The publishing industry today is vastly different to that of the 1970's, not just because of technological advances and the entrance of the digital age, but also the type of magazines that make money, attract interest and survive in the current dire economic climate. For example, through my experience with local magazines and publishing, a free magazine, funded by advertising throughout is thriving in this current economy. The former local giant the Plymouth Herald, have recently fallen victim to job losses with as many as 87 people made redundant in 2011 (BBC News, 2011), whilst their website continues to thrive with more than 800, 000 visits a month (URL pulse, n.d.) - a true example of the internet versus the physical. Gone is the day of fighting tooth and nail for a publishing contract, when you can, for example, simply upload your work online or aim to self publish, a viable and attractive prospect to many.
With the birth of the Internet age, ebooks are becoming vastly popular, with such devices as the Amazon Kindle and the iPhone allowing for cheap, easy to access reading available at any time, anywhere. Along with ebooks, digital magazines with embedded videos and interactivity are changing the way we read, explore and interpret publications today. These digital copies are keeping costs low but the possible potential to destroy the humble book is huge. (NPR staff, 2012)
Despite their DIY ethic and anti-establishment nature, this recent development has still affected the zine with e-zines fast becoming an attractive alternative. It's easy to see how many react to this electronic adaptation as a threat to the original paper based zine. With little to no budget necessary, the potential of an international audience and still the same albeit screen based creative control and aesthetic, digitalizing a zine is a valid, desired option by many.
However, many argue that this threat isn't one to worry about, that the nature of the physical entity of a book will never die out and I'm inclined to agree. However convenient, cheap and easy, digital reproductions of publications seem, to hold a physical book in your hand along with the smell and texture of the product, is something that will never lose its value. (Amy Spencer, 2005)
Defined by Michele Knobel & Colin Lankshear, in their article DIY Media: Creating, sharing and learning with new technologies (2010), they state how the zine culture maintains authenticity by embracing the DIY ethos that has been so fundamental throughout the years. "Increasingly, zines are published on the internet (sometimes referred to as "ezines"). Conventional paper zine production now also often involves computers in the production process. Although today's zinesters typically retain the DIY ethos and the look and feel of original zines: for example, using computers to key and mark up the text, then cutting and pasting texts and images onto each page after they have been printed, and then scanning or copying these pages as they are." This process is an example that despite the modern technology available to amateur self publishers, the DIY ethos is one so strongly believed and embraced that it has created its own aesthetic relevant from the digital to the analog respectively.
BBC News. (2011). Jobs go at Western Morning News and Plymouth Herald. Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-15778088. Last accessed 25th March 2013.
URL pulse. (n.d.). Thisisplymouth.co.uk. Available: http://urlpulse.co/www.thisisplymouth.co.uk#visitors. Last accessed 13th March 2013.
NPR staff. (2012). Change Is The Only Constant In Today's Publishing Industry. Available: http://www.npr.org/2012/12/27/167640733/change-is-the-only-constant-in-todays-publishing-industry. Last accessed 25th March 2013.
Amy Spencer (2005). DIY: the rise of lo-fi culture. US, UK: Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd.p57
Michele Knobel & Colin Lankshear (2010). DIY Media: Creating, sharing and learning with new technologies. 3rd ed. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc.. p7.
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