Internet vs. Print and Fashion

[Faust]

So, I think this is a very relevant debate that we should be having. Everyone decries the print media dying and online media taking over. While such statements are undoubtedly far-fetched, there is no doubt that the landscape is changing. However, in the fashion industry in particular, the PR companies and designers themselves are very slow to embrace the Internet media and the print magazine is still king. I would like to know your thoughts on this subject. Here is the way I see it.

Internet Pros:

1) Democratization of the media - fashion print magazines no longer hold the public and designers at their mercy. Internet has spawned a samizdat industry that is thriving. Even the boutiques are now doing interviews with designers.

2) Speed - there is no way print can match the speed of delivery of the Internet. For the industry that thrives on change, this should be a boon.

Internet Cons:

1) Democratization of the media - everyone and their mother now think they are a journalist, which results in lowering the quality of information and sheer information noise.

Print Pros:

1) Elitism - that's right, I said it. There is something about having the ability and the drive to put together a print magazine - it shows determination and will and a desire to be taken seriously.

2) Physicality - no iPad will replace the beauty of a physical magazine or a book, the quality of images, etc. The "everything on the Internet" adage does not hold true in the case of the fashion media. There is a ton of content that is not available on the Internet.

This is a quick sketch, and I am sure I left out a lot. Please share your thoughts!

[eat me]

Alright, let's get it going. I'll follow the model, as I think it would be easier to follow and get a constructive discussion going that way. I encourage whoever is posting here to do the same.

This is the view from my perspective, as a designer, but also a young generation with passion for new tech.

Internet Pros

1. I'll agree to the democracy aspect, I'd say accessibility - if you've got an idea, and determination, you can make beautiful things happen for a relatively low amount of investment.

It's basically an awesome platform to showcase your talent, whatever it may be, to the widest audience possible and for free in most cases.

2. I'll also agree to speed - there's no competition.

3. I'd also argue the ease of use (easy to find, look, discover, shop, explore, etc) and most importantly - choice+selectiveness.

I choose what I want to see/read/buy/..., and a lot of the times how as well. I can read just the article I am interested in, no need to look at 10 ads before it and skip through superficial page-filling content with no purpose.

4. Social media. Very powerful tool. Integration of social media is the future.

5. Sharing. Internet is the perfect blender, bringing different people from different walks of life together, under a banner of some interest and then sharing their differences, thus educating and promoting diversity. Like this forum - fashion, city guides, culture, cinema, architecture. Another tech forum I'm in - tech, media, social networks, politics, cars. So there's plenty of sharing going on, people are getting much more open minded, I've seen the talk about copyright, which floats here somewhere, discussed at a tech blog, and people really were interested in how it actually is from the fashion side, and from that they were intrigued about fashion itself, and that's quite something from people who mostly wear "comfortable" clothing and typically shop at GAP or RL Polo or something.

I think it the scale of this cultural exchange that is possible now is all thanks to web.

6. Interaction. Ability to go to links, pages, videos, extra content on the fly can be very helpful, when done thoughtful and with purpose, and not as a fad.

Internet cons

1. Again, good point. Everyone is a pro now, everyone has an opinion. There are 10 year old bloggers getting invites, and there are "oh noooes look @ that its awful/woooow i love it soo cute" crticics, and a lot of other random people in between. But even though they existed before web 2.0, and even though they now have a platform to express themselves, people are still quite good to filter through opinions without substance. Plus, with established writers, critics, photographers, etc eventually migrating to the net, the quality bar will raise and the initial boom created by the enthusiasm of exploring new possibilities of self-expression will tone down, and take the one-off 1000-click wonders of the radar.

Also, you could argue that actually these people represent the real consumers and their real opinions. Even big houses now are trying to reconnect with actual consumers on the street.

2. Choice. People can sometimes be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff available, and if they cannot sufficiently manage it, it can be a downer for them.

3. Dependability. Particularly when it comes to fashion media, a lot of the content is not actually generated independently, but taken from print. This will take time to change.

Print pros

1. Feel. Sometimes you do want to hold an amazingly crafted book or a special magazine, you also want to actually physically own it, as it becomes more than just a compilation of content, but an object in itself.

2. Editing. You know that it's edited, and that hopefully care has been taken as to what goes in, and what's better left out.

Print cons

1. It's just not worth it anymore. Information in mainstream magazines can be found quicker, more precise, more of it and probably free on the web. That's why it's time for them to die and move on to the digital format. With paper magazines you just seem to create a lot of waste - it's not like you're going to treasure the latest issue of Vogue. I'm not even inclined to look, it will bore me to no end. But if offered digitally and for a cheaper price, I might just have a look quickly, and discard if uninteresting.

2. Cost. Paying to be swamped in ads and see stuff that can be seen for free - no thanks.

3. Not as eco-friendly as digital.

4. Inconvenient. You are reading an article in the magazine on your iPad, found something interesting, googled it, sent an e-mail about it to someone you know, got a review on it from your favorite review site, etc. Print is not as convenient and instant.

*

a lot to think about, all in all.

[ronin]

Just a couple of quick thoughts from a reader perspective. Didn't think this through, and I'll probably be back later.

- I feel like printed magazines are totally worth it when they feature some in-depth articles, with some information I can't find rummaging through the net. I feel much more comfortable reading those on paper than on a screen. I like being able to flip throug pages and I also prefer a material format for quality pictures. And I like to store them physically like I would do with books. For quick news, I prefer a web format.

- Internet allows to stay in touch almost at real-time rate. You don't wait untill next month for a piece of news. Updating information is easier, you can add a paragraph at the end/beggining of an article to add or correct information, whereas in printed press you make the correction a month later and most importantly in a different issue, hence a different place, decorrelated from the first article.

- Advertising, leading to lack of liability. Paying for a magazine allows (or is supposed to allow) a certain freedom margin to its editors. Free internet websites seem to be entirely supported by advertising (unless they are supported by a company/another printed magazine for advertisement purpose). Same is true for free printed press (and even more problematic because of printing and material costs). How can you trust information or an insight on something when you don't know if the author has been paid to write specifically something good about it.
Unless you don't pay the writers, and either a) they are professionnals who choose to devote their personal time (can you even do that, legally?), or b) they are passionnate people who try to communicate their passion and take the necessary caution not to pretend they are journalists or gurus, or c) they are your grand father and you little sister. But maybe your grandfather writes really well and takes awesome pictures, so how do you who writes what. It's easy to get confused by abusive information, and with popularity now apparent it's easy to become lazy and follow a certain person's advice because everyone seems to agree. This is strongly correlated with the ability sometimes given to react directly to an article by commenting. Multilying points of view sounded like a great way to avoid this kind of laziness, but if you want to be lazy you can just rally the majority's opinion. Even when the majority is 12-year-olds and their history teacher. With printed press, you're alone with your magazine; it may dictate you what to think, but you are free not to agree and nobody else influences your reflexion.
Sure you can always double check and develop a critic mind; make that a responsibility for the reader.
And of course some printed press is entirely dictated by advertisers, but then it's also the reader's responsibility not to pay 5$ for a giant advertisement pannel.

[ProfMonnitoff]

Loads of things have already been mentioned, here are some additional thoughts. I don't like discussing the quality of content. It's easy to say that the internet contains loads of garbage because everybody is given a voice, but it's easy to forget that print media contains just as much junk (whether you're reading News, Fashion, or anything else really). There are some great magazines, but there is also loads of great writing online.

Print Pro / Internet Con: Permanence.
Once something has been printed, it's there to stay unless of course a specific copy is destroyed or lost, and in that case a new copy can be bought. On the other hand, the internet is depending on web servers, image hosts, and so on. Everybody knows the frustration of following a link in an old article to find that the page no longer exists, reading an old forums thread with missing pictures because an image host bit the dust, or being linked to a youtube video that has been taken down. If online content is deleted at the source, it is no longer accessible to anybody.

Internet Pro: Long Tail.
Because it's entirely possible to put content on the internet without paying a dime, pretty much everything exists. Every niche is filled somewhere, you just need to find the relevant site/community (I'd disagree with Faust in that regard - obviously not everything that has been printed is available online, but that's not the point). If it does not yet exist, you can start it. Obviously this means that there is a lot of junk, but there are also many treasures to be discovered. You can't have one without the other.

Another aspect to this is that with traditional media, niche publications are usually impossible to find for laypeople because they are only printed in small runs. There is no such thing as a print run online - the content is available for everyone to view.

Print Pro: History.
The internet has really only been accessible to most people for perhaps 10 years, and wide popularity of online conversations only arrived with social networks maybe five years ago. Thus, unless it was intentionally brought over, the internet lacks content from before that era. Of course, this problem will reduce over time.

Internet Pro: Diverse capabilities.
The internet can do print, audio, video, pictures, interactivity, etc., and it can switch pretty much seamlessly between them. The iPad and other similar devices are trying to bridge this gap, but they're still computers. It's not really print media if it's on the iPad - after all, every 'magazine' that can be read on the iPad also has an online counterpart. Perhaps the difference is that for some reason, publishers think that unlike on computers, customers are willing to pay for media on tablets. I think they won't pay any more than they do on current computers once the novelty has worn off.

Plus, nobody has done a good magazine on the iPad yet.

[ProfMonnitoff]

- Advertising, leading to lack of liability. Paying for a magazine allows (or is supposed to allow) a certain freedom margin to its editors. Free internet websites seem to be entirely supported by advertising (unless they are supported by a company/another printed magazine for advertisement purpose). Same is true for free printed press (and even more problematic because of printing and material costs). How can you trust information or an insight on something when you don't know if the author has been paid to write specifically something good about it.
Unless you don't pay the writers, and either a) they are professionnals who choose to devote their personal time (can you even do that, legally?), or b) they are passionnate people who try to communicate their passion and take the necessary caution not to pretend they are journalists or gurus, or c) they are your grand father and you little sister. But maybe your grandfather writes really well and takes awesome pictures, so how do you who writes what. It's easy to get confused by abusive information, and with popularity now apparent it's easy to become lazy and follow a certain person's advice because everyone seems to agree. This is strongly correlated with the ability sometimes given to react directly to an article by commenting. Multilying points of view sounded like a great way to avoid this kind of laziness, but if you want to be lazy you can just rally the majority's opinion. Even when the majority is 12-year-olds and their history teacher. With printed press, you're alone with your magazine; it may dictate you what to think, but you are free not to agree and nobody else influences your reflexion.
Sure you can always double check and develop a critic mind; make that a responsibility for the reader.
And of course some printed press is entirely dictated by advertisers, but then it's also the reader's responsibility not to pay 5$ for a giant advertisement pannel.

I still don't buy this. Print media is just as, if not much more, reliable on its advertisers. It is unheard of a blogger not publishing something because it might piss their advertisers off.

Also, it's possible to run a blog on google's services without any adverts whatsoever. I can't think of any cases where google has censored any content - blogs with adult content are marked as such, but not deleted.

[sam_tem]

i'm too lazy to ever form real opinions, but just remember that soon enough economics will demand the death of print media. any fashion magazine that is worth a grain of salt today is already overpriced and i only pick up purple/bon/encens to feed my nerdy collector addiction.

although they may be more convenient than looking at mags on an ipad (i'd say a computer image is just as enticing as a glossy magazine these days), their distribution numbers will slowly dwindle until it's just too cost prohibitive for people to warrant purchasing them (didn't they all already raise prices in the middle of this great depression?). look at some/things: great mag but it costs more than a phaidon book and that's hard to justify no matter how much effort was sewn into it.

just the thought of being able to keep all my magazines on one thumb drive (instead of buying a bookshelf for them) tickles my fancy and i think i'll even check for torrents of old i-D mags tonight.

i think of how much effort we put into trying to reduce the amount of printed papers in businesses these days, and i think the green movement will definitely help persuade people to get away from printed media as the whole world begins to get connected.

[whitney]

i think with print you can get more creative with photos..in the sense of what ink you use, paper or type of, effects that are more apparent on paper then screen and agree with ronin in that sense. with the articles and photos, content-wise of course.

but having it on the internet means more eco-friendly and as someone who has to riffle through mounds of paperbacks, hardbacks and magazines--trying to decide which to keep and which to donate/recycle because i've accumulated too much.. it would be nice to have it on my hard drive..easier to navigate and organize too.

i don't think digital can ever replace paper completely but i wish, they'd get rid of paper catalogs, paper menus, newspaper so forth..and just make it all digital, accessible via internet.

[endersgame]

i don't read fashion magazines, i only look at how they are printed. you can pour over a matchprint and get skintones and reds (the hardest color to print) and get very close to the original film. it takes a lot of time, money, but you can't fuck up a big press run..

when you publish online, you don't really take any of that into consideration. it's like save in sRGB and i hope your 10 year old CRT is as well calibrated as mine..

[dontbecruel]

^
This is the advantage of Apple's horrible closed software/hardware business model. A publisher knows exactly what something will look like on every iPad/iPhone. I think machines like these or their descendents will replace newspapers at the very least. And people will get used to the idea of paying for the content eventually.

[ProfMonnitoff]

^ This is only because the platform is so young. In a year or two the next iPad comes out with a bigger/better screen, and all the sudden the content doesn't look the same across all iPads.

Even though I see many advantages to online media, I keep finding myself buying loads of print journals/newspapers/magazines. I like having a stack of unread stuff laying around so that when I'm in the mood, I can just open something and flip through it, perhaps taking the time to read a long article if it seems interesting enough. You can't do that with the internet.

With regards to online publishing and the whole Apple vs Adobe thing, I really don't want either of them to win. It's the music thing all over again. Every publisher wants to sell their books and magazines with some kind of DRM, but no consumer wants the things they buy to stop working when they move to a different platform. Music distribution is now in DRM-free mp3s. It seems inevitable that publishing will eventually become DRM-free as well, using ePub or a similar format. Until then, I'm certainly not paying for anything.

[vero]

Ok, I'm too interested in this topic to remain a lurker, so here goes. Lots of good points already. Some thoughts in no particular order:

Democratization of media is happening in print, not just digital media, with cheaper print costs and print-on-demand technology. Anyone can start their own print magazine with no seed money using MagCloud or Lulu. Getting readership, now that's the problem but hasn't it always been?

With any type of media, cross-platform and backwards compatibility is an issue. Even once a standard is set, newer technologies compete and render old formats obsolete like VHS vs Beta --> DVDs vs Laserdisc --> Blu-ray vs HD-dvd. I'm not sure if digital media, specifically periodic content / magazines, will go the way of movies (i.e. competing technologies vie to be next in line for dominance but the track remains fairly linear) or video games (multiple platforms with some content being cross-platform compatible while others are geared toward the specific advantages of one specific platform like wii).

As a consumer, I appreciate the tactile experience of print media (more so high quality large format, not so much magazines), but digital media is just so convenient. I buy a fair number of books, and I believe there will always be a place for those - giant volumes with pretty pictures that are beautiful objects in themselves. But eventually, I expect print will decline and books will become more expensive niche items like vinyl records today.

For fashion, ultimately it comes down to the look and feel of the clothing itself. I'm not sure even the nicest coffee table book will capture the beauty of clothing better than a hi-def multimedia presentation including 360 degree views and videos showing fluid movement along with soundtrack. Digital isn't giving us that yet, but I bet it will.

My questions about digital overtaking print is not whether it will happen or even why (I assume it will eventually mostly due to convenience, maybe not in the next five years but certainly in the next 20), but how will it affect the way we consume media and relate to it? And how will it affect our relationship with fashion? Mainstream fashion is already moving at breakneck speeds, and the proliferation of digital media will only speed it up. Is that sustainable? The other day I read a comment that you know a trend is "out" when you see it in a magazine. In my heart of hearts, I hope that this pace is unsustainable and the trendwhores give up, but I know that's just wishful thinking.

Does a static magazine format even make sense in a digital world or is constantly updated content the new mode? To me, static implies accountability which means editing and higher quality. Many news articles I read online begin as vague crap that get updated as facts come in. It's annoying to come after the fact and read a string of updates instead of a single cohesive article, but I like linear presentation. I prefer full albums over singles, books over periodicals. This is possible with digital media, I just don't know if it will be done.

As far as environmentalism goes, I wouldn't be so quick to believe that digital is better. I thought this article was interesting: "How Green Is My iPad?"

[Faust]

My concern with digital is that it's keeping us at home more and more and gets rid of a very valuable tool - browsing. Most of my good music I got by browsing the huge selection of CDs that I could listen to at Virgin Records in U.Square. Because everyone downloads music now, those stores are closed and that experience is gone. I am not the one to keep myself on one thousand email lists - a lot of times I have no idea that a new album came out, so I really appreciated having that option. With digital - browsing is impossible. Same goes for movies - as shitty as the Blockbuster is, at least I could see physically what's been out and not needing to remember a movie I wanted to see half a year ago once it's out on DVD. The Netflix browsing capabilities are a bad joke. So, in essence, my cultural universe has NARROWED instead of being expanded as the digital revolution has promised. Same thing with magazines - I have a choice of flipping through one before I buy. I don't see these kind of previewing capabilities for digital.

[philip nod]

funny you say that
I've found my clothing /designer interests narrowing largely due to sz and all of its easy access.

[sam_tem]

Faust, be careful to not let nostalghia be a guiding force here. I of course didn't have access to a place like virgin records in NYC, but i recall that even back in the mid-1990's when things like allmusic.com were getting started up that i could never find any of the music i wanted to listen to in a retail store and would always have to go online. Yes, you can no longer browse at a store like you did previously, but now you can easily browse for a blog/review site (many with complete downloads for sampling) that is run by someone with similar interests that can expand your horizons much further, quicker, and easier than browsing in a store ever could. This trade-off is a very easy choice for me to make (not to mention more environmentally and time friendly). I also think about how the majority of music that SZers probably dabble in wouldn't even exist without the internet having been able to open up every niche of music from any point in history to a whole generation of people, with the help of illegal downloading of course, eager to push new boundaries and collect all these divergent tastes into new sounds. without the rise of the internet, there would be no sublime frequencies, mississipi records, and other smaller labels entirely devoted to plundering the history of music for forgotten gems. i didn't really grow up in the 80's, but that whole mixtape/obscure mail-order magazine culture sounded like it would have been a pain in the butt to navigate and find good bands in.

this may not have been as big of deal if you were living in a place like NYC that already catered to every taste imaginable, but could you imagine having to grow up in middle america and how narrow the world of music must have seemed. you literally sucked/lived off the teet of mtv.

I had the same problem with movies, blockuster/hollywood would never stock the things i wanted to watch. Having grown up in a suburb i didn't have access to the kinds of places that served the art-house oriented crowd, libraries didn't stock movies back then either, so there's just no way i could have watched even a simple Godard movie without having to blindly buy it. i could never even find that movie Suburbia in the suburbs back then. now you can just check out rottentomatoes for a list of every movie currently playing anywhere in america or for a complete list of every movie being released on dvd that week and then go to netflix and add any of the interesting ones to your qeue.

it's not that our ability to browse has been inhibited in any way, but just that a trip to the store no longers holds that grand moment of being able to find a rare gem (say, an old caroliner record) and finally savor being able to touch it and perhaps thats because now there's probably 20 of them being sold on ebay at any given point in time. it may not mean as much when we just have it digitally on our ipods, but that's probably healthier in the end rather than attaching emotions to inanimate objects that can easily be stolen from our grasps.

same with magazines, the vast majority of people in this country can't just simply go to the store and browse through decent magazines because they were never there in the first place.

[Faust]

Point well taken, sam_tem - let's add accessibility to the Internet pros - it's a huge one. I am however, not being nostalgic here - I don't want the former in favor of the latter - I want both :-)