Updates

The second day of the virtual Mapping the Magazine Conference has started. Mary Hogarth chaired the first panel of the day entitled “Debating News Magazines.”

The second panel of the conference was entitled “Business Models.” This panel consisted of three speakers; Mary Hogarth, Boris Krywicki and Heather Lamb.

Mary’s presentation focused around sustainability in specialist publishing through comparing both a British and an American writing magazine. This research was conducted using semi-structured interviews with the editors of Writing Magazine and Writer’s Digest. It was found that Writer’s Digest has a much higher proposition across its provision and a significantly more engaged audience. In addition, in terms of brand ethos, Writer’s Digest’s USP is more authoritative and innovative.

Boris’ research analysed all the editorials by Ivan Gaudé, publishing director of Presse Non Stop, that dealt with the Presstalis crisis. This was done in order to determine the Reader Model built and to inventory how these editorials insist on the dependence of Canard PC on its readers. It was concluded that the Presstalis saga seems to be set to continue well into the future.

The final panellist for this discussion was Heather Lamb, who explored the factors that help to drive digital success for magazines. It is essential that magazines have an ability to innovate. Heather discussed the three factors which are key to digital success; people, structure and brand. It was also concluded that behind the screens, for a magazine to be successful on a digital scale, it is important to find the right people who will support a culture of teamwork and collaborate.

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Today marks the start of the 2020 Mapping the Magazine conference, hosted by Lusófona University in Portugal. It is the sixth edition of the conference, with it being founded 15 years ago by Tim Holmes of Cardiff University. Previously the event has been hosted at universities in Cardiff, Sydney, Chicago and now, Lisbon, virtually.

The conference kicked off with an opening speech, chaired by Carla Rodrigues Cardoso. Carla explained that despite the conference being virtual this year, the next three days will strive to “preserve MtM6 spirit.”

Over the next three days, nine panels, 28 papers and scholars from all over the world will come together to share their knowledge surrounding magazine studies. Joining Carla in the opening session was Professor Mário Moutinho, José Gomes Pinto, Luís Cláudio Ribeiro, Maria José Brites and founder, Tim Holmes to say a few words and their thanks to the organisers of the event.

James Hewes, CEO of FIPP, gave an insightful keynote surrounding the key trends in the media- post coronavirus crisis. He explained how “coronavirus is accelerating trends that were already there.” Whilst the platform “Zoom” have seen a 253% increase in their share price since January 1st, a negative impact has been the decline in newspaper advertising revenue which could see many towns and cities without a local news outlet after this crisis. This is a global phenomenon and James informed how a critical message for media companies is to ensure they have “multiple revenue streams.”

Up next is a presentation about Magazine Trends, chaired by Teresa Mendes Flores.