Magazines and Electronic Information Web Channels - The Reader's Point of View

Abstract

One magazine and one electronic information web channel are compared with respect to the reader's attitude. Integrity, personal touch, character and ease of access are found to be the important factors in forming a strong relationship between the reader and the magazine, whether paper-based or electronic.

Keywords

Electronic publishing, Empirical studies, Organizational aspects, Social issues, E-zine, Magazine, Periodical, WWW.

© 1997 Copyright on this material is held by the authors.

Background

A great number of newspapers and magazines are now performing experiments with electronic publication and electronic distribution, often in the form of web pages.

Concerning publishing newspaper or magazines over Internet (E-zines) there are at least two important question to answer. First, what are the main differences between an E-zine and a periodical? Second, is it possible to publish an E-zine using the same concepts that make a periodical successful? Can we learn something from periodicals to create a successful webpage? What are the changes that should be made in order to take advantage of the new media, while still preserving the traits that made the periodical successful?

A subsidiary of Telia undertook during 1996 changes in its publishing policy for internal staff communications, and a new information channel for distribution on an Intranet was established. This article is based on a study of readers' opinions regarding both this channel as well as a former internal magazine published for the staff. The survey is based upon expert interviews, a web inquiry and telephone interviews.

The company's headquarters are situated in Stockholm, but many local offices are spread throughout Sweden.

The Magazine and the Channel

The success of a periodical depends in short on how well its content, illustrations and genre fit a specific target group. If it fills a specific need for its readers, and if it is able to build a relationship with a large enough group, it will be successful. By choosing to read a specific magazine you choose to belong to a sub-group with its particular norms and characteristics. This choice is highly personal. It is crucial for a periodical to establish a close partnership with its readers if they're to continue reading the periodical.

The magazine was published 6 times a year. It was printed in 4000 copies and sent home to the staff. The purpose of the periodical was to provide information about what was going on in the company, in matters great and small. An important objective was that everyone should be represented, and everyone should have the possibility to speak out.

An electronic information channel will allow quicker news flow and cheaper production. It is possible to publish more material, such that will normally not fit within a magazine. It is also possible to use multimedia and interactive applications on a webpage. To improve the news flow, a web-based information channel was formed. Current information about the company can be found in it and it may become a work tool for the staff.

Survey

Open interviews were performed with two editors and four readers to get an understanding of the two media and the differences between electronic and paper media.

Based on that interview, two more elaborate sets of questions were put to the readers in the form of telephone interviews and web questionnaires. In these, we tried to find out the use of the different media, the attitude to the media, loyalty to the company and its staff, the time spent reading, and where the reading took place. What were the differences between paper and web, and what are the reading habits?

The investigation was announced in the magazine, 36 persons were interviewed by telephone, and 71 persons took part in the web inquiry. The web inquiry was put into the web channel, so anybody interested could answer it.

Some of the facts that emerged in the study are that:

• The magazine helps create solidarity among the staff. They are all proud of working with the company.
• The web channel is rapidly updated with news, but it is often cumbersome to read from the screen.
• A disadvantage of the web channel is that it is not possible to read the magazine at home.
• The magazine is more in-depth.
• There is sufficient computer knowledge to navigate and use the web channel, but some readers have problems with accessibility of computers (e.g. field workers).
• Employees don't have the time to read at work, and it does not seem socially accepted to read the web at work.
• The magazine was discussed by the family, while the web channel was discussed with colleagues.
• The web pages were scanned through, while the paper articles are read through.
• The magazine was read by 96%, whereof 8% read it occasionally. 90% read it to be informed.
• The readers found the worst aspects of the magazine to be old information, and a too heavy emphasis on Stockholm.
• The web channel was found important by 68%, and not important by 32%.
• The readers found the worst aspects of the web channel to be that it is not possible to read it everywhere. There was also a lack of personal touch to the web channel.
• According to the answers it seems easier to remember information read from a paper than from a screen.

The average reading time for the magazine was 10 to 15 minutes. Those who had worked for the company 9-12 years, read the magazine on an average for more than 30 minutes. Those who have worked 1-3 years, read it for 10 minutes. The web channel is read on average for 5 to 10 minutes on each occasion. The total reading time for the web channel seems to be higher than for the magazine when you take into account that the average recipient visits the web channel two times a week. The reading time varied from 5 minutes a month to over 400 minutes a month for some.

Discussion

Among the employees there was disapproval when the magazine ceased publishing. During approximately the same time the web channel emerged. Information on how to use the web channel was published in the magazine. The effect of this seems to be that the employees thought of the web channel as a replacement for the magazine. An effect of this was that the employees expected a new magazine electronically published; when this did not happen older readers of the magazine were disappointed. They had created a strong bond to their magazine and did not want to see it change. It is interesting to observe that the best about the magazine and the worst about the web channel match.

• had personal articles
• concerned the employees
• had great pictures
• could be read anywhere
• was easy to get an overview of
• was sent to the reader's home

• is impersonal
• too little information about the company
• bad graphical design
• needs a computer and a connection
• is hard to get an overview of
• is read at work, and takes too much time to read.

The web channel is read on a personal computer; due to technical limitations it is harder and slower to read on a screen. Effects from these limitations are lower reading speed, lower resolution and lack of portability. Users of Intranet do not want to read large texts on the screen. A webpage is browsed through, it is harder to read from screen although no one could say why it is harder. And because of high loading times, it is not possible to have high resolution or large amounts of graphics on a webpage. A periodical builds its success on interesting articles and nice layout. Until the technical limitations are solved E-zines are at a disadvantage compared to periodicals in these respects.

An E-zine has advantages over periodicals though. Feedback is easier, and it's possible to use interactive and multimedia applications. If we want to build a relationship with the user of the E-zine these factors can be used instead. As long as periodicals have better resolution and are easier to read no one will turn from their favorite magazine to an E-zine unless the E-zine can provide something that is better than in the magazine. It could be possible to use these advantages to build a relationship by, for example, having personal messages to the reader and using webchats to discuss topics about the genre the E-zine is all about.

We do expect that the new electronic media will take over some of the market from the old paper-based magazines, but we still know very little about which form the new E-zines will take. With the old paper media, a periodical was a logical consequence, with its linking into the regularity of users habits. Maybe the new E-zines have to develop genuinely new forms exploiting the new possibilities in ways still to be discovered.