Magazine Publishing Innovation: Two Case Studies on Managing Creativity

Simon Das

doi:10.3390/publications4020015

Abstract

This paper aims to highlight a link between publishing business innovation and how editors manage creativity in the digital era. Examining the changing industrial and historical business context for the U.K. magazine publishing industry, two case studies are analyzed as representatives of different ends of the publishing company spectrum (one a newly launched magazine published by a major, the other an independent ‘magazine’ website start-up). Qualitative data analysis on publishing innovation and managing creativity is presented as a springboard for further research on magazine media management.

Highlights

Professional magazine media is a topic widely written about within scholarly and industrial commentary, according to magazine publishing economist and historian Howard Cox,“what has been largely overlooked in the vast literature surrounding the industry has been a focus on the magazine companies themselves as businesses” [1]
Adding to the new interdisciplinary field of media management, which is said by Kung [3] to require more “micro level” analysis on companies, the aim of this modest study is to act as a springboard for further research into consumer magazine publishing innovation and media management during times of structural and technological change
Having validated the two cases selected on the basis of proxy indicators as innovators, four areas, or themes, were associated with managing creativity in magazines

Summary

Introduction

Professional magazine media is a topic widely written about within scholarly and industrial commentary, according to magazine publishing economist and historian Howard Cox,“what has been largely overlooked in the vast literature surrounding the industry has been a focus on the magazine companies themselves as businesses” [1]. Professional magazine media is a topic widely written about within scholarly and industrial commentary, according to magazine publishing economist and historian Howard Cox,. Adding to the new interdisciplinary field of media management, which is said by Kung [3] to require more “micro level” analysis on companies (given the plethora of industry-level discourses on technology, regulation, and consumption), the aim of this modest study is to act as a springboard for further research into consumer magazine publishing innovation (excluding trade, business-to-business, or academic publishing) and media management during times of structural and technological change. Starting with a review of the industrial context of magazines past and present, the paper aims to draw generalizable conclusions about contemporary magazine publishers via qualitative, thematically driven case studies of approaches by editors/publishers of distinctly different contemporary U.K. magazine innovators in the digitally transformational media marketplace.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion