TWENTY YEARS AGO information was a scarce commodity. So scarce in fact that people did some unbelievable things to secure it. They paid for it and waited patiently, for a week, a month, or more, to receive their favourite magazines.
I remembered I used to beg to my mother to purchase a copy of the monthly Young- Generation magazine. It had printed contents such as study tips, comics and various educational materials. Once, I applied to be included in the pen-pal section and my profile actually appeared!
Technology constantly grows to a new level hence information these days is free and conveniently provided to readers via the Internet. It comes with many interactive features and flashy animation to attract readers.
Printed materials are still very popular in today's context especially for newspapers and magazine articles. Parker (2003, p. 270) states that reading from paper is much easier than reading from a monitor, as screen projects light, making it difficult for the readers to stare at for long periods at a time.
Online publishing has greater advantages by delivering interactive aspects to people. It has come to be a great help for publishers in terms of budget and also providing more features to their target audiences. Just like the pen-pal sections, publishers can now create online profile features and allow users to have instant access to others' information hence making friends a lot easier than what was before. However, printed or online only work well when they have good formats and designs.
Readers tends to read in detailed with the printed materials whereas they scan through in online reading.
In conclusion, both publications continue to deliver strong impact to readers and it is for the businesses to analyse which is the correct platform for their targeted audiences.
References:
Parker, RC 2003, ‘Designing documents for web distribution’, Looking good in print, 5th edn, Paraglyph Press, Scottsdale AZ, Chapter 14, pp. 269-293
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