Digital magazines are the go-to news source for the millennials. We, as a generation, prefer to read news or blogs on the go from our phones rather than from a newspaper or an actual magazine. We want to do everything from our phones, or tablets, or laptops. We want everything in the palm of our hands, literally. We want an app for everything, from food delivery or shopping, to photo editing or vocabulary building apps.
This provides a huge opportunity for such digital magazines. They can cover everything from international news to localised and personalised feeds. The opportunities are endless. They can focus the news according to genre or geographical area. These magazines come in handy when small communal issues get overlooked for say some big celebrity event. Digital magazines are a great way to highlight these issues so that they get the focus they deserve and something can be done.
Recently, Northeastern University started its own digital magazine ‘The Spot’, to cover the events and issues around the campus. Some of these issues do not get the attention they deserve. The students themselves write the news and hence, have an inside look on issues. They know what they and other locals go through.
“Our goal is to go in, listen, and provide a conduit for stories that might not be heard by main-stream journalism and transcend traditional community boundaries in a way that is of service,” says Meg Heckman, an assistant professor of Journalism at Northeastern University.
This is a great step, one from which other institutions can learn. It gives journalism students or anyone interested, an opportunity to express themselves. This could be a great step to really connect with each other and learn each other’s problems and maybe, try and help each other, as a community.
Anushka Singh