71471224 case-study-draft

Case Study Research Project

"How do print magazines, that are highly dependent on their web, survive?"

Written by Francesca Geary

Word Count: 4,101

Introduction

.Cent magazine, "a magazine written by creative for creative's". Have you heard of

it? I didn't to begin with. You see, .Cent is not really the 'talk of the town' like

Vogue, Empire or even Reader's Digest, if you ask around you'll probably find

only a selective group know who .Cent is. Others will be asking, "Oh is it new?"

Written by Francesca GearyBA(hons) Journalism - Case Study Research Project

It's not, in fact it's been out and about for six years. Their seventeenth issue,

"Seeing Stories, Telling Pictures" just hit their website.

When it was required for us, journalists, to look for a work placement and

conduct a case study on it, I immediately began looking at places that had a large

online presence. Although, working in print would be more exciting and

worthwhile for a journalist, I felt that working for an online magazine was taking

a step forward in journalism. Also to tell you the truth, being someone of my

generation where we cling to the online community with our life, it would be

kind of a dream come true to spend the day on Twitter and Facebook talking to

people and trying to promote the publication. If we look at all the print

magazines like, Vogue, Wired, even newspapers like The New York Times -

they're all relying on the Internet to boost traffic to their website and sales to

their magazine because in reality, it's easy and simple, exactly what we, as

readers, prefer. If you type into Google, "The future of magazines/newspapers"

about a thousand of the results would be: "Print is dying, digital is rising." The

constant debate of what an individual prefers to read is huge but if we look at it

closely, we notice that print won't actually become extinct because no matter

how easy it is to access the same content on our iPads or Blackberries, every

once in a while we tend to go back to the old style, because to us that is a luxury.

My initial question that I intended to research for my case study was, "How does

a publication sold online reach its readership?"I came across .Cent through a

friend because they were looking for a Web Assistant. I hadn't heard of the

magazine previously, so before applying for it, I wanted to find out where I could

get a copy of latest issue. I couldn't find it in the newsagents, and nobody I knew

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seemed to have heard of it, the only thing I could do was Google the website and

hope I could learn as much about the magazine from there. Luckily, they had a

Shop where you could buy all the back issues of the magazine, and the blogs I

found that mentioned .Cent, (all posts saying that the new issue can be bought

online now) the more sure I was that this was an online magazine that sold their

hard copies online. Since it was a fairly small company, I assumed it was their

way of saving on unnecessary printing, especially if only a selected amount of

people would buy them.But on my first week, a discussion with the .Cent team

made me realise that they were definitely more of a print magazine than online

because of the production that went into the magazine. They did everything

exactly like any other magazine does, including the amount of printing.

I found myself thinking on how else to approach this case study, I didn't want to

spend a lot of time thinking of another question and not finding any research in

time. It wasn't until a few weeks in, did I decide to think more about my question

because I realised that I didn't actually know too much about .Cent so during the

last couple of weeks it was really about me getting to know the magazine and

who they were.

.Cent magazine fell into the lap of Jo Phillips, the creative editor, initially she

didn't want to start a magazine but when her friend encouraged her to do it - she

wanted to do something different. Jo grew up with revolutionary magazines like

I-D, and over the last twenty years she's just felt that magazines have just been

copying each other - so she wanted to do a magazine that was completely

different. The whole idea of having someone guest edit the issue, having a theme

and not having a journalists write the magazine came into the plan, as well as the

name .Cent meaning the different percentage of people writing it. The dot in the

title just fell into place when the Art Director at the time designed the logo-

something that looked handwritten, making a personal relationship between the

creative writing to the reader- and she ended up liking it. Today, .Cent is getting

ready for their eighteenth issue, guest edited by Stuart Stockdale the Design

Director from Jaeger.

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Overall, I still wanted to stay with the idea of doing something with the online

community mainly because I was Web Assistant and it is "part of my field." Also I

was also hoping to shadow Louisa, online editor, and hopefully learn a couple of

things about what really goes on behind the website.So the question I came up

with is, "How do print magazines that are highly dependant on their web

survive?"What I want to try and find out is, whether or not, the web can help

print magazines, like .Cent, get their readers to buy a magazine and make a

profit.

Literature Review

Literature

As much as books should be a part of our education and we technically should

refer to them as often as possible, like the "death" of magazines, I feel that relying

on books as the primary use of research is becoming out of date. Like the student

I am, or quite frankly the same with most students, we prefer to have

information at the touch of our hands by simply typing in a couple of keywords

about what we want to research. However, there have been a couple of books

that seemed quite helpful especially in the beginning when I didn't know what to

do as a case study.

In Robert K. Yin's book, "Case Study Research: Designs and Methods," the first

chapter was extremely useful. Even on his first page where he has the diagram of

the "linear but iterative process" was the formation of how I was going to write

my case study. When I was stuck on what my next case study question should be,

Yin's book helped me identify how to develop my next question. He writes, "The

key is to understand that your research questions have both substance- for

example, what is my study about? - and form - for example, who am I asking a

"who," "what," "where," "why," or "how" question?" (Chapter 1, page 10).

Forming a case study question seemed to be how we're taught to plan writing

our articles, which made the process a little simpler for me, which made the case

study seem a little less daunting.

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The next step for me was looking at Robert E. Stake's book, "The Art of Case

Study Research," because he explains how to take on the role of a researcher and

which role would be most appropriate for our individual case studies. In his

chapter, 'Case Researcher Roles' (chapter 6, page 91), he gives a list of different

researchers, teachers, advocate, evaluator, biographer, interpreter,

constructivism and relativity. The more I read the different roles, the more I

became confused with which role I was as a researcher. So with careful

consideration and a lot of explaining to people and asking who they thought I

was, I eventually led myself to be a 'researcher as teacher'. The teacher role is

"learning what the readers need to know," (chapter 6, page 105)- which is

essentially what my case study is about. As a researcher, I am finding out

different facts about .Cent magazine and how they are surviving, I went into this

work placement not knowing anything about the magazine so with my readers I

am learning with them.

Using the Inter-World-Wide-Web

Since the research question is about the reliance that print magazines, like .Cent,

have online, it felt appropriate to do some internet research. I decided to type in

a few key phrases to see how much people have discussed the future of online

magazines. Luckily enough, everyone has talked about it - some were experts

either in social media or in publications and others were bloggers or plain

civilians expressing their opinion on which one they prefer. One thing is for sure

though; social media is one of the things that many people agreed could impact

any company, big or small, and the success of it.

The Google search engine has been a very good friend but with over 40 thousand

articles on "Print versus Digital," I decided to stick to official articles like, The

Independent, also because they collaborated with .Cent and Paul Smith who is

quite close with the magazine, and the PPA (Professional Publishers Association -

the industry body for the magazine industry) for obvious,legitimate reasons.

i) Print versus Digital - The Future of Print

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Although, .Cent is NOT an online magazine, (the 'not' is in capitals because when

I told the .Cent team about my research project, I got told off for considering the

magazine to be mainly online, instead of an actual publication.) it is heavily

dependent on their online media to bring in their readers. However, I thought I

would do some research on the debate of, 'Print versus Digital' because

while .Cent don't consider themselves to be online, the digital world is having a

very big impact on society, and could determine whether or not print will last.

As stated in The Independent article1, 'Why magazines and print should be

excited about their future,'- they say that the future will be digital, or at least

dominated by the digital world. Where a picture in a magazine can tell a

thousand words, The Independent go on to expressing their excitement on the

3D interactive experience that will be received on an iPad, not to mention the

light feeling and being able to stand comfortably on the train during rush

hour.Whilst reading The Independent, I became more curious to know why there

is such a big debate on whether magazine and newspapers should not become

digital. It's always been a topic between other journalism students but the pro-

print opinions are because of the aesthetics - the glossy feel of the magazine, and

seeing the amount of dust that collects on the magazines because we don't want

to throwaway the £4.95 we've spent. What the digital side seems to be offering is

a more of an experience and more space in our rooms. The Art Director at .Cent

bought himself an iPad and has been a regular subscriber to Wired magazine,

and to be quite honest I would prefer to have the digital copy of the magazine.

The amount of activities they have to offer the reader is educational and

entertaining, like when the iPad is turned horizontally it is more video based,

and vertically it is more word based but with fun facts hidden in the article for

the reader to feel more involved when reading. Who would argue with that?

1 The Independent, Why magazines and print media should be excited about their digital future - Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/why-magazines-and-print-media-should-be-excited-about-their-digital-future-1902372.html - Date Accessed: 1 May 2011

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"We are entering a new era of media, where we finally have a digital platform that

allows us to retain all the rich visual features of high-gloss print, from lavish design

to glorious photography, while augmenting it with video, animations, additional

content and full interactivity," - Wired's Chris Anderson, in the Independent Article.

On the other hand,The PPA2 wrote an article, 'The Future of Print' and how the

death of the magazine being greatly exaggerated. The article basically says that

even though the digital side of magazines have some great benefits, it does seem

that the aesthetic side of print magazines plays a big part of why people buy

magazines in the first place. Like books, magazines act as 'escapism' from the

hectic working life of staring at a computer screen - the action of turning the

glossy pages is almost therapeutic. Lorraine Candy, editor-in-chief of Elle

magazine, says that her readers eagerly anticipate the interaction with the

printed product.

Even with all the debates about whether print magazines will last any longer,

according to the PPA article, about 50 million magazines are sold each month. So

it seems that the 'death' is exaggerated but could the birth of digital magazines

help boost print magazine sales?

ii) Social Media

One of the first things I learned when I began working at .Cent was that Twitter

and Facebook were the two essential tools when working for a website. Without

them, your company would most likely fail. Unlike web articles that are much

more in depth about a certain subject or event and fit to suit the magazine's

target audience, Twitter and Facebook is much more the inside eyes to the

company. For example, London Fashion Week, if a magazine is covering it, we as

readers don't want to see the end product of which designers were being shown,

and which celebrities were there last night. We don't want to hear; "Last night..."

2 PPA, The future of print magazines - Available at: http://www.ppa.co.uk/marketing/future-of-publishing/feature-articles/the-joy-of-magazines/ - Date Accessed: 14 May 2011

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we want to hear what's happening right now in that very moment.Taking photos

and telling the world before, during and after, what happened at the event is

what we, nosy people, want to hear. We no longer want to be the audience, we

want to feel like we're taking part in it- and then later buy the magazine as

though it was a souvenir.

The Small Business Forum3, a website handbook for small businesses to share,

seek and network information, wrote an article about the importance of social

media in small businesses. 'Why social media is important for small businesses'

just introduces the importance of it, but being an active user of both Twitter,

Facebook and possibly every single social media site out there - it's more or less

common sense to me. Believe it or not, there are people out there who think that

Twitter and Facebook are worthless and are for, "people who have nothing

better to do" - or so the men in my family tell me. The only way they can be

proved wrong is by asking them to give us any name, whether it's a celebrity, a

brand or even a famous food like Marmite, type it into Twitter and guaranteed it

will have some sort of account.People will join them, talk about them and soon it

becomes a "trending topic" on Twitter and then everyone, and I mean, everyone

knows about them. What articles like the one that the Small Business Forum

(SBF) has written is trying to explain, is that, that social media sites are in fact

beneficial to any company, big or small. Social media sites aren't just a way to

procrastinate, it is a place to sell yourself. SBF basically lists the most important,

yet slightly obvious, reasons why every company - especially the small

businesses, should adopt social media websites.

To gain exposure within their market

To acknowledge their customers about their current product, services

and other information they would like them to know about.

To network with potential clients and customers

3 Why is social media so important for small business? Available at: http://www.smallbusinessforum.com.au/why-is-social-media-so-important-for-small-business/ Date Accessed 23 April 2011

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And most importantly, to increase traffic to their website.

(Small Business Forum)

It's simple, quick and user-friendly so there really is no excuse for any business

not to give it a go. According to Sensi eBusiness, about 60% of companies are

active on the social media sites and have reported back with positive results.

After all, what is the worse that could happen? The results might not be as

anticipated but let's face it, you shouldn't have to worry about paying advertisers

to do the work, when you can do it for free.

While researching for other websites, or blogs written by social media experts

who are trying to show the "non-social-media-believers" that these sites will

benefit them in the long run. I came across one blog post byon 'The Importance

of Social Media'4 and just like the title suggests, the writer talks about how

important social media is to a brand. Although, it wasn't the article that got me

interested, it was the comments from people who use social media regularly

letting others know their experience, and how successful they have been to their

company.

"I totally agree, as a business owner financial constraints remain but the one thing

I have to invest is my time. On top of that, I save time with many of the activities, so

I do more meetings online with gotomeeting.com/podcasts The more time I save, I

invest in social media." - Anna Farmery (comment on The Importance of Social

Media)

"Life is short," and our working lives are even shorter, so being able to do

everything at once is important, and social media sites offer us that

advantage. .Cent magazine is already a small company, and it is up to the office to

help spread the name. On more than one occasion, I have 'tweeted' or

'facebooked' my friends to come visit the website and hope that they will pass it

4 The Importance of Social Media, http://theengagingbrand.typepad.com/the_engaging_brand_/2009/05/why-is-social-media-important-to-a-brand.html - Date Accessed: 21 April 2011

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onto someone who will be interested in what the .Cent writes, well enough to

buy themselves an issue or the PDF that is available.

With the time I have spent at .Cent, I have realised that without Twitter or

Facebook, only a handful of their readers would actually buy the magazine, and

most of them will be friends of the people working at the magazine, so for them

it's extremely important to get as many people involved on whatever they do

online. Since the magazine is only on the stands twice a year, their website must

be updated daily in order for their social media sites to promote the name.

.Cent has been up online for only a couple of years and I am curious to see

whether Twitter or their Facebook page has made a difference in their site traffic

and/or sales - and if not, whether in the future they have plans to make their

magazine a top seller.

Methodology

I decided to stick to the basic methodology of interviews, surveys and looking at

statistics from social media sites and the .Cent website to find some answers to

my research question. Firstly, I would do a detailed interview with Jo, the editor,

mainly because I had questions to learn a little bit more about .Cent - like how

she first got started with the magazine, what are her future plans with .Cent and

their financial bubble (their revenue). Originally, I was going to ask Louisa, the

digital editor about the website but over the last couple of weeks I noticed that

while Louisa had manages and even built the website from scratch, or rather her

boyfriend did, Jo makes the final decisions on what to do with the website and

how else they should promote it to the public. I also wanted to look at the data

from Facebook & .Cent's website, statistics are provided and it will show the

exact amount of people visiting the website, who buys the magazines, what

content they look at. It would give me, more or less, an accurate answer of how

successful their social media promotion has been. With Twitter, I'll only be able

to make an educated guess via the followers that have joined but I will be able to

look at the response of who repliesto .Cent when they ask questions about the

magazine, or just general chitchat.

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Findings

i) Data (Facebook & .Cent website)

Figure 1.1 The demographics of .Cent's Facebook.

Facebook has been extremely useful especially when I was trying to see how

successful social media sites have been to .Cent magazine. Unlike Twitter

where I had to count manually how many followers have joined since I came

to the magazine - which is just under 80 new followers, Facebook offers

graphs of the activity that has taken place there, including demographics of

who joined .Cent's Facebook. This also gives us an idea of who would visit the

website and hopefully purchase a couple of the magazine. As it can be seen in

Figure 1.1, a higher percentage of male and female ranging from the ages of

25-34 years old have 'liked' .Cent. This results show that they are young,

creativeminds which is who .Cent is targeting for.

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Figure 1.2. Cent Magazine Facebook Page Overview

The dates that are printed in the top right hand corner indicate the month

that I started my work placement with the magazine. Since I joined, I have

made sure that I posted something on both their social media sites an event

or an article from their website, that their readers would be interested in. The

results show that 192 people had "liked" their Facebook page, which the

team said was the most they had in one month. These people had also visited

their website and even placing orders for their magazines. These results

suggest that posting everyday, and letting their readers know what they're

doing have a positive effect on their magazine. Unfortunately I couldn't post

any statistics on who visited the website, but there was an increase of traffic

going to their site because of how .Cent was interacting with their social

media sites.

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ii) Survey on .Cent Twitter

I asked the Cent twitter followers about whether they prefer print or digital.

Most of the people that did reply were either related to a member of the .Cent

team, or they were extremely close friends with them. While that might be

okay for them in the beginning, they need to try and find another way to

expand their address book so they can constantly having new readers looking

at .Cent. Most of the answers received preferred print, which is probably

explains why their website is quite low in people. The magazine only comes

out biannually so people have to resort to reading their content online, or

purchasing the issues online. I don't know exactly why they don't order it, but

based on my opinion of being a magazine-hoarder, I buy magazines on

impulse mainly because I like the front cover, I don't want to order a

magazine online and wait a couple of days to read it, especially if it's a

magazine I'm not a huge fan of.

i) Interviews

It's been quite difficult to get hold of Jo, the creative director, and ask her to

sit down for nine minutes and have an interview with her for this case study.

In fact, it's really hard to get hold of her at all. Since I've started .Cent

magazine she has been a whirlwind of a person, running in and out of

meetings trying to find a way to further the magazine. It wasn't until

practically my last week at .Cent that I managed to get a quick interview with

her while she was having her tea break. I started off with the basic questions

of how she got started with the magazine and what her main aim of .Cent

was, and what does she plan to do with .Cent. Unfortunately, the future

of .Cent is to remain confidential which doesn't really help me because it

really is the answer to my case study. The only way I can phrase it, is that it

will be heavily involved in the digital world and less like a printed magazine.

This indicates that while some print magazine won't last long, their lifespan

can be kept longer depending on their reliance on their web.

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Conclusion

Do I think print magazines that are reliant on their web survive? I think yes,

and no. Yes, in the sense that everyone these days needs social media and

websites to go further in the publication industry in order for more people to

know about them and want to get to know about them through their website.

It's promoting people to buy their magazine but giving them a flavour

through their homepage, or their comments and pictures. On the other hand,

I don't think print magazines will survive in general. I think in a few years

time, no matter how reliant they are on the web, eventually print magazines

will die out and become much more digital because the world is changing and

we want information at the flick of the switch. That's where the digital world

will take us, the print world will be a luxury but we would prefer to read a

book.

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