How Do Women Feel After Reading a Magazine
Online Women'southward Magazines: Differences in Perceptions between Impress and Online Magazines amidst Female person Readers ()
Kavita Karan1*, Chang Sup Parkii, Wenjing Xie3
1School of Journalism, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale Carbondale, IL, U.s.a..
2Department of Mass Communications, Bloomsburg Academy of Pennsylvania, Bloomsburg, PA, Us.
3School of Journalism, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, IL, USA.
DOI: ten.4236/ajc.2016.41004 PDFHTML XML 2,850 Downloads 4,386 Views Citations
Abstract
Popular women's magazines have gone online and are gaining increased readership because of their interactive content, videos, and discussion forums. This study examines women's perceptions and behaviors toward online women'southward magazines based on an online survey of 257 female magazine readers. Nosotros found that, compared with their print counterparts, online magazines were perceived to be easier to read, skip ads, gild products, search for, save and share information and comment on articles. Moreover, nigh female person readers are positive toward the technological merits of online women'due south magazines. Younger, less-educated, and less affluent readers showed a more positive attitude toward online women'southward magazines than older, more educated, and more affluent readers did. However, female readers' involvement with and appointment in the interactive features of online magazines were establish to be low. Implications and suggestions for future research were discussed.
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Karan, K. , Park, C. and Xie, Westward. (2016) Online Women'due south Magazines: Differences in Perceptions between Print and Online Magazines amongst Female Readers. Advances in Journalism and Communication, 4, 31-42. doi: ten.4236/ajc.2016.41004.
Received 22 December 2015; accustomed 20 March 2016; published 24 March 2016
1. Introduction
Online magazines are evolving rapidly and gaining increasing popularity (Royal, 2008) , with many women enjoying the experiences and interactivity of the medium. They are proving to be a successful medium used by publishers to attract readers and advertisers. Many traditional magazines are now running websites or are about to launch their online versions in order to look for ways to draw the attending from audiences and are not cannibalizing their print counterparts (Kaiser, 2005) . Due to such efforts past publishers and the increase of online readers, online magazines are becoming bachelor across about every sphere of our life such as beauty, health, children, relationship, traveling, shopping, and sports (Jue, 2009) .
Online women'due south magazines, which are the primary focus of this written report, are also drawing immense attention from female person readers. Their presence is condign increasingly wide-spread in near every area of life, of which women readers can take advantage. The digital editions of women'southward magazines, which are embedded with spider web links, email links, videos, audios, and flash objects, provide a new way of consuming the content of women's magazines (Jue, 2009) .
Since the mid-1990s, websites have been developed to target women as a demographic category, providing contents specific to female person audiences (Imperial, 2005) . Later on the wide penetration of the Internet since the early 1990s, the fun and convenience of going online has become increasingly important to a wide range of women, from stay-at-domicile moms and career women to teens and students (Pastore, 2009) . In line with such a trend, a number of impress women's magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Vogue rushed to transform themselves into a blend or hybrid of print and online magazine businesses during the last decade. It seems that the weight of the mag business organization is increasingly moving toward the online loonshit. According to Hendrickson (2009) , 428 magazines folded in 2009. Publishers tin no longer sustain popular titles due to a severe subtract in ad revenues, and increasing paper and press costs are diverting ad dollars to Net sites and blogs where they can improve target their potential customers. Today, scores of print women'south magazine accept their dotcom sisters that offering a range of new services such as provision of real-time news or discussion message boards, regular electronic mail alerts, timely recipes and decorating ideas, and greater interactivity for all these activities. Some entrepreneurs such as IZZY and Get Married, who see the potential of online magazines, have joined the tendency launching new online-only women's magazines.
Online women'south magazines are published in dissimilar ways. Some involve giving a digital experience to the printed magazine by putting web pages together, while some others use high quality graphics and require special readers such equally the Amazon reader or the Kindle. Traditional magazines like Cosmopolitan and Martha Stewart Wedding either have their online versions or are sent to the subscribers as emails regularly in the form of blogs, columns, and articles to encourage the readership.
Despite the contempo increment of online women's magazines, there has been little academic approach to examine how female readers are actually using them and whether they are satisfied with them. Do female readers obtain what they take originally expected from online women's magazines? Are Online magazines meeting their expectations or not? What are their principal motives of using online magazines? How practise female readers perceive the differences between online and print women's magazines? What are additional benefits of online women'southward magazines female readers otherwise could not bask from printed counterparts? Practice female readers actively have full reward of the interactive functions of online magazines?
This study attempts to answer above questions based on a survey of 257 female person readers of print and online women's magazines. This research focuses on the patterns of readership of online magazines, women readers' perceptions on the differences betwixt impress and online magazines, their behaviors of using online magazines, and their utilization of discussion forums embedded in online magazines.
2. Literature Review
two.i. Traditional Print Magazines and Online Women's Magazines
Literature on women's magazines has focused on the content, readership, and apply of magazines for women's development, beauty, parenting, and housekeeping, with women existence portrayed in stereotypical ways (Ferguson, Kreshel, & Tinkham, 1990; Jhally, Leiss, & Kline, 1986; Taylor & Lee, 1994) . At the same fourth dimension, recent studies nowadays alternate images of the workingwomen, fashionable, trendy, financially-independent, frequently-travelling, and occupying managerial platforms. Magazines across the world are reflecting on the changing lifestyles as women are moving out of their traditional roles and developing their new identities and marketers are targeting these modern stereotypes of women not simply with clothes and beauty products simply also cars, credit cards, and automobiles (Edwards & Roces, 2000; Karan & Feng, 2009; Frith & Karan, 2008; Fung, 2002; Granatstein & Masterton, 1998; Moses, 2007; Sakamoto, 1999) .
The new women in women'due south magazines are as well tech-savvy, continued to the internet and playing video and online games, so far the forte of only men. The diversification and internationalization of Western magazines like Cosmopolitan, Elle, Vogue, Maxim, and Seventeen amid many others across the world has spurred greater interest in reaching women across the world (Feng & Frith 2008; Hafstrand, 1995; Shaw, 1999) and online magazines are catering to these immature and not so immature generations of tech-savvy women.
two.2. Features of Online Women's Magazines
The appearance of online magazines started around the mid-1990s when magazine publishers realized the importance of the Internet in the magazine concern. At first, several print publishers adopted PDF versions of their print content. But the PDF versions faced a serious problem, because it required readers to download the unabridged file of a print magazine. In stark contrast, the Internet-based magazines, instead, allow readers to access the article in seconds, with no downloading filibuster (Folio, 2006) . In other words, the Web-based magazines offer a elementary and flexible command for magazines' content. With a web-based view, readers are no longer required to install cumbersome software to view an online magazine. Today, online magazines are being consumed on virtually any type of computer such as desktop, laptop, tablet PC, iPad, and mobile phones. Given the mobility and ubiquity of those portable and mobile devices (Hansmann, 2003) , online women's magazines are available at any time and location.
Online magazines are characterized past multimedia functions such as quick link index and embedded video/ audio to provide subscribers with additional values (Moses, 2007) . Readers increasingly perceive the value of audio and video clips in online magazines (Technology Group, 2008) . The multimedia enhancements are unremarkably used as a full or partial page that plays automatically upon viewing, or act equally a play-on-demand approach. Multimedia supplements help to communicate any information or experiences that might be lost in reading printed magazines (Zarem, 2009) . The content in online editions is enhanced with discussion components, expanded stories, video, hyperlink capabilities, text search, note, and sharing. In sum, online magazines tin provide subscribers a more enriched experience, thereby helping them to augment their perception to the globe. Such features of online magazines appear to assist increase the level of satisfaction of female person readers. According to a survey of about 33,000 readers of print and online magazines, 89% answered that they were "very satisfied" or "satisfied" with online magazines. Most of them found the online magazines to be engaging the audiences (Texterity, 2008) . In a study on the impact of advertisements in digital magazines on women, Wang (2011) measured their perceived involvement and engagement and found that there was greater appointment with ads in digital magazines compared to impress editions and there was greater purchase intent.
Online magazines for women tend to have a wider outreach compared to traditional print magazines. Unlike traditional magazines, which are weekly, monthly, or bimonthly, online magazines for women are published more regularly with newer content. The websites are constantly updated to offer the latest trends and happenings for women all across the world (Zarem, 2009) . Ane of the biggest attractions of online women's magazines is that they toll very little money. An amazon.com search of the price of online magazines, it was plant that virtually online magazines for women were either free of cost or have a little subscription charges due to the depression production costs of press and mailing. For example subscription fee for Cosmopolitan digital edition is $fifteen per year, Women Twenty-four hour period is $7.99, and Better Homes and Gardens for as low equally $5.99. Therefore, all that a woman would need is a reliable and fast Internet connection to become her desired information easily with only a click of the mouse.
It is hard to surmise how many online women'southward magazines are being published around the world, but most large print magazines take their online versions. For case, Meliorate Homes and Gardens, which has the highest paid apportionment for women's magazines, with 7.6 1000000 subscribers (Meredith.com, 2012) , has been publishing its online versions since 1996. Ms. Magazine, which was kickoff published in 1971 and was the start commercial magazine to clearly embody a feminist perspective, began operating MsMagazine.com in 1999.
Focusing on diverse features of online women's magazines, this study, to brainstorm with, explores the demographic and behavioral patterns of online women's magazine readers, oftentimes-accessed topics, and subscription patterns.
RQ1: What are the demographic and behavioral characteristics of users of online women's magazines?
What articles do women readers read nearly in online women'south magazines? A Pew Cyberspace and American Life Project's (2005) study revealed that women were more likely to seek health tips, get religious and spiritual data, and use support-group websites, while men were more likely to acquire news, purchase travel services, check sports scores, seek fiscal information, participate in online auctions, create content, and download music files (Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2005) . Female readers likewise tend to show interest in problems like glory, sexual activity, and fluff. The Internet is an ideal medium to distribute information nigh bargains and tips and tricks that tin exist posted immediately and made visible to all. Women understand this and increasingly use the Internet to make everyday life easier (Weiser, 2000) .
RQ2: What are the benefits of online magazines compared to the print magazines?
2.3. Technical Gratifications from Online Women's Magazines
Even though it is admitted that online women's magazines are equipped with various beneficial characteristics, we lack empirical bear witness of what features or functionalities of online women's magazines are associated with readers' level of contentment. In regard to this question, first of all we can think of the convenience of online magazines. Engineering science acceptance model (Bagozzi, Davis, & Warshaw, 1992; Davis, 1989) posits that perceived ease of employ, defined equally "the degree to which a person believes that using a particular organisation would exist free from effort" (Davis, 1989: p.320) , forth with perceived usefulness, are two primal factors that decide people's behavioral intention, which in turn, is the best single predictor of bodily technology or system use. Numerous empirical studies have shown that technology acceptance model is a robust model of technology acceptance behavior (for a review, see Legris, Inghamb, & Collerettec, 2003 ) and the logic underlying this model is that the easier people perceive the applied science to utilize, the more than likely they will use it (Bagozzi, Davis, & Warshaw, 1992) . Perceived ease of use has been found to play an important role in Internet-based e-commerce (Dominicus, Tai & Tsai, 2010) .
H1: Readers will perceive online magazines to be easier to read than print counterparts.
H2: Readers will perceive online magazines to be easier to search for data than print counterparts.
H3: Readers will perceive online magazines to exist easier to skip ads than print counterparts.
In online magazines, users are non simply consuming information they demand. Ofttimes, readers forward via an email what they read in online mag to friends, family members, or acquaintances. Or, they can post what they find interesting in online magazine websites on their accounts of social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter. Indeed the Net, especially the social media, significantly increased the capabilities of people to share information with others (Ellison & Boyd, 2013) . For example, a female Facebook user can share the link of a favorite online magazine article on her timeline, which will appear in her Facebook friends' newsfeed. Then her friends tin can read, "Like", annotate, or share this commodity. In add-on, the Net helps users to go on their data to various places found in the Internet such every bit emails, online file drawer (due east.g., Dropbox), wink drives, or private data storages in the Net. Furthermore, most online women's magazines provide users opportunities to mail service their opinions at the end of manufactures, which is impossible in print magazines. In online women's magazines, readers tin place their gild easily by only clicking any production or service ads placed in magazine websites. Considering that most commercial websites are bombarded with tons of ads, it is expected that online users feel easy in purchasing what they see in magazine websites.
H4: Women readers will be more probable to share information obtained from online women's magazines than from print magazines.
H5: Women readers will be probable to perceive it easier to save useful information obtained from online magazines in their place than from print magazines.
H6: Women readers will be probable to perceive it easier to comment on articles of online magazines in their place than on those of impress magazines.
H7: Online readers observe it easy to purchase what they see in the magazine websites.
2.4. Interactive Gratifications from Online Women'due south Magazines
Do online women's magazines also motivate female readers to appoint in more interactive activities online? Engagement refers to the experiences that a reader has with a sure media. Calder, Malthouse, and Schädel (2009) conceptualized appointment equally a drove of experiences with a medium. The Internet has often been conceived as a crucial forum for social interaction (D'Amico, 1998) . Via various functions of the Internet such every bit emails, conversation rooms, and discussion boards, people tin share their thoughts on daily lives, talk well-nigh personal interests with others, and proceed in touch with their friends or family members (Moore, 2000) , thereby forming relationships with diverse groups of individuals (Stepanikova, Nie, & He, 2010) . The lack of "gating features" also makes the Internet an easy forum to interact with others. In offline interactions, physical appearance such as attractiveness, visible stigma similar stuttering, shyness, or social feet office equally gates or restricting factors that often prevent people who are less physically attractive or socially skilled from developing relationships to the stage at which disclosure of intimate information could begin. But such offline-interaction requirements are not required in online environments (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986) .
On the other mitt, some scholars raise question as to such optimistic potential of the Cyberspace in helping promote social interactions. Franzen (2003) establish that Internet adoption amongst the Swiss was associated with no changes in size of social networks or time spent socializing, even though electronic mail apply had a positive event on social networks. Several studies washed in the U.S. (Katz & Rice, 2002) , Canada (Pronovost, 2002) , and the U.K. (Anderson & Tracey, 2001) likewise reached the conclusion that Internet users do not differ from non-users in the overall corporeality of time spent on social activities or in the frequency and time spent on phone calls and visits to relatives and friends. Robins and Webster (1999) as well argued that the space of virtual culture is a "infinite in which distance and its otherness is turned into illusory proximity and spurious affiliation" (p. 248), and that cyber communities are at best pseudo-communities in which bonds are tenuous and temporary and evade all of the commitment and complication of face-to-face communities.
When it comes to the question of whether online magazines contribute to promoting interactive behaviors of readers, two contrasting perspectives be simultaneously. Some view that online magazines, with their various features, provide more opportunities of appointment to readers than print magazines do. 1 written report shows that 82% of magazine readers find online magazines to be more engaging compared to impress magazines (Gordon, 2011) . According to Wang (2011) , higher interactivity of digital engineering science tends to generate stronger interest and more than positive attitude toward the magazine than a print magazine with lower interactivity does in general. That is, perceived interactivity of online magazines may pb to higher engagement in them.
Some scholars, however, cast questions about such optimism, arguing that some female readers could feel technologically estranged from the Internet and computer use (O'Hanlon, 2009; Ytre-Arne, 2011) . Instead, women's magazines are usually read in specific situations: at the end of the day, in a comfy chair, in peace and quiet, with a drinking glass of wine or a cup of tea. For these mag readers, computers simply had no place. Some readers regard their physical interaction with the computer as uncomfortable and impractical, strange to the relaxation in a more symbolic sense. Given a finding that a majority of readers prefer to read magazines in peaceful, serenity situations (Ytre-Arne, 2011) , reading online―clicking, scrolling, negotiating pop-ups, navigating dorsum and along―may be stressful for the comfort and peace of heed they seek in magazine reading. O'Hanlon (2009) emphasizes that there are still a number of readers who want the experiences such as violent out articles, domestic dog-ears to brand pages, flipping the pages to scan the pictures and headlines that go on to ascertain strong, if dwindling, relationship between the impress publication and its readers. According to one study, 87% of those interested in reading magazines digitally all the same want a printed copy (Edelman, 2010) . Given the unlike opinions above, we have the following research question:
RQ3: What are the motivations of female person magazine readers' apply of discussion forums? Will online women's magazines increase female person readers' interest in the content of the magazines and engagement in interactions with other readers?
In gild to reply this question, this written report examines the ways in which readers use discussion forums of online magazines, whose presence is one of the major differences betwixt online and impress magazines. Discussion forums exist in various forms in online women's magazines: bulletin boards, community clubs, bulletin boards, or online forums (Bickart & Schindler, 2001) . Such discussion forums embedded in online women's magazines allow female readers to mail comments, ask questions, or appoint in online discussions with other users (Royal, 2005) . These give-and-take forums provide readers with more involvement and help them share their views and feedback with others. They also provide applied and discussion data well-nigh useful resources, links, articles, and guides such as shopping tips and communication from diverse experts on a plethora of issues. This report examines the behavioral patterns of magazine readers' participation in online discussion forums in terms of time spent on discussion forums, intensity of engagement, and motives for using these resource.
three. Method
3.1. Information Collection
In order to answer the research questions and to examination hypotheses, this study conducted an online survey. The request for the survey was posted on the Amazon Mechanical Turk in February, 2013. Only those who read both print and online women'due south magazines were included in this study. A total of 257 responses from female magazine readers were used for final analysis.
The questionnaire comprised of usage patterns of online women's magazines, perceived deviation between print and online women'southward magazines, and the use of discussion forums in online women'southward magazines. The questionnaire likewise included basic demographic variables, such as age, gender, education, income, occupation, ethnicity, and marital status.
iii.ii. Measurement
To investigate the hypotheses from H1 to H7, the following seven statements about both impress and online women'southward magazines were given. The respondents were asked to bespeak how much they concord with the post-obit statements in both print and online magazines on a 5-indicate Likert scale ranging from1 (non at all) to 5 (a lot): like shooting fish in a barrel to search for information, to read, to skip ads, to share information or news with others, to save useful information in their places, to write back or comment on manufactures, and to identify an order for a product. For RQ2, respondents were given seven categories of content and then asked to point how much they think whether each category - easiness of reading, searching, skipping ads, sharing, saving, commenting, and ordering - is better in online magazines than impress magazines on a 5-point scale ranging from i (not at all) to 5 (a lot).
To respond RQ3, the respondents were asked to answer the frequency to access discussion forums of online women's magazines, which was measured on a 1 (not at all) to 6 (ii or three times a month) - point Likert calibration and the number of word partners in forums, which was measured through an open concluded question. To investigate the attitudes toward interactive functions of online women's magazines, the study as well measured motives of using discussion forums. Motivations were assessed with five categories on a 5-signal Likert calibration ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly hold): information seeking (to go news, to acquire near news or news products, and to read others' comments, α = 0.82), data sharing (to share my experience and opinions, r = 0.43), advice seeking (to talk nearly my problems and to get advice, r = 0.40), socializing (to interact with others and to chat with others, r = 0.46), and amusement (to seek amusement and to kill time, r = 0.42). Level of engagement was measured past asking participants how much they experience 1) engaged and ii) involved in women's magazines on a 3-point calibration ranging from 1 (not at all) to three (a lot). Evaluative attitudes toward content posted on give-and-take forums were measured across four categories on a 5-betoken agree/disagree calibration: trustworthy, informative, objective, and useful.
Age, gender, educational activity, marital status, and annual household income were measured as demographic variables.
4. Results
four.ane. Descriptive Results
Descriptive statistics shows that the mean of the respondents' age was 34.vi, ranging from 22 to 63. The median teaching level was available's degree. Median income level was $forty,001 ~ $sixty,000. Ascendant ethnicity of respondents was Caucasian (73.ii%), followed by African American (xi.four%), Asian American (10.0%), and Hispanic (5.4%). Nearly half (47.ane%) respondents answered they are now married, while 31.9% alleged single. The respondents who are widowed or divorced constituted the remaining portion (Table 1).
Respondents' distribution of readership of online women's magazines is shown in Table 2. 40-2 percent of respondents answered they accept been reading online women'south magazines for less than one year. 41.6%
Table ane. Distribution of demographic variables (North = 257).
Tabular array two. Ranking of popular online women's magazines.
indicated "i to 2 years" and 13.3% indicated "2 to 3 years". Only three percentage of respondents said they have been reading online magazines for more than three years. Most female readers were reading online women's magazines for free (68.5%), with just 5.4% subscribing a mag.
iv.ii. Results of Technological Gratifications
H1 predicted that female person readers will perceive online women's magazines to exist easier to read than impress magazines. To test this hypothesis, a paired-samples t test was run. The result was significant, t(256) = −four.31, p < 0.001, indicating that perceived ease for reading is higher for online magazines (Yard = iii.79, SD = .90) than for print magazines (Yard = 3.41, SD = 1.19). Therefore, H1 was supported. In order to examination H2, another paired-samples t test was conducted. The examination found a significant deviation of perceived easiness of information searching betwixt impress (Chiliad = 2.93, SD = i.32) and online magazines (M = 4.16, SD = .88), t(256) = −14.48, p < 0.001. Thus, H2 was supported.
H3 suggested that online magazines would be easier to skip ads than impress counterparts. The results indicated that there is a pregnant deviation between the two types of magazines. Simply the direction was the opposite to the original prediction, t(256) = 2.237, p = 0.026. Perceived easiness of skipping ads was higher for print magazines (1000 = 3.51, SD = 1.27) than for online magazines (M = three.23, SD = 1.16). This result indicates that readers are bombarded with much more ads in online environments than offline. Therefore, H3 was not supported. H4, predicting online women's magazines will be perceived to exist easier to share information than print magazines, was supported, t(256) = −15.xix, p < 0.001. Respondents perceived that it would exist easier to share information in online magazine websites (Thou = four.21, SD = .84) than in print magazines (Thou = two.81, SD = ane.27).
H5 is well-nigh whether women readers volition be likely to find it easier to save useful data obtained from online magazines in their own place than from print magazines. The analysis of a paired-samples t test demonstrates that there is a pregnant difference between the ii types of magazines. It shows that online women'southward magazines (Chiliad = 4.04, SD = 0.96) brand readers feel easier to salve useful information in their own places than print magazines (K = three.25, SD = 1.08), t(256) = −11.01, p < 0.001.
H6 predicted that online women'due south magazines allow easier commenting on manufactures than print magazines. The average score for the statement that online magazines permit writing dorsum or commenting hands was three.96 (SD = 1.08), while that of print magazines was ii.x (SD = 1.30), t(256) = −thirteen.65, p < 0.001. Thus, H6 was supported. H7 predicted that readers would be probable to perceive it easier to guild products from online magazines than from print magazines. The boilerplate score of easiness of ordering was higher for online magazines (M = 3.44, SD = 0.97) than for print magazines (M = 2.02, SD = 1.30), t(256) = −xi.49, p < 0.001. Thus, H7 was supported. Table 3 summarizes the results of our hypotheses testing.
Additionally a series of regression analyses were conducted to examine which variables contribute to making readers feel that online women's magazines are more benign than print magazines. Table 4 shows that when the dependent variable was easiness of reading online magazines, education (β = −0.57, p < 0.001) and household income (β = −0.14, p = 0.012) had a negative relationship with it and Caucasians tended to feel piece of cake to read online magazines (β = 0.26, p < 0.001). When the dependent variable was easiness of searching information from online magazines, historic period (β = −0.36, p < 0.001) and household income (β = −0.26, p < 0.001) had a negative relationship with information technology.
When it comes to skipping ads, how long a reader has been consuming online women's magazines was a positive predictor (β = 0.34, p < 0.001). In other words, a reader who has been reading online women's magazines for a long time is more than probable to experience easier to skip ads than 1 who has non. How long a person has been reading online women'southward magazines was also significantly associated with sharing information (β = 0.15, p = 0.04). Information technology was constitute that the less flush (β = −0.twenty, p < 0.01) and the married (β = −0.39, p < 0.001) more actively tended to share information they obtain from online women's magazines with others than the more affluent and single readers. In improver, those with lower educational level and married people tended to salvage information obtained from online magazines, (βedu = −0.61, p < 0.001 and βmarriage = −0.39, p < 0.001).
Table iii. Results of hypotheses testing.
Table 4. Results of OLS regression analyses.
Annotation: Cell entries are standardized coefficients. * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001.
4.3. Results Regarding Interactive Behaviors
Despite the popularity of online women's magazines, the frequency to access give-and-take forums of online magazines was institute to exist considerably low. A niggling more than half (58.4%) of the total respondents answered they accept ever accessed give-and-take forums of online women's magazines, while 41.vi% were not using such forums: 37.4% said they visit discussion forums "occasionally" and merely 5.4% said "regularly." The time spent on give-and-take forums was too short: 68.1% stayed at an online discussion forum less than 20 minutes when they accessed them. 21.9% of respondents stayed at a word forum from twenty to 40 minutes and ten% stayed more than 40 minutes when they visited a give-and-take forum. These results demonstrate that the level that female readers become involved in interactive actions in online women's magazines was notwithstanding low.
Frequently-visited topics in the discussion forums of online women'south magazines included manner/beauty (M = 3.23, SD = 1.28), food/recipes (G = 3.18, SD = 1.02), and free promotional information (M = 3.xv, SD = .94). Topics of feature stories (K = 2.92, SD = 1.xv), personality building stories (M = 2.77, SD = 0.84), ornamentation/furnishing information (Thousand = 2.91, SD = ane.42), and advertisements (M = 2.44, SD = 0.93) received relatively less attention. The major reason of visiting discussion forums was information seeking (Chiliad = iii.51, SD = 1.48). In other words, female readers tended to visit discussion forums to get data about current news and new products or services, or to read others' opinions posted on forums rather than to share information (M = 2.39, SD = i.27), to seek advices (M = 2.twoscore), to socialize (Grand = two.53, SD = 0.98), or to seek entertainment (M = 2.71, SD = 1.17). Respondents expressed a higher evaluation for the informative nature (M = 3.53) and usefulness (M = 3.64, SD = 1.48) of the content of discussion forums than for trustworthiness (M = 2.84) or objectiveness (M = ii.84, SD = 1.35).
Overall, it was found that female readers did non join various interactions in give-and-take forums of online women'south magazines. This finding is additionally supported by another result. To the question of the level of engagement between print and online magazines, the analysis demonstrated that there is not a pregnant departure in the perceived level of engagement between print (Thousand = three.52, SD = 1.34) and online magazines (M = 3.56, SD = 0.94), t(256) = −0.46, p = 0.65 (Tabular array iv).
5. Discussion
In accordance with the wide penetration of new media technologies, traditional women's magazines are as well transforming themselves into an online medium. Female person readers are too increasingly attracted to online versions of women's magazines given the ease of access, multifariousness of updated content, and greater levels of interactivity. This study, based on an online survey, investigated female readers' perception toward the content and activities in online women'due south magazines. The inquiry has constitute several meaning results.
Offset, most female person readers showed very positive attitudes toward the merits of online women's magazines. They felt a higher extent of ease of reading, searching for data, sharing news, saving information for future purposes, commenting on manufactures, and order products advertised on magazine sites. These results bespeak that online women's magazines provide a wider availability and convenience to readers than print magazines do. We await this trend will grow every bit time goes on.
Second, the current study finds that the perceptions toward online women's magazines vary depending on female readers' demographical status. For instance, those with lower level of educational activity or income were constitute to perceive easier to read online magazines than print magazines. Caucasian readers tended to feel easier to read online magazines than other indigenous readers. Younger and less affluent readers perceived a higher level of ease in searching for information in online magazines than older and flush readers did. Less flush readers establish it easier to skip ads in online magazines than more than affluent readers. Those with less income and singles tended to feel easier to share data in online magazines compared to those with college income and were married. Those with less educational achievement and singles tended to find it easier to salve information obtained from online magazines than those with college educational achievement and married people. Overall, this study finds that younger, less educated, and less flush readers possess a more than positive attitude toward online women'due south magazines than older, more than educated, and more than affluent readers. These outcomes suggest that online women'southward magazines can provide an opportunity to narrow the social and information gap between different classes of women. The outcomes also propose that Internet-based media are wide-spread plenty to reach all walks of people.
Lastly and most importantly, despite a wide range of technological advantages of online magazines, a majority of female readers were not agile in utilizing interactive features of online magazines, nor were they engaging in vibrant interactions with other users. This finding is quite surprising, when considering the increasing popularity of online women's magazines among female readers. By and large, online advice has been viewed to perform a number of positive functions such equally expressiveness, identity construction, bonding, and sharing (Bakardjieva, 2003; O'Connor & Mackeogh, 2007) . Even though online communication cannot be touted as automatically liberating or empowering private users, it has the potential to bring them stocks of cognition and to motivate them to exist receptive of diverse people and viewpoints. Bakardjieva (2003) has proposed the concept of 'virtual togetherness' in order to describe the new social forms of 'being and interim together' which are enabled past online media outlets.
6. Conclusions
Using a survey with 257 female person magazine readers, this study examines women's perceptions and behaviors toward online women's magazines. We establish that online magazines were perceived to be easier to read, skip ads, social club products, search for, salvage and share data, and comment on articles. Younger, less-educated, and less affluent readers showed a more than positive mental attitude toward online women'due south magazines than their counterparts did. However, female readers' involvement with and engagement in the interactive features of online magazines were low.
The findings of this study demonstrate both positive and negative implications for online women's magazines. Female readers are becoming accustomed to unique advantages of online magazines such as searching for data or saving information for their ain purposes. However, at the aforementioned fourth dimension, they did not perceive online magazines to be more than engaging than print magazines. Neither did they actively share data with others, nor sought advice from others.
There tin can exist several reasons for a few skeptic results. Female readers' low date in interactive forums may exist due to the fact that many online women's magazines notwithstanding exercise non provide discussion forums to their readers. It is also possible that some active readers may prefer to go to other community sites when they need interactions with others than visiting discussion forums in online magazine sites. However, this paper pays more attention to the long-standing addiction of consuming women's magazines. According to Ytre-Arne (2011) , women readers strongly prefer magazines in print because of the means in which magazines are experienced every bit physical and artful objects. If so, the experience of surfing the Web and the feel of reading print magazines provide strikingly different meanings to female person readers. Thus, information technology is very plausible that many women notwithstanding do not experience comfortable with completely replacing the experiences obtained from impress magazines with those from online magazines. Presumably, women readers still want to see friends or acquaintances in person and have conversations about what they read in magazines instead of putting out their thoughts in magazines websites. Thus it is concluded that the unique nature of media experience (Gentiko, 2005) of impress women's magazines is still important to many female person readers as much as the technological merits of online magazines.
This study has several limitations. First, information technology was not based on a representative sample. Table 1 shows that our sample were immature (more than half of the sample were below 40 years old) and well-educated (about fourscore% had higher or higher education), and the majority were Caucasian. Thus, a circumspection is needed when the findings are generalized to the general public. Hereafter research should use random sampling methods to generate more than representative sample. Second, this study did not compare the differences between print-only readers and online-just readers. Futurity studies need to elaborate female person readers' perception and attitude differences between print and online magazines. Third, results from this study were drawn from a cantankerous-exclusive survey, which can only test the correlations and precludes causal relationships. Future studies tin use longitudinal survey data or experimental design to examine the casual relations. 4th, we simply measured female readers' mental attitude toward online women'south magazines in general, and didn't specify the specific online medium such as social media. Time to come research can go further to examine if social media increases female readers' involvement in online content and appointment in interactions and conversations with other readers. Despite a few shortcomings, this research casts a new light on how online women's magazines are perceived, used, and understood past female readers in the digital historic period.
NOTES
*Corresponding author.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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Source: https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=64943
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