How is magazine publishing part of consumer culture?
Introduction
This essay discusses two publications in relation to specific aspects of consumer culture. The magazines under consideration are: Mojo and Word. They are both specialist music titles that appeal to a particular demographic. Editor Phil Alexander describes Mojo’s audience as:
‘Baby Boomers who allowed themselves a Friday afternoon spending spree in HMV[and] a new generation of post-Britpop music zealots’ [i]
(Alexander, 2002)
Mark Ellen, founder and Creative Director of Word, describes their readers as:
‘A bunch of discriminating, mainly over-30 readers who are not persuaded by the current offerings in the men’s and music magazine markets.’ [ii]
(Music Week, 2002)
A useful starting point might be an attempt to define consumer culture. Unfortunately there is no simple definition to cite. Different views have evolved over time; some attempt straightforward description whereas others adopt a critical stance. Argument about environmental and cultural perspectives has been underway since the 1970s, and the ‘post-modernists’ have challenged many of the previously accepted definitions. Therefore, rather than attempting to create a simple definition of a complex subject, this essay considers particular arguments that emerge from the various definitions.
The first consideration is the context for these magazines. Are they part of the ‘mass-media’ operating in a homogeneous consumer culture or should the focus be on the individual readers?
There are conflicting views about whether there is such a thing as a mass consumer society. The different positions are illustrated by, for example, Ewen[iii] (1976) who proposed the concept of consumerism as the ‘mass participation in the values of the mass-industrial market’. Antonio Gramsci coined the term ‘Fordism’ to describe the industrial mass production approach introduced by the Ford Motor Company. This model required specialised skills associated with discrete operations on an assembly line and the ‘intensification, homogenization and de-skilling of labour, under a strong hierarchical organization.’ [iv] (Desmond, 2003 pp 38)
A modernist perspective is provided by Elias[v] (1994) who suggests that consumer society consists of a collection of rational individuals rather than a mass market with similar behaviour. Maffesoli[vi] (1996) challenges this view and argues that contemporary consumer societies consist of many small, changing communities of people (’neo-tribes’) with shared emotional bonds.
These views suggest that society can either be considered as a whole, as a collection of groups or as individuals.
Featherstone[vii] (1991) also proposes three perspectives on consumer culture. The first suggests that consumerism requires an expansion of capitalist commodity production, which tends to echo the mass-market perspective. Second, a sociological perspective, that people use goods in different ways in order to create social bonds or distinctions, which supports the view of groups in consumer society. Finally, he views consumption as something that provides emotional pleasure through the satisfaction of dreams or desires, which has parallels with the individualistic perspective.
Life-style
The definitions of reader audiences above suggest that the publishers of these magazines might see their readers as groups with similar life-styles or aspirations.
The concept of a magazine, where multiple copies of the same publication are produced, would seem to support the idea of groups of consumers and possibly a mass market but contradict the notion of the consumer as an individual. However, this assumes that the magazine in question meets the precise needs of each reader. In reality, people will choose a publication that comes close to their needs.
These days a magazine can be more than a physical publication that is printed each month. Both Word and Mojo have web sites. The choice offered by Internet media means that consumer needs can potentially be met more closely through content tailoring.
Brand
Klein (2000) discusses the idea that these days, for most corporations, brand is more important than product, which is opposite to the relationship in the early industrial era. Illustrating this argument, she suggests that products therefore become marketing tools for the brand; hence the trend towards prominent logos on products. If this is true, what role would magazines like Mojo and Word play? Do they exist to serve their readers, or is their true customer the advertiser? Or, using Featherstone’s model of post-modern consumer culture, do they have to reconcile the dilemma of serving both?
It would appear that the publishers believe the readers will buy the magazines as long as the content meets their desires and needs, so they create a well-defined target audience for advertisers. This is supported by the trade press, for example, a new book series, ‘will be aimed in part at Mojo subscribers. There are 100,000 Mojo readers in the U.K. They’re diehard loyalists and have money to spend’ [viii] (Foley, 2002). The trade press coverage of the Word launch illustrates the dual markets, quoting the publisher’s view of the readers: ‘The magazine is for people who are desperately seeking substance’, whereas the article also claims that ‘Marketing executives will have a new monthly in which to advertise their wares’[ix] (Music Week, 2002).
Marketing
Magazines are increasingly using market research to identify the demographics of their readership, then using this information to help advertisers plan and execute highly targeted advertising campaigns. Klein (2000 pp41) illustrates this with the example of Details magazine, which used the same principle of product placement that the film industry adopts by producing a twenty-four page comic/advertisement strip featuring named products as part of the story line. ‘On the page following each product’s extreme cameo, the company’s real ad appeared.’ [x]
Klein then cites a growing convergence that has resulted from this blurring of the distinction between editorial and advertising with lifestyle magazines beginning to resemble designer catalogues and the catalogues produced by clothing designers and retailers starting to look more like magazines.
Counting the pages devoted to advertising within both Word and Mojo reveals that over 40% of the content is paid advertising. Most of it is music-related, but there is also life-style advertising for cars, computers, cigarette papers, beer etc. It could be assumed, therefore that the remaining pages are devoted to editorial content, but distinctions are not that simple. Both magazines contain substantial review sections with criticism of new CDs, DVDs, books, and films. These reviews could be interpreted as evidence for Klein’s assertion that editorial and advertising distinction is becoming blurred. This theory is further supported by analysis of other editorial content. Interviews with musicians are invariably linked to the promotion of new product. Maybe artists only make themselves available if they have something to gain from the exercise. The news sections contain a high proportion of stories relating to upcoming product releases. Even when they apparently offer a free gift, usually in the form of a CD, the content is often a selection of individual songs that are intended to promote the purchase of the commercial CD from which it has been taken.
Klein (2000 pp 41) argues that in some way this is ‘the same old tug-of-war between editorial and advertising that journalists have faced for a century and a quarter’, but that increasingly corporations are asking editors and producers ‘to become their actual ad agencies’.
All of this suggests that magazines are vehicles to promote their advertisers’ products, but it also implies that readers are passive consumers of both blatant and subtle advertising. In Klein’s view they are manipulated into consuming product and cites this as evidence for the ‘brand backlash’ among young activist consumers. The age profile of Mojo and Word readers (35 and above) is consistent with this view. However, this may not be the full story.
Identity
Despite this focus on the motivation of advertisers, the content cannot be forced on people; they still have to make a definite choice to read these magazines. Some of the reasons for this might be explained by the concept of identity.
Bocock [xi] (1997 pp 47) describes how in the early stages of capitalist society, Marx proposed that the alienation caused by peoples’ detachment from the production of goods which had previously been key to their sense of worth as human beings resulted in workers deriving fulfilment from consumption. He suggests these ideas are still relevant to ‘post-modern capitalism’:
‘Identities are constructed around the items purchased by varying groups of consumers, including distinctive groups of men.’
(Bocock, 1997 pp108)
This is supported by Desmond (ibid pp246) who cites a 1995 study carried out by Englis and Solomon of consumers’ relations to different social groups by assessing college students’ judgements of the kinds of products purchased by two different social groups. Although they were inaccurate in assessing the products likely to be purchased by a group they would want to avoid joining; they were able to predict the purchase preferences of a social group that they aspired to very well. In particular, one of the predictions they were good at was naming the magazines that the aspirational group would purchase. This also supports the concept of consumers as groups within society.
‘No Logo’
Klein illustrates how the anti-brand activism directed at the likes of Nike, MacDonald’s, The Gap and Starbucks, for example, has changed the brand strategies of certain large corporations. The aim of this new ’subversive’ strategy is to continue selling goods without the consumer being aware they are still buying from the same corporation. There may be parallels with the readership of Mojo and Word. Just as Klein (ibid pp 77) describes how brands ‘went underground’ with, for example, Politix cigarettes from the Moonlight Tobacco company being produced by Philip Morris, so Bocock (ibid pp 114) describes how the anti-capitalist protesters of the late 1960s were ‘absorbed into radical chic clothing, music and the popular culture of the media’, which links to the magazines in question: Some of the readers of these magazines and the artists featured within them were part of that 1960s protest movement.
The specific examples provided by the chosen publications tend to align with those consumer culture theories that suggest society consists of groups of consumers. There is some evidence that aligns with the theories of the consumer as an individual, but apart from the existence of the magazines themselves there appears to be little evidence that matches the mass culture / mass media ideas.
If the theory described by Klein that brand transcends product is true, then one future possibility might be the disappearance of specialist publishers with the corporations publishing the most popular magazines which would become yet another avenue to promote a brand. Alternatively, given the brand backlash and the need for consumers to perceive a distance between the products they buy and the large brand names, maybe specialist publishers are not threatened.
Conclusion
The need to serve both readers and advertisers has already been discussed. The editor of Word may not want to admit it: ‘our companyis independent. Therefore, we’re not serving any master other than our readers’, but in the same article seems to support this view by contradicting himself: ‘My partnerand I have been delighted by the response of the music business. It recognises the importance of the readersthese people have got money to spend and they like to own things’.
The editor’s dilemma may be explained by the need to position the magazine on a cultural – commercial continuum. While the subject matter of these publications might suggest they are cultural because of their focus on music, Bourdieu[xii] (1993 pp 97) would argue that the inherent characteristics of the monthly magazine format (short production cycle, eye-catching covers, and advertising) that are designed to ‘ensure a rapid return of profits through rapid circulation of products’ inevitably positions them as commercial rather than cultural products.
It would appear that both magazines are embedded in consumer culture. Klein’s thesis might predict that they would become even more closely integrated through takeover by the music industry, so that they become tools to promote a brand. However, this may not need to happen because the blurring of advertising and editorial and the close relationship between publishers and advertisers that exists today could already be the optimum solution.
Bibliography
- Alexander, P. (2002) Music Week, 6/26/2004, p14, 1/4p
- Beng-Huat, C. (ed.) (2000) Consumption in Asia; Lifestyles and Identities, London: Routledge
- Bocock, R. (1997) Consumption, London: Routledge
- Bourdie, P. (1993) The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, Cambridge: Polity
- Desmond J. (2003) Consuming Behaviour, Hampshire: Palgrave
- Elias, N. (1994) orig. 1939 The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners and State Formation and Civilization, trans. Edmund Jephcott, Oxford: Basil Blackwell
- Ewen, S. (1976) Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture, New York: McGraw-Hill
- Featherstone, M. (1991) Consumer Culture & Postmodernism, London: Sage
- Foley, D. (2002) Calling All Music Mavens, Publishers Weekly, 02/25/2002, Vol. 249 Issue 8, p21, 1/2p, 1c
- Klein, N. (2000) No Logo, London: Flamingo
- Lee, M.J. (1993) Consumer Culture Reborn: The Cultural Politics of Consumption, London: Routledge
- Lee, M.J. (1993) The Consumer Society Reader, London: Routledge
- Maffesoli, M. (1996) The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society, London: Sage
- Music Week (2002) Music Week, 12/14/2002, p31, 1/5p
References
- [i] Alexander, P. (2002) Music Week, 6/26/2004, p14, 1/4p
- [ii] Music Week. (2002) Music Week, 12/14/2002, p31, 1/5p
- [iii] Ewen, S. (1976) Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture, New York: McGraw-Hill
- [iv] Desmond J. (2003) Consuming Behaviour, Hampshire: Palgrave
- [v] Elias, N. (1994) orig. 1939 The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners and State Formation and Civilization, trans. Edmund Jephcott, Oxford: Basil Blackwell
- [vi] Maffesoli, M. (1996) The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society, London: Sage
- [vii] Featherstone, M. (1991) Consumer Culture & Postmodernism, London: Sage
- [viii] Foley, D. (2002) Calling All Music Mavens, Publishers Weekly, 02/25/2002, Vol. 249 Issue 8, p21, 1/2p, 1c
- [ix] Music Week. (2002) Music Week, 12/14/2002, p31, 1/5p
- [x] Klein, N. (2000) No Logo, London: Flamingo
- [xi] Bocock, R. (1997) Consumption, London: Routledge
- [xii] Bourdie, P. (1993) The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, Cambridge: Polity