“Little Magazines” and Exerting Influence: Does Digitization Work?

A few months ago, a classmate of mine applied for an internship at N+1 Magazine. One component of the application process is an article that the applicant must write in a style that emulates that of the writers published in N+1, and the particular prompt that my classmate was answering was about his social media presence. I remember him writing that he has always feels intense pressure to post content that “excludes relevancy”—content that intrigues, inspires, and draws people in. It comes as no surprise, then, that N+1 is a small magazine that has been singled out for successfully incorporating digital publishing into its platform at a time when similar magazines have failed. With a tiny group of employees and limited revenue, N+1 has seized the opportunity to build up its fan base by taking advantage of the vast network of connections that comprises the Internet. Of course they would like for internship applicants to write about their social media experiences, for digitization is an integral part of maintaining and expanding their subscriber list.

One might be wary of the Internet’s potential to break down the carefully-curated, counter-culture communities that little magazines tend to target with their editorial visions. The online world presents us with an environment in which anyone can share anything and there is far more emphasis on generating attention than forming meaningful connections. At the same time, however, there are ways in which “going digital” can be democratizing. Fulton’s article “Anima Rising,” which documents the rise of small magazines in the 60s, expresses that one of the primary forces that drove their expansion was the desire to come to terms with “the sundry dehumanization that started with the First Great War and reached its most imposing moments over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” A traumatized generation sought to take refuge in the rawness and vulnerability printed in small magazines and form a new generational identity based on self-expression, self-sufficiency, and the democratization of print culture. One of the most significant technological advancements at the time, the mimeograph, helped speed the publication of little magazines along and make them more able to achieve the objectives described above. Is social media a bit like the “mimeograph” of the present day?

The answer to this question depends on whether you see the Internet as more of a means of fostering positive connections or breaking them down. Still, it is worthwhile to note that N+1 is not wholly digital; it still prizes print culture, and the ways in which it collects funding indicate that it still seeks to make in-person contact and materiality a primary concern. The fact that it rents its office space for parties says a lot about its willingness to balance more “traditional” ways of creating a community with the digitized approach to building out its subscriber base. Time will tell whether little magazines will attempt to preserve the anti-establishment ideals of their earlier days or adopt a new community-building philosophy as they start going at least partially digital.