Publishing is the process of making information available for the public to see. It is usual for authors to be their own publishers with the changing of the Media Industry, and includes the stages of development, acquisition,
copyediting, graphic design, production; printing (& electronic equivalents of printing), marketing and distribution of both, 'concrete objects' (such as Newspapers, Books and Magazines) and electronic media (such as Software and musical/literary works.)
How Is The Publishing Industry Organised Today?
Media consolidation refers to the amount of people who control or own a medium, and the quantity of people who are exposed to this medium. This causes a modern day problem within the Media Industry and an oligopoly, as the whole industry is controlled by only a small amount of owners, which limits the amount of variety within the millions of magazines sold each year. This is a problem, as this means the media are able to control the audience in believing or thinking as they want them to, making them easy to brainwash, by pretending to be different, when all magazines are formulaic to attract the audience. So why do we buy the magazines? Because if we have no idea as to what contents the magazine holds, we wouldn't buy it; we need to know what to expect from a magazine: "pleasure is delivered from repetition and difference". This suggests that although the audience need different contents within the magazine to prevent it from becoming boring, it cannot be totally different as they would not know what to expect from the magazine, and therefore: not buy it. Repetition is also a way to get extra money from the buyer, as they know what sells, and what doesn't. This is an easy to way to see what the target audience want from these magazines.
However, this means that the amount of information is also limited, and would also be repeated in other magazines of the same genre. Not only would this make any private information shared to other magazines to copy, it would limit the chance of the buyer picking up your magazine, not one also very
similar with the informat
ion. This can be seen by looking at the IPC Brand. This is an extremely large company, that owns over 85 brands of Media magazines etc. Because of this, their products are fairly similar. For example; IPC owns both 'Look' and 'Now' magazine. By looking at the magazines closer, we can see that the layout of the magazines are similar, and the stories are also repeated; Angelina Jolie's suspected 'affair' with a teacher. The only difference with this story in the magazines, is that in Look, it is the main sell, whereas in Now, it's a smaller story.
By
looking at the IPC website, we can get a better look at the magazines which they publish. These magazines emphasise that due to the lack of variety within the publishers of the Media industry, the genre of magazines reflect this. For example, IPC publish similar magazines such as 'Cycle Sport', 'Cycling Active' and 'Cycling Weekly', which undoubtedly, are about the same thing; which emphasises the problem within the Media Industry; that the magazines published are becoming more and more generic, as the publishers are more interested in profit, as opposed to originality. My Magazine
For my magazine, I will still be using a mainstream publisher, as I believe this would give my magazine more advertisement oppertunities due to the larger budget available. This budget will also mean I'd be able to cover larger, and more expensive bands within my magazine, which would also attract my target audience.
However, to prevent it from becoming generic and repetitive, I will also cover smaller bands and artists within my magazine, which other mainstream magazines may not have done; not only giving the band more exposure, but something to pull in the individual audience members. I also believe that Mainstream publishing will be best for my magazine, as my magazine will cover both, Rock and Metal genres, which adds to the possible target audience for my magazine.
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