Magazines not thriving in digital age, but not expiring either
The arrival of online publication has fearsomely threatened the existence of print magazines. Since the production of the online versions, audiences have come to expect new content daily or even hourly. Casual readers are less willing to wait for a weekly or monthly print magazine to arrive in the post or on a newsstand. The ready availability of free, or significantly cheaper, digital content may deter them from purchasing print subscriptions or individual issues.
Print magazine culture has certainly seen a decline since its heyday in the 20th century. Once-popular print magazines have moved entirely online or are largely sustained by growing digital subscriptions. Elsewhere, internet media sites, of the type pioneered by Buzzfeed and its imitators, increasingly fulfil the need for diverse and distracting short-form writing. The explosion of social media has also cut into the advertising market on which print magazines have traditionally depended.
And yet print magazines refuse to go extinct. Established periodicals, such as the New Yorker and Vogue, stubbornly cling to a global readership in both print and digital formats. Likewise here in the local scene with Tatler Philippines, Cosmopolitan, Preview, Vogue Philippines, Metro among others which are still very much in circulation but of course alongside their online version.
Some commentators have attributed the enduring appeal of print magazines to the physical experience of reading. We absorb information differently from the page than from the screen, perhaps in a less frantic and distractable way. “Digital fatigue” from the years of the pandemic has arguably resulted in a small pivot back to print media. The revived interest in print magazines has also been attributed to the “analog” preferences of Gen Z readers.
In a previous ASI article, it was reported that there is a growing movement towards embracing the concept of slow living. Trends such as brewed, drip filter coffee and playing vinyl records align with this way of life. Once written off as the victims of the digital age, analog devices have been experiencing a comeback. And it’s not older people feeling nostalgic who are driving this trend. Younger people who never experienced the joy of analog technology the first time around are discovering these devices for themselves.
Writer Hope Corrigan has noted, there is also something appealing about the aesthetics of print magazines. The care taken with layout, images and copy can’t always be replicated on as screen. Indeed, magazines with a significant focus on photography and visual design – such as fashion and travel magazines – are enduring in print. The new wave of print magazines tends to have a higher cover price and standard of production. They are also published less frequently, with quarterly or biannual schedules becoming the norm.
Print magazines may also be seeing a revived interest from advertisers. Recent research indicates a strong preference for print advertising among consumers. Readers are far more likely to pay attention to a print advertisement and trust its content. Circulation and influence of print magazines may have reduced, but they are not necessarily lifeless or even dying. They can be seen as moving into a smaller, but sustainable, place in the media landscape.
