Print Chic: Text Blog

Much like fashion, media trends flow in cycles. Just as yesterday’s reject bin items become today’s catwalk statements, we now find ourselves standing before a press renaissance. Today’s 'Generation Y' children have been raised on a diet of virtual communication, and they yearn for a return to the palpable. This is evidenced in popular art projects such as PostSecret [1] or PostNoBills [2], which are both predicated upon the privileging of corporeal post over alienating e-mail. Both these projects celebrate the uniqueness of ‘traditional’ post, and the advantages of the physical that e-mail has not yet been able to mimic. PostNoBills creator Anwyn Crawford commented, “There is an intimacy to letters and to zines and to the kind of mail people send… and a tactility to it that you just can’t derive from an email or a text message… It’s a tangible object. An email or a text message just disappears into the ether but letters are forever” (Frost, 2006).

This new media trend is perhaps most strongly felt over East, where printed press (and independent street press in particular) is multiplying at a seemingly insatiable rate. In an October edition of The Age, journalist John Bailey described Melbourne as a “Magazine City [3],” where “the coolest kids don’t play guitar: they start magazines” (2007, p. 1). In this article he flawlessly captures the contagious DIY enthusiasm overtaking the Eastern states, describing ten new publications that have popped up in the city over the last couple of years. Bailey also specifically compares the experience of reading a printed magazine or newspaper to the far more taxing experience of “sitting in front of a computer screen,” suggesting that there is a certain vitality offered by paper that internet publications can not reproduce (2007, p. 2).

This trend has now finally begun to make its way across the Nullarbor, marking its influence on our own city of Perth. Prior to 2006, Perth’s independent media scene had been dominated by the weekly X-Press [4]magazine, but 2006 saw The Drum Media [5] [5]challenge their market hegemony (after having previously been established in both Sydney and Melbourne for almost 18 years apiece). Currently, both X-Press and The Drum Media are distributed weekly, with circulations both equaling over 20 000.

“A monopoly in any form of media is dangerous and, for some 21 years, Western Australians only had one opinion, one perspective and one place to turn when it came to street press,” says The Drum Media editor, Ben O’Shea, “This resulted in uncompetitive advertising rates (pricing a lot of independent bands out of the market) and a lack of space to cover the vibrant music and arts scene that flourishes in the West. Our mission has always been to support music and the arts and we are very pleased to have been able to continue that mission in Perth" (2007).

This trend has also been echoed with an increase in smaller independent papers, of smaller circulations. Magazines such as Wasted, [6] Fork, [7] Cut and Paste [8]and Boomtown [9] have all jumped onto the Perth street press bandwagon, adding further perspectives and voices to our local media melting pot. Earlier on in this project, when I spoke to Noami Snell and Jonathan Brent (2008 editors of Lot’s Wife and Farrago respectively), I found that their understandings of this media ‘boom’ were eerily similar. Both were quick to attribute it to our generation’s desired return to print.

“Now that many of their other news sources are online, students actually seem more likely to read our paper, exactly because it can be grabbed whilst waiting for a tutorial, without having to log onto the internet,” Snell suggested, celebrating printed press as far more convenient than the internet (2007). Brent injected far more personal, emotional justifications into his argument, when he commented, “I think the press’ tactile nature is something the web can't offer. Crosswords aren't as good online; you can't use a website as an umbrella, which is one the main uses of Farrago; you can't often surf the web in a toilet cubicle” (2007).

For O’Shea, the printed medium is integral connected to street press’ ability to penetrate society at a ‘grass roots level.’ “Street press will always have a place in the world because of the power of disseminating information at the street level,” he claims, “Sure, many more people are turning to digital means to source information, but it is yet to have the penetration at a grass roots level that street press does. It is not in pubs. It is not in your video store. It is not in the train station or in your favourite clothing store. Street press is accessible by anyone and doesn't require the consumer to do anything other than pick it up as they walk by” (2007).

It is true that, as consumers, we do always yearn for that which is different to our everyday. We are used to receiving generic emails, and so there is something exciting about finding a personalised card in our letterbox. We are used to feeling our eyes blur over words on a computer screen, and so it is refreshing to see something on a corporeal page. And we are used to losing links in the mass of the internet’s volume, so it is useful to actually own something tangible that we can store for posterity.

By now, you’ll notice that I am veering towards far more emotional and less substantiated evidence in forwarding my arguments. I’ll admit that it is unfortunate that I’ve been unable to find any theoretical backing for these claims, particularly as the “Print Renaissance” gains increased force throughout Australia. At almost every turn, however, my personal research led me to this same conclusion. Interviewees, be they readers, writers or editors, have produced many varied justifications for the continued support of printed press. Some believe it contributes to a sense of localised community and others that its longevity is irreplaceable online, but all interviews have generally boiled down to these same, intangibly emotional arguments. It seems that there is something inherently enjoyable about the printed word, particularly when it is presented within an artistic design.

I’d like to finish these text blogs with an excerpt from one of my earlier editions of Pelican. The following is an excerpt from my personal editor in Edition 2 of 2007, themed “The Internet”:

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REFERENCES

Wozniak, Magda (2007) ‘Ed Says.’ Pelican 78, April 2007, 6.