International Journal of Magazine Studies

Cover and Table of Contents

Carla Rodrigues Cardoso — 2024-08-12

The Inspiring Role of Magazine Studies: The Interconnected Journalism Example

Carla Rodrigues Cardoso — 2024-08-12

Editorial

The Future of Magazines: A Few Speculations About the Media’s Evolution

David Abrahamson — 2024-08-12

This article examines ways in which technological change has transformed the creative editorial and design processes, the form and extent of magazine content and the industry’s underlying business models. The question of whether the evolution of delivery platforms has allowed magazines to create new and more robust relationships with their readers and an enriched sense of community is explored.

The Digital Feminist Magazines, a Reformulation of Women's Press From South to North: The Cases AzMina and Madmoizelle

Mariana Fagundes-Ausani — 2024-08-12

The aim of this article is to analyse how engaged media appropriate the format of so-called women's magazines to propose new models for feminist digital publications. I look at feminist media activism as a space made up of the interstice between other social worlds, such as journalism, digital activism and political activism. To understand the strategies for reformulating the magazine format from print to digital and from a perspective of reflection on gender issues, I compare, in a transnational approach, the digital magazines AzMina (from Brazil) and Madmoizelle (from France) using theories on gender studies and feminism as bibliographical support and the methodology of in-depth interviews with actresses and actors who participate to different degrees in the composition of the social world - content producers and support teams - to develop an analysis of the ways in which individuals are inserted into the context of these magazines. The results indicate that the interviewees rely on forms of writing and news gathering based on the reporting model both to write their content and to consume it. There is an inspiration in the pattern of so-called women's magazines for those who write the texts - and follow these writing patterns - and for those who read them - and create expectations of finding similarities with this writing pattern in the digital feminist media.

The Emergence of Magazine Membership Models

Mary Hogarth — 2024-08-12

This article undertakes a comparative analysis of three special interest magazines, Women's Running, Vegan Food and Country Walking, to determine how each title has developed and implemented a membership model. It explores if and how the model has impacted revenue and the audiences while looking for reoccurring themes and examining services. Semi-structured interviews were deemed to be the most appropriate methods by which to conduct this qualitative investigation. Thus, interviews were undertaken with editors and publishers to explore how membership has been established and ascertain the potential impact on revenue and audience engagement. Furthermore, the study reviews key literature themes around servitisation, including work by Viljakainen and Toivonen (2014) and Fließ and Hagenhoff’s (2016) study of membership to establish if the magazines have achieved financial stability and a deeper engagement with their audience.

The Story of Finland, as Told by Two Weeklies: The Long Narratives of Suomen Kuvalehti and Apu

Ullamaija Kivikuru — 2024-08-12

Over 100 years, two magazines have reported about Finland to Finns. However, their focus and working tools have been different. One has tried to catch the gaze of the educated few, while the other has focussed on the whole family. During various social turns, one has better caught the public gaze and the other has been less successful – but during the following decade, the roles have changed. The eternal problem for both is the question of topicality.

Les pratiques de streaming des magazines spécialisés en jeu vidéo - De l'information au divertissement ?

Boris Krywicki — 2024-08-12

Les magazines de jeux vidéo, souvent centrés sur l’image (Mansuy, 2019), étaient-ils destinés à une transition audiovisuelle? Malgré l'émergence de plateformes comme Twitch et YouTube Live proposant du “jeu par procuration” (Barnabé, 2017), les journalistes de la presse écrite ont initialement résisté à apparaître à l'écran, évitant toute association avec les influenceurs. Quels éléments ont motivé ce secteur prudent, historiquement méfiant à l'égard d'Internet (Breem & Krywicki, 2020), à embrasser Twitch et à adopter un “régime de l’émission” (Dagiral & Parasie, 2010)? Cette transition implique-t-elle un passage du rôle de journaliste (information) à celui d'animateur (divertissement)? Quel rôle jouent les magazines imprimés et leurs enquêtes dans les flux vidéo? Nous allons analyser les pratiques de streaming de six médias français spécialisés en jeux vidéo. Des entretiens avec des journalistes issus de ces médias complémenteront notre étude. Nous cherchons à comprendre si ces canaux servent d'extensions de divertissement ou de véritables sources d'information spécialisée.

The Specialized TV Editorial Market in Brazil: A Study on Fan Culture in Intervalo Magazine

Talita Magnolo — 2024-08-12

This article analyses all 52 editions of the section "Entreviste seu Ídolo" from Intervalo magazine; based on the survey and analysis of issues published between 1968 and 1969, we discuss questions related to the fans profile chosen to participate in the section, the segment of activity of the idols and the context of the questions answered by the interviewees. In Brazil, despite being a minority, fan culture studies in communication are expanding and covering different areas such as identities, politics, and consumption. In this context, the article starts from a sample that has still not been explored in fan culture studies in the country. The magazine was a project of Editora Abril, published between the years 1963 and 1972; in turn, upon observing this strategic movement of the broadcasters and the consequent interest of its readers, it created several sections that established dialogues and built different relationships with its audience (Magnolo, 2023).

Magazines' Transition to Digital: The Case of Georgia

Dali Osepashvili — 2024-08-12

The goal of this paper is to show the results of a study into how Georgian magazines adapted to a digital transition, the kind of innovations they used and the kind of challenges they faced. For this purpose, we use the qualitative approach - the semi-structured interview method. The study was conducted among editors and journalists (n=12) of the magazines from 1 March 2023 till 15 December 2023. In the digital age, magazines in Georgia have faced a number of challenges: it is not easy to retain readers for the print edition, and the tendency of readers to decline is gradually becoming more apparent.

The Decline of Music Magazines in Greece

Stylianos Papathanassopoulos — 2024-08-12

Greek music magazines have witnessed a sharp decline over the years. This study posits that this decline cannot be attributed solely to the advent of the internet but is the culmination of various factors. The challenges faced by Greek music magazines resonate with those faced by the broader Greek newspaper industry, suggesting an interlinked adversity within the media landscape. A primary concern has been the saturation of the market; Greece had an unsustainable number of titles for its relatively small market. The country's financial crisis, in tandem with the rise of the internet, led to a significant drop in advertising revenues that traditionally supported these publications. Our findings indicate that from 1946 to 2022, there were 73 distinct music magazine and fanzine titles in Greece. Yet, as of now, only four remain in circulation. This paper delves into the historical significance of music magazines, elucidating their pivotal role in disseminating music culture in Greece, with particular attention directed towards elucidating the factors contributing to their contemporary decline

Magazines Currently: A Matter of Virtualisation

Pedro Eduardo Ribeiro — 2024-08-12

Magazines are increasingly online and virtual and produce less material due to the different ongoing trends within the Portuguese magazine industry. Combining contributions from Organisational Communication Studies and the concept of virtual organisations with Magazine Studies, it is possible to inquire: how does the virtualisation of media organisations interfere with magazine production, circulation, and diffusion? The answer primarily refers to an increase of magazine virtualisation. Then, it points to a diversity of magazine trends: availability of press in digital editions, emergence of digital-native magazines, intensification of transmedia dynamics along with the development of digital technologies, or availability of websites of press-editions-based publications. Taking from international contexts and specificities of the national one, magazines, their virtualisation, and more wide-ranging magazine phenomena are under discussion in this essay, as well as challenges referring to current and future times.