The Future of the Magazine Form: Digital Transformation, Print Continuity

Abstract

The advent of the World Wide Web in the 1990s marked the true dawn of the Digital Age, in part because the disruptions it fostered have clearly had profound implications across the entire information ecosystem.And while it can be argued that the business of magazines has suffered somewhat less from the paradigm tremors than other media, for many magazine professionals that may, at best, be lukewarm comfort.Since the mid-1990s, existing magazines have experimented with using the web as a companion to the print product.In addition, new business models are being tested, of which the most important result may be the impact on the production processes.With all this technologically driven change, a telling question comes easily to mind: whither the magazine form?I have on offer a half-dozen ways to answer the question.