’ bottom line will be marginal for several years — and then, it may be too late. While the iPad should have excellent introductory sales, most sales will likely be low-end units without communications, so their usage will be mostly home and coffee shop based. Other newspaper niche sites, like The Envelope from the LA Times, bring newspapers into an entirely new domain with the addition of online App games based on news and entertainment. These might ultimately play a role in the transformation of newspapers.

For now, I’m not counting on significant advertising or circulation revenues to develop for newspapers directly because of their investments in tablet devices, or mobile generally.

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/12/10/survey-finds-ipad-negatively-affecting-print-media/

Survey finds iPad negatively affecting print media

by Kelly HodgkinsDec 10th 2010 at 3:30PM

Bad news for members of the newspaper industry that expect to use digital media to save their print editions. A recent survey from the Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) shows that iPad owners are more likely to read news on their iPad than a printed newspaper. RJI surveyed over 1,600 iPad owners and asked them about their usage habits, especially as it concerns reading and news consumption.

Not unexpectedly, 84.4% of iPad owners primarily use their iPad to follow breaking news and current events. As a result, newspaper subscriptions, once the staple of the newspaper industry, are being cannibalized by the iPad. Slightly more than 30% of iPad owners do not subscribe to a newspaper, preferring to consume news on their tablet device. Of the 931 respondents that have a newspaper subscription and read an hour's worth of news each day on their iPad, more than half (58.1%) intend to cancel their newspaper subscriptions within six months. A growing 10.7% have already canceled their subscription and have switched to iPad-only reading.

While this trend may ultimately curtail print editions, it also creates a new distribution method for those newspapers willing to move out of their comfort zone. Several large newspapers, including the WSJ, The New York TImes, and the London-based City A.M., are making that transition and have released iPad apps. Those that have not embraced the iPad may be encouraged to adopt this medium when Apple rolls out support forsubscription-based pricing, a feature expected to debut in iOS 4.3.

Kindle Books outselling print

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2011/kindle-books-now-outselling-print-books/

It was probably just a matter of time, really, but Amazon isnow selling more Kindle books than print books, no doubt bolstered by the outstanding sales of the recently released $114 ad-supported Kindle.  for every 100 print books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 105 Kindle books. This includes sales of hardcover and paperback books by Amazon where there is no Kindle edition. Free Kindle books are excluded and if included would make the number even higher.

"Will the iPad result in fewer eBooks being sold by Amazon? I sincerely doubt it.

Amazon has such a head start with its digital catalog, sales platform, and brand loyalty that I’d be surprised if Apple can overtake them. Oh sure, iPad sales will almost certainly continue to accelerate and saturate the tablet computer market (with some much-needed improvements, I hope), but the iPad is really only peripherally an eBook reader."

“40% of iPad owners have not read a book on the device, with 45% of survey respondents saying they instead read e-books on the PC or Mac."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/06/amazon-kindle-ebook-sales-overtake-print

Underlining the speed of change in the publishing industry, Amazon said that two years after introducing the Kindle, customers are now buying more ebooks than all hardcovers and paperbacks combined. Jorrit Van der Meulen, vice-president of Kindle EU, said: "Customers in the UK are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books, even as our print business continues to grow. We hit this milestone in the US less than four years after introducing Kindle, so to reach this landmark after just two years in the UK is remarkable and shows how quickly UK readers are embracing Kindle. As a result of the success of Kindle, we're selling more books than ever before on behalf of authors and publishers."

Social Networking

http://www.allthingscrm.com/crm-basics/social-networks-and-how-they-have-changed-the-world-of-business.html

The business world began to see some relief to their challenges when the Internet arrived. After a short while, the Internet introduced social networking to the business world, and things really began to change. Applications like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs arrived on the scene, ready to take on business challenges and make them manageable and fun—believe it or not.

The Web hosts hundreds of millions of users worldwide. Social networking sites, many of which are free, draw millions of those users in, providing a space to share information, get questions answered and, most prominently, communicate. While social networking sites were originally developed as a means for people to communicate with friends and acquaintances, as well as make new friends, businesses have figured out how to tap into their potential. Given the broad-reaching potential social networking sites have, it is no wonder businesses are quickly learning how to use them to disseminate information about their companies, generate new contacts and open communication between customers and businesses.

Social networking is now one of the easiest ways to communicate with people and find people online. Businesses can promote their products using social networking by updating their statuses to present what's new. Businesses are capable of detailing their products, providing customers with contact information and  potentially posting photos of their employees involved in various activities, all of which personalise their business.  As more people are drawn in, the potential for drawing more business is greatly heightened. They can communicate directly with their customers. They can obtain feedback and ideas, monitor conversations about their businesses and let their customers know that they are genuinely interested in them. Communicating is one of the key means for establishing strong customer relationships.

Marketing
Social networking sites present businesses with many opportunities to market their products and perform market research. Companies can review network profiles to review the likes, interests and expressed needs of their customer base. They can also use this information to determine how their friends’ or fans’ profile characteristics fit into their marketing targets. In addition, some companies are finding fun ways to advertise, such as allowing users to send virtual gifts connected to the companies’ product offerings. Social networking allows companies to spread the word about themselves at little or no cost.

http://www.virtualsocialmedia.com/learn-how-social-networking-changed-the-internet-social-networking-services/

An early example of social networking includes forums. Forums, like any type of social networking platform, allow people who share a common interest to communicate. The type of information obtained through forums often rivals the type of results a search engine can produce, because actual groups of people are communicating, creating a knowledge base built around a specific topic. 

This is the same sort of ideology of the fanzine - where groups of people can communicate creating a knowledge base around a specific topic. People prefer using these types of services to keep in touch with people overseas, as the cost to communicate this way is often far cheaper than a phone call.

Most social Media networking platforms have changed the way Digital Online Marketing Companies do marketing through the web. Forums were often used for link building and lead generation, and to an extent still are. However, most lead generation today is done through sites like Facebook. After all, someone is keeping track of the books, movies, television shows, and products that Facebook’s users are rating and talking about on the site.

Social networking can be used to do marketing and find out what rival companies are doing. 

Negative Impacts of Social Networking

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/negative-impact-social-networking-sites-society-opinion/

Positive Impacts of Social Networking

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/positive-impact-social-networking-sites-society-opinion/

Technological Determinism

"Technology has been generalised to the point of abstraction: it suggests an overarching system that we inhabit." 

- Murphie, A. & Potts, J. (2003) - Culture & Technology, Palgrave Macmillan

Technological Determinism

Term coined by Thorstein Veblen in 1920's

Beleif that technology is the agent of social change

Technology moulds behaviour and changes our behaviours and interactions

Society is shaped by it's dominant technologies

Marx is often seen as a technological determinist because of the quote:

"The Windmill gives you society with the feudal lord: the steam mill with the industrial capitalist." 

- Marx, K. (2005) - the Poverty of Philosophy, Adamant Media Corporation

Usually refers to the present projected onto the future 'we have no choice but to adopt this technology'

http://www.slideshare.net/Alan_Hook/technological-determinism

The Counterculture Zine

http://ehis.ebscohost.com/eds/detail?sid=a4cfd709-67a8-4c41-8489-bb78f5d5a8ea%40sessionmgr14&vid=7&hid=20&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=a9h&AN=3783399

Title: The counterculture zine. By: Chezzi, Derek, Maclean's, 00249262, 11/20/2000, Vol. 113, Issue 47

Zines are crafted with passion and a noticeable uniqueness.
They are rooted in a philosophy of creation over mindless mass consumption.
Zinesters are more interested in getting their books into the hands of readers than making a buck.
Zine-makers want to break out, to say something the corporate-owned media doesn't.
"people deliberately search out zines to get a breath of fresh air."
You get to control everything, you get ti decide the message.