The growth and expansion of digital news media has led to widespread debate regarding the future of print publications, particularly that of pop culture magazines. Glossy issues of Entertainment Weekly were once the primary source for lifestyle and celebrity news. Yet, after three decades on newsstands, the American entertainment magazine announced in February of this year that they will cease producing print editions, shifting to a fully digital platform.
Though this migration may come as a surprise to many, it is only natural to news organizations that understand the importance of reaching the consumer where they are, and progressively more are online.
Similarly to their newspaper counterparts, magazines have been greatly affected by the birth of the internet. An analysis by Press Gazette found that U.S. magazine subscription and single-copy sales are declining. Print subscription circulations have decreased by “7% over the past two years, from 125 million to 116 million, while single-copy sales are down 11%, from 3.2 million to 2.8 million in the first half of [2021]”. This downward trend of magazine sales and readership coincides with Americans’ growing preference for accessing pop culture news digitally.
The emergence of online media through its various forms like social media networks and blogs has changed how society receives information. Nowadays, younger generations mainly gain news-related content through Twitter, TikTok or Instagram. A new Pew Research Center Study examining news consumption on social media reports that 33% of TikTok users say they “regularly receive their news on the app.”
Jessica Leon, a freshman at Baruch College, has taken notice of this shift away from traditional media and reflects on the diminished success of mainstream magazines. She says, “magazines are an outdated source of pop culture news because now there are multiple different outlets where you can get it. I don’t believe magazines are selling like how they used to, a few years ago, due to the social media platforms that we have now. [You] don’t need to pay for it and it’s easier to look for the news you are searching for.”
In comparison to print publications, online media delivers a constant stream of information that can be accessed in a matter of seconds. Since a standard magazine can range in price from about five to twenty dollars apiece, consumers are reluctant to pay the cost of a single copy or subscription when the same information on the internet is abundant and free. In a digitally informed society, there is recurring speculation on the place for print.
Pop culture can be considered a core facet of American society because it offers a unique nation-wide culture that entertains us. Flashy headlines and juicy columns have always had a market.
Pop culture also denotes relevancy. The immediacy of the internet grants consumers the ability to stay up to date with pop culture’s rate of change in real time.
Tangible mainstream magazines are not adaptable like the internet. Special interest magazines are targeted to certain audiences, whereas online content is amorphous with the ability to appeal to any potential interest of the user from any demographic. After time progresses and pop culture stories eventually become common knowledge, the same print issues are no longer as culturally relevant. By that point, society has collectively moved on to talk about the next fresh and exciting headline.
People has been a long-standing weekly celebrity magazine. You may know them from publishing celeb-heavy special issues like Sexiest Man Alive‘ and Best and Worst Dressed. The publication distinguishes itself from other entertainment magazines by publishing human interest stories and refraining from printing pure gossip. Following Entertainment Weekly, employees at People are supposedly bracing themselves for the magazine to also go completely online based on rumored moves to slash costs. The magazine once had a circulation of 3.73 million with revenue expected to top $1.5 billion. In 2009, People had the largest audience of any U.S. magazine with a readership of 46.6 million, yet they lost their leading position in 2018 with a considerable decrease in readership down to 35.9 million, surrendering the title to AARP.
Although the preference for obtaining pop culture news is skewed more toward the web than print magazines, online immediacy means that inconclusive partial news stories are published. Social media and the internet can resemble a newsroom in the way anchors go straight to air with current events updating viewers on any new information that arises. However, this comes with a great deal of inaccuracy and misleading material. In the age of sifting through clickbait titles, many question the credibility and quality of pop culture journalism online. Consumers view traditional media as more trustworthy and reliable compared to online media. In a survey commissioned by Two Sides, it was concluded that print magazines are rated as the single most trusted news source with 71% of people believing that reading news in print provided them a deeper understanding of the story.
The transition from a print past to a digital future is prompting magazine publishers to devise new strategies to attract people to their content. The extension of brands beyond the print version of magazines is seen as a promising change to assure a sustainable future. It is clear that pop culture news consumption habits have changed in the past few years, but the reliability of print magazines may be a characteristic valued over the high speed nature of online news.
