Chapter 1. LaunchPad for Media and Culture 11e

Digital Update Activity: What Magazine Would you Launch?

Digital Update Activity: What Magazine Would you Launch?
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You must read each slide, and complete any questions on the slide, in sequence.

Magazines play a key role in our social and cultural lives: more than twenty thousand commercial, alternative, and noncommercial magazines are published in the United States annually, and they reflect and construct portraits of American life, catalogue our daily events and experiences, and often show us the latest products.

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Types of Magazines

As we learned in Media & Culture ( 303), magazines fall under three types:

  1. Consumer magazines, which carry a host of general consumer-product ads (e.g., Magnolia Journal, Cosmopolitan, ESPN The Magazine). These are the magazines most people are familiar with.
  2. Business or trade magazines, which include ads for products and services for various occupational groups (e.g., Massage Therapy Journal, The National Dipper Magazine, Tire Business).
  3. Farm magazines, which contain ads for agricultural products and farming lifestyles (e.g., Goat Rancher, Iowa Farmer Today, American Seed).

Come up with a new idea for a consumer magazine launch.

Divide into groups of three or four and brainstorm to develop a specialized magazine audience that you don’t think has been targeted yet. Consider gender, age, ethnic group, or a unique interest area. Why would your idea be successful in today’s publishing marketplace? What kinds of products would your magazine advertise? If you launched a nonprofit magazine that was based on a subscriber base, who would your subscribers be? How would you connect subscribers to your magazine? Once you’re done scheming, share your magazine ideas with the entire class and vote on the top three you think would most likely achieve financial success.

Use the space below for brainstorming.

Question

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Divide into groups of three or four and brainstorm to develop a specialized magazine audience that you don’t think has been targeted yet. Consider gender, age, ethnic group, or a unique interest area. Why would your idea be successful in today’s publishing marketplace? What kinds of products would your magazine advertise? If you launched a nonprofit magazine that was based on a subscriber base, who would your subscribers be? How would you connect subscribers to your magazine? Once you’re done scheming, share your magazine ideas with the entire class and vote on the top three you think would most likely achieve financial success.

Broaden your idea of magazine publishing.

Now focus on the other two magazine advertising categories: Business or Trade, and Farm.

Use the space below to answer the following questions.

Question

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Individually or in groups of three to four, think of a business or trade area (be as unusual as you want) and search online to see if you can find a magazine that serves this area. Chances are you’ll be able to find an extremely specialized magazine targeting something as specific as Tarot card reading (sure enough, there is Tarot World Magazine and AstroLogic Magazine). In the box below, identify one to three existing, extremely targeted magazine business or trade publications.

Question

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Turn to farming magazines and brainstorm various farming practices. (If you are not familiar with farming, think of natural food you eat and work back to where it came from.) Look for magazines that offer articles and information on this subcategory of farming. What do you find?

3. Share your findings with your class.