Assignment 5A1

Digitally Produced Products

What is digital media?

• Digital media is any media that is encoded in a machine-readable format. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified or preserved on computers. It is also becoming common to distribute books, magazines, and newspapers to consumers through tablet reading devices, a market that is growing by millions each year
• Frequently contrasted to analog media eg. newspapers, printed books, magazines and other traditional media.

What is digitally published media?

Electronic publishing, sometimes called e-publishing or digital publishing) includes the digital publication of e-books, digital magazines, and the development of digital libraries and catalogues.

Examples of digitally produced products:

• e-magazines	• advertisements
• online newspapers	• e-books
• posters	• DVD/CD covers
• apps	• digital imagery
• digital video	• webpages and websites (including social media)
• digital audio	• book covers

How are they used by audiences:

• Personal computers and smartphones allow billions of people to access, modify, create, store and share digital media.
• The internet has transformed modern society as it has allowed a majority of the global population access to media that previously was not as easily accessible

• News used to be slower, for example, a global event can occur and people will be able to access the information within a matter of minutes, in comparison to waiting until the newspaper is published and available to buy the next day

• Audiences are able to access digitally produced products through many forms such as reading online (eg. online newspapers and e-magazines) or physical copies (eg. book, CD and DVD covers)

Digital publishing allows products to be distributed to a broader audience, quickly and effectively. It is cheaper because it doesn’t require trucks, warehouses, a sales team and longstanding relationships with buyers at retail operations.

Advantages of digital magazine publishing:

• Increased magazine distribution on a global scale
• Deliver content across multiple platforms and devices
• Lower production and on-going publishing costs
• Instant, direct potential customers and traffic to your content
• No printing or shipping times/costs
• Lower price point and habitual one-click shopping behaviour promotes more impulse buys
• Ease of purchase

Disadvantages of digital magazine publishing

• Easily pirated
• Prices must be limited – there is only so much you can charge for a digital media product
• Cross-platform compatibility – certain formats are accessible only to individuals who have the correct and necessary hardware, software or device, which are often expensive
• The digital publishing industry is dominated by a few, huge companies eg. Amazon, Apple

Conclusions

My investigation into digital publishing, as opposed to traditional publishing, has made it clear that there are many advantages to publishing a product digitally compared to the latter. Particularly for a young target audience, which will mainly consist of 14-16 year olds, digital publishing is clearly a better way of distributing our product.

Publishing a product digitally allows content to be delivered across multiple platforms and devices, such as smartphones, personal computer, social media and online newspapers and e-magazines.  A majority of young people have regular, if not daily, access to a personal computer or smartphone which allows them to easily access the product, which therefore creates instant, direct potential customers and traffic to your content.

In addition, publishing digitally increases magazine distribution across an area easily and to an audience that could be unaware of a product, without shipping costs, trucks, warehouses and longstanding relationships with retail operations. Digital publishing completely eliminates printing costs and times, therefore allowing content to be accessed within seconds of publication. This is an advantage to a product such as an electronic magazine for 14-16 year olds as they are growing up in a modern society which has been transformed by access to media via the internet, so therefore prefer to access information immediately.

Various magazine genres make their products available electronically. Examples of existing electronic magazines are OK, Hello, Vogue, TIME magazine, Runners World etc. This makes magazines accessible everywhere and for a fraction of the price of a traditional printed magazine. This is an advantage for a product which appeals to a young target audience because it means they can purchase the product in a few simple clicks and for as little as 69p, the same price as you would pay for a song on iTunes. It also means young people are more likely to purchase the product because they can access it without needing to go out to buy it, which can require adult supervision.