Information & Media eISSN 2783-6207
2024, vol. 99, pp. 8–22 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15388/Im.2024.99.1

The Consequences of Digitization and Challenges to Kosovar Magazines in the Era of Social Media

Emira Bajçinca
University of Prishtina, Kosovo
emira.bajcinca@uni-pr.edu

Abstract. The spread of the Internet has radically affected the world of media. As the main source of information in the 21st century, it inevitably became the new home of the media. This transition was not just a copy-paste of existing content: instead, the media had to change their content during this transformation. This analysis will identify these changes and observe what is being offered to audiences by online magazines. It will explore how the content of online magazines differs from what was offered to an audience in the 20th century. The object of analysis is the Kosovarja magazine, which has been published since 1971. This magazine is now only available online and the package of the Python programming language was used to extract the data necessary for this activity. In addition, the magazine Hylli i Dritës is used as a case study to explore the reasons why some magazines have not managed to be reproduced in the online market. In order to understand the audience’s perception of these changes, a public opinion survey of 1,051 respondents was conducted for this study.

Keywords: audience; Kosovo; magazine; representation; social media

Skaitmeninimo pasekmės ir iššūkiai Kosovo žurnalams socialinių medijų eroje

Santrauka. Interneto plitimas radikaliai paveikė žiniasklaidą. Būdamas pagrindiniu XXI a. informacijos šaltiniu, internetas neišvengiamai tapo naujaisiais žiniasklaidos namais. Šis perėjimas nebuvo tik esamo turinio kopijavimas ir įklijavimas: atvirkščiai, šios transformacijos metu žiniasklaida turėjo keisti savo turinį. Šioje analizėje bus nustatyti šie pokyčiai ir stebima, ką auditorijai siūlo internetiniai žurnalai. Buvo tiriama, kuo internetinių žurnalų turinys skiriasi nuo to, kas auditorijai buvo siūloma XX a. Analizės objektas – žurnalas „Kosovarja“, leidžiamas nuo 1971 m. Šis žurnalas dabar prieinamas tik internete, o šiai veiklai reikalingiems duomenims išgauti buvo naudojamas Python programavimo kalbos paketas. Be to, žurnalas „Hylli i Dritës“ naudojamas kaip atvejo analizė siekiant išsiaiškinti priežastis, kodėl kai kurių žurnalų nepavyko pradėti leisti internete. Siekiant suprasti, kaip auditorija suvokia šiuos pokyčius, šiam tyrimui buvo atlikta visuomenės nuomonės apklausa, kurioje dalyvavo 1 051 respondentas.

Pagrindiniai žodžiai: auditorija; Kosovas; žurnalas; atstovavimas; socialinės medijos.

Received: 2022-08-12. Accepted: 2023-12-05.
Copyright © 2024 Emira Bajçinca. Published by Vilnius University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Introduction

Traditional magazines were periodical and characterized by long, analytical articles. In today’s media market, this dynamic and content are very different to what is offered and demanded by online media. Thus, magazines in Kosovo have gradually adapted to this new environment while moving their activity to the online platform.

The social network Facebook is still the primary platform for media marketing in Kosovo, as most recent data reveals that there are more than one million users of this network in the country (Internet World Stats, 2022).

In the last decade, the trend of change in media and communication has significantly influenced the traditional media in Kosovo. They have followed the global trend of transformation. In the last ten, and especially the last two years, almost all daily newspapers and some magazines have been forced to stop printing (Ahmeti, 2021), and to continue their activity only online. This was the result of increased demand for online content, while interest in print media waned, and consequently costs for the latter became unaffordable to maintain. The print media are in a similar situation in other countries. As Ghersetti explains, the gap between the cost of printing, and the profit from sales, is constantly widening. This disparity is having a decisive impact on the constant decline in print media. There was an assumption that traditional media moving to online platforms were very likely to be successful. However, in practice the adaptation of the media was interdependent, especially with the strategies they adopted. “Media owners, both large and small, will need to adapt to the change by designing relevant and effective strategies” (McPhillips & Merlo, 2008, p. 251).

According to Effing and Spil (2016, p. 2), the key elements of online media strategy are “target audience, channel choice, goals, resources, policies, monitoring and content activities.”

This new method of accessing information has led to extraordinary changes in the structure of magazines and in audience preferences, all of which will be addressed using the data from the survey of 1051 respondents, that is included in this study. This research focuses on identifying changes that result from technological developments, since it is evident that, “social changes and digital media technologies have rapidly changed the face of journalism” (Littlejohn & Foss, 2009, p. 578).

Literature Review

Traditional media and new trends in journalism

Historically, authors have remarked on the differences and similarities between traditional media and online-based journalism. On the difference between print and digitalization, the French scholar Jean-François Lyotard (2017, p. 18) warned that, “every piece of constructed knowledge that is not translatable in such forms will simply be discarded and that new research directions will be subject to the condition of translatability of eventual results in the language of machines.” Technological development, up to the present day, has proven him correct. Machine language really does constitute an epochal dividing line in the production, placement, distribution, and consumption of information. As for the change in the situation of the media, the scholar Joshua Meyrowitz (1986, p. 69), emphasized that, “The potency of a new medium emanates not only from its own uses and inherent characteristics, but also from the ways in which it offsets or bypasses the uses and characteristics of earlier media. The same media, therefore, may have different effects in different societies.” According to Meyrowitz’ interpretation, “when a new factor is added to an old environment, we do not get the old environment plus the new factor, we get a new environment” (1986, p. 69).

These two theories of culture and communication predicted the power of the Internet. Programming language combined with the Internet changed the world forever. There is no doubt that out of all aspects of life that changed radically, media was fundamentally affected and transformed. Therefore, a new theoretical horizon is needed to conceptually situate the new paradigms. John Hartley (2011, p. 143) argues that “since the 1990s, with convergence among the content media, telecommunications and interactive computing, the situation has changed radically.” But according to the scholar of journalism, Bruce Garrison, “some electronic newspapers, magazines, and newsletters are nothing more than publications “exported” to Web format to extend their distribution. However, there seems to be growth of original publications solely based in their electronic format” (Garrison, 2009). Garrison made this observation in 2010, but such a conclusion seems somewhat outdated now given that original web publications dominate today’s information world. In the third decade of the 21st century, print media constitutes only a symbolic sample of the sources the public accesses for information. New media already dominates the world of news.

In the age of the Internet, the position of the reader toward provider of the news changes in order to be more bidirectional rather than directed from the source to the target. According to Durham and Kellner (2005, p. 545), great importance should be placed on the giver–receiver relationship in the digital age. According to them, the “Internet seems to encourage the proliferation of stories, local narratives without any totalizing gestures and it places senders and addressees in symmetrical relations.” The media–audience relationship (Bainbridge et al., 2011, p. 7) focus on the fact that, “advances in technology mean that the dialogic relationship between users of media and their audiences is becoming virtually instantaneous.” Bainbridge’s insight constitutes the essence of new media. Precisely because of this principle, electronic media have radically changed the concept of interactivity. McKay (2018, p. 153) considers new media more favorable than traditional ones in the sense that “E-publishing has one major advantage over print, an advantage which puts it on an equal footing with broadcast – as soon as something happens, it can be put on screen.” Especially when this problem is viewed from the intense dynamic of the communication and circulation of information in societies of the 21st century, the need for immediate consumption of news disadvantages print media, which is published every 24 hours. This has “caused a slow but steady decline in print circulation as audiences prefer reading news on free online platforms” (Friedrichsen & Kamalipour, 2017, p. 83).

A range of content is freely accessible online, but it is worth noting that a lot of media offer their content to readers through prepayment. Many well-known global periodicals, such as The Financial Times, People Magazine, US Weekly, National Geographic and Time Magazine offer paid access to content. The prepayment trend for online content has also been applied in recent years in the Western Balkans. Examples include the online portals Advance.hr and Telegram.hr in Croatia, Oslobođenje in Bosnia Herzegovina, Danas.rs in Serbia, and Koha.net in Kosovo.

In fact, the fundamental difference between traditional and new media is the ability of the latter to transform into interactive mediums of exchange on topics in real time. They have become almost like instant exchanges, which is inconceivable for traditional media, the most dynamic institution of which was the daily newspaper, with a 24-hour period of information exchange. In contrast, the exchange in electronic media is minute by minute. This leap forward in technological development, together with the principle of intensive interactivity of new media should be placed in the context of profound social transformations that require the fast circulation of information. To this end, Kellner refers to the information provided by the Internet as the “free flow of information” that contributes to a well-informed society. “The free flow of information and communications is essential to a democratic society and thus democracy requires that powerful instruments of information and communication be accessible to all” (1995, 338-9). Kellner (1995, 338-9) points out that “without a free flow of information, citizens cannot be adequately informed and without access to forums of public discussion and debate, citizens are excluded from the dialogue that constitutes the very heart of participatory democracy.” The internet and democracy go hand-in-hand and belong to the same socio-political and cultural register. “Almost from the moment the Internet emerged from the scientific community and burst onto the public radar, it was hailed as a democratizing force across all phases of civic life” (Singer, 2011, p. 11). It is no coincidence, therefore, that authoritarian and dictatorial political systems either completely ban the Internet (like North Korea) or restrict it to certain content (as in Russia and China) that does not threaten the monopoly of political power.

The mutual relationship between the new and classical has also been reviewed by multiple sources.

In this sense, “the common aspect to all countries is the speed at which the industry is changing, and the common challenge consequently becomes trying to keep up” (Barthelemy et al., 2011). New media neither denies nor rejects the old media absolutely. In practice the process is ‘absorbing,’ and not denying. “Finally, the new medium can remediate by trying to absorb the older medium entirely, so that the discontinuities between the two are minimized. The very act of remediation, however, ensures that the older medium cannot be entirely effaced; the new medium remains dependent on the older one in acknowledged or unacknowledged ways” (Bolter & Grusin, 2000.) Applying the typology outlined by Bolter and Grusin, Dobson argues that the transition between traditional and new media is more about ‘borrowing’ content and giving it a new digital form. “The borrowing or repurposing can take not only the content from an earlier medium, but also incorporate and refashion the earlier medium in the new digital medium.” (Dobson, 2009). Transformation of the form has a greater influence on the content than is first apparent. According to Ghersetti, the adaptation of new technology by the media continuously offers new perspectives. “The ambitions of news media to offer different content on different platforms should be considered in the light of journalism responding to new media. Rather than accentuating the differences between journalists in different media, new formats have gradually brought on more homogenized standards of professional competence” (Ghersetti 2014, p. 12) During the process of transitioning from the printed press to online platforms, the media experienced changes that are linked not only to simple technical issues or business models, but moreover relate with changes to the content itself. “The evolution of Web 2.0 has shifted the power online, from the static corporate content of the past to dynamic interaction driven by the active participation of consumers” (Kietzmann et al., 2012, p. 116). Traditional media that attempted to maintain full control over their online content were exposed to the risk of losing the younger audience. “Print media seem to be losing young readers simply because they want news on demand, and to control and customize content, time and the medium itself” (Tewari, 2016, p.2). Social media is characterized precisely by content that is less controlled “The information context is an interactive social environment that is extremely data rich but one where the organization has limited control over the content” (Kilgour, Sasser & Larke, 2015, p. 8). Young audiences are mostly interested in content that relates to social media activity so “reporter should make stories shorter and pay attention to what is hot on social media, according to the need of the day, they should generate the news content” (Tewari, 2016, p. 3).

A considerable number of traditional media outlets changed segments of their content when they transitioned to online platforms, in order to accommodate audience demand. When it comes to the news-worthy, technology and audiences have an impact in editorial teams of media outlets (Domingo et al., 2008).

In this paper, three hypotheses have been raised:

H1: Magazines that are active on online platforms are very likely to maintain their active audience.

H2: The approach of online magazines is influenced to a great extent by social media and their content is now entirely different to the printed version.

H3: Audience members who come from urban areas, and have a higher level of education, are more informed about online media activity.

Magazines in Kosovo from print to social media

The consequences of digitalization are more pronounced in the traditional print media, especially in magazines. Traditional magazines were periodicals and were characterized by detailed material about the background to certain events, including analysis, polemics, and in-depth interviews. The digital trend has overturned this approach, which reminds us of the thesis of Friedrichsen and Kamalipour (2017, p. 383), who emphasize that the Internet has transformed not only the structure, but also the content of news. They state, “The rise of digital media and the Internet have ushered in sweeping changes to the media landscape and have utterly transformed the storytelling palette for the journalist of the twenty-first century.”

Parallel with these changes, the reader’s interest has increasingly moved towards online magazines that keep the audience constantly informed about current events. Magazines that are active in the market have adapted their structure and content to this new form of journalism since “to catch up with the times the “old media” have responded with digital innovations of their own” (Straubhaar et al., 2015, p. 5).

Barthelemy et. al. (2015) explain the influence of social media and the fundamental changes it has brought about. “Social media appeared to impact publications in three areas: content distribution and promotion; online referrals to publications’ digital content” (Barthelemy et al., 2015, p.29). However, some media have proven to be resistant, preserving their classic form. Hylli i Dritës, which had a consolidated audience in the 20th century, is such a case. This magazine has had several interruptions to its activities over time, due to various factors, but its optimal target group was active. The topics that characterized this magazine were specific and dominated by politics and religion. Hylli i Dritës doggedly maintained its former identity, insisting at all costs on resisting the changes of time related to technological progress. To illustrate this statement, see the covers of Hylli i Dritës in 1939 (HYLLI I DRITES Vjeta XV 1939, 2) and 2021 (HYLLI I DRITES Vjeta XLI 2021, 1, n.d.).

Consequently, magazines like Hylli i Dritës could not be reconfigured to follow the technology trend. They are examples that illustrate that “this slower growth in magazine websites is possibly due to a resistance by some publishers to give away their content online and potentially cannibalize their print editions” (Chandra & Kaiser, 2014, p. 1883).

The magazine, Kosovarja, provides a diametrically opposite example, as it has consistently adapted to circumstances, public demand, and technology trends. It was first published in 1971, by the League of Women of Kosovo,1 whose mission was to promote the causes of women and girls from Kosovo. In later years, in the ’90s, political circumstances in Kosovo changed, and due to these changes, it turned into a national and patriotic magazine. After the year 2000, the Kosovar society was in transition, and again Kosovarja shifted its focus from politics to showbiz, an approach which remains dominant in Kosovarja even today. Even when politics is involved as a dimension, it is interpreted through the lens of showbiz. For example, in the June 2022 issue, in the column ‘Politics and clothing...’ there is an article with the title, “Which Kosovar politicians follow fashion?” Thus, this text reveals how the magazine’s topics have evolved, weaving together two previous themes, about intellectual women and politics, within the Showbiz section.

On the other hand, it is noticeable that in the ’70s, Kosovarja, focused on the woman as such, without emphasizing her personal identity, but instead concentrating on her character and work. Today’s Kosovarja focuses mainly on the woman who promotes and advertises her individual identity. In its roots, Kosovarja promoted the working woman within the framework of gender equality (front page, no. 9, September 1975). Whereas today’s Kosovarja promotes the woman who emphasizes her body for no reason other than sensuality (front page, no. 4, April 2021).

The other feature that characterizes the Kosovarja magazine is how it follows technology development trends. Since 2013, it has been operating through its portal on the social network, Facebook, where it has 455,000 followers. The magazine also keeps its website active, where it constantly updates posts about daily current events. Since 2020,2 Kosovarja has operated only online, through its website and Facebook.

Kosovarja is a typical example of changing content as a reflexive adaptation to technological trends. This reminds us of an argument used by Kress in relation to such changes: “It has frequently been commented on that the pages of newspapers and magazines are more and more like the screens of certain television programmes.” Kress emphasizes that, “these new generic forms are not amenable to the same conceptual structures, the same structures of ideas, information and knowledge as were the other, the older forms.”

The posts about showbiz, for example, are treated differently to the articles in the PDF magazine, which is dominated by long interviews, and analysis from showbiz illustrated with photographs. On Facebook, most posts include ready-made showbiz content, which is taken from Facebook and Instagram profiles of artists, politicians, and other actors in society. Social media is an important component of journalist work all over the world. Weaver and Willnat (2016, p.7) emphasize that in US this is a dominant practice, “because the internet has dramatically changed the way journalists do their work, it is not surprising that 40 percent of US journalists said that social media are very important to their work.” So, Kosovarja is a typical example of continuous adaptation to public demand as it digitized its content, given that, “more people are turning away from traditional media outlets, with their decorous, just-the-facts aspirations to objectivity, towards noisier hybrid formats that aggressively fuse news with opinion or entertainment, or both” (McNair, 2006, p. 130). The survey of the activity of Kosovarja on Facebook during the month of June 2022, recorded a total of 868 posts, including 437 on Showbiz, 215 on lifestyle, 116 on current events, 99 on Politics and 12 on Health.

Višňovský et al. (2015), put the emphasis on the change in how information is received by the audience. “The Internet has, on the one hand, made the access to information easier but, on the other hand, it has changed also the ways users perceive the news content. The change brought about by the internet is also related to, “tools to allow readers’ involvement in a story through rating buttons and comment features.” (Barthelemy, et al., 2011, p.29).

To the knowledge of the authors, Kosovo is the first country in the world that had a significant number of printed media outlets, which have disappeared completely from daily print. Instead, printed media has completely transitioned to an online format, leaving room only for the distribution of printed media in selected dates or anniversaries. This makes studying the landscape of online media and their reception in Kosovo fertile ground for understanding more in depth the impact of rapid media digitization.

The consequences of digitization have been more radical for magazines and newspapers as a medium, than for other types of media. Magazines and newspapers have been unable to operate in print as demand is decreasing for this type of product in the market. In contrast, television has enriched, rather than lost, its content, in parallel with the development of the online platform. On one side television has kept its content in traditional transmission because “seniors prefer to get information on TV” (Qerimi & Gwrguri, 2022, p. 97), on the other side, through online platforms it attracted new audiences by adjusting its contents according to the new trends of information. “The contents of online television have become almost identical to the contents of written online portals in the sense that they all transmit the most recent news.” (Martišius, 2018, p. 66).

Methodology

Sample

The data included in this analysis contain the results of the responses of 1051 respondents who were categorized based on demographic and regional data. This survey was conducted in seven regions of Kosovo – Prishtina (273), Mitrovica (95), Peja (126), Prizren (200), Ferizaj (126), Gjilan (117), and Gjakova (114). The research is based on an overall of 1,806,279 inhabitants, whereas the number of respondents was determined according to the data given by the World Bank (2021). This sample is highly representative for the demographic of Kosovo and allows one to draw conclusions with a high confidence for individual cities. Demographic data was used to categorize the audience according to the region, living place, gender, age, and education. This survey is conducted in person and the results were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences.

Activity by the journal Kosovarja on Facebook was also analyzed between June 1st and June 30th 2022, and the data was extracted using the a web scrapping package in the Python programming language (Gv, 1995). The package enables researchers to analyze both Facebook posts and comments to them. In order to compare this content with traditional magazines, the content of Kosovarja was analyzed in the following years in PDF versions: 1973–1975, 1998–2000, 2018–2020, and 2021–-2022. These periods were determined as a deliberative sample because during these years Kosovarja magazine has experienced some changes in content and infrastructure. During the ’70s, Kosovarja started its activity as a magazine for women, but later, during the ’90s it turned into a magazine dealing with national causes, whereas after year 2000 it was dominated by showbiz. Recently Kosovarja operates as an online platform only and still showbiz remains its theme, but the content is dominated by social media posts. Hylli i Dritës was also included as a case study of a magazine that has not adapted to the new media environment, and the analysis included content published between 1913–1939, as well as the last two editions in 2018 and 2021. These two periods were taken purposefully in order to argue that Hylli i Dritës, in comparison with Kosovarja, has not change in content nor in infrastructure during a whole century.

Survey

The significance of social media is understood by analyzing to what extent traditional media prefer to expand their activity on this platform. The impact of the Internet on traditional media is also analyzed in order to understand whether magazines have suffered more than other types of media as a result of changes in the last decade associated with developments in technology. In this regard, data is extracted to indicate to what degree audiences follow traditional newspapers on social media, and this data will be compared with audience interest in traditional magazines that operate online. The results of the survey conducted with 1051 respondents help to explain how much the audience knows about the activity of traditional magazines and whether they think that going online has damaged the magazine as a form of media. It also indicates to what extent the audience is informed about 20th century magazines and how often it follows these magazines online.

To assess the structure and content of online magazines, the activity of Kosovarja was analyzed throughout June 2022. Data was collected about the nature of this magazine’s posts, the topics covered, the sections receiving the most likes and comments by the magazine’s target group. Based on these data, it will be argued that traditional content cannot be successfully conveyed to the audience through an online platform.

Results

The table below displays the demographic information of the total sample of the present study.

Table. 1 Demographic characteristics of the sample (designed by the author)

Demographic characteristics of respondents	N 1051	% 100
SEX
Male	497	47.4%
Female	553	52.6%
AGE
18-35	478	45.5%
35-55	382	36.3%
56-65	144	13.7%
65+	46	4.5%
LOCATION
Urban	730	69%
Rural	321	30.5%
EDUCATION
Elementary	110	10.5%
High school	402	38.2%
University	469	44.6%
None	70	6.7%

Traditional newspapers that were the most influential in shaping public opinion now operate only online. Some have managed to extend their influence online, gaining a significant number of followers. Gazeta Express, which is the first newspaper that moved from printed to the online version in 2011, has created a large network in Facebook with 1.2 million followers, almost the same as three other newspapers, Koha (638K), Zëri (490K) and Epoka e Re (279K).

The daily newspapers in Kosovo have applied precisely the approach that Bolter and Grusin consider to be important in developing the relationship between traditional media and new media in the age of digitalization. They argue that the influence is not just one-way, but reciprocal. “What is new about new media comes from the particular ways in which they refashion older media and the ways in which older media refashion themselves to answer the challenges of new media.” (Bolter & Grusin, 2000, p. 15).

It is worth noting that there was also no guarantee that daily newspapers going online would retain their active audience. Today, the newspaper Kosova Sot, one of three printed newspapers with the widest circulation in the media market in Kosovo, has only (181,000) online readers.

Magazines were in the same situation but “print magazines appear to be worse off with the advent of the Internet, confirming general fears regarding this industry” (Chandra & Kaiser, 2014, p. 1839) and stopped printing. The difference between these two types of media lies in the fact that apart from Kosovarja, other magazines were not successful online. Kosovarja has 452K followers in Facebook page, while the other magazines have less than 15K followers, Flatra (14.8K), Teuta (6.5K), Shenja (3.8K).

On the other hand, there has been no case of the closure of any television, which is a traditional media in Kosovo. Indeed, in the last five years, several new television channels have been opened that operate with both traditional and online channels.3 As Bolter and Grusin emphasize, “There is, by the way, nothing wrong or even unusual in an older medium’s attempt to refashion a younger one.” (Bolter & Grusin, 2000, p. 86). This situation is explained by the survey data, collected as part of this study. Of the 1051 respondents involved, 46.2% of them stated that they watch television regularly.

 

Figure 1. Answers of respondents to the question: What type of media do you follow regularly?

In Kosovarja, the number of likes varies from topic to topic, but the posts with the most likes are from showbiz, and the posts with the most comments are those related to current events, or the latest information about various issues.

 

Figure 2. Report on the number of posts on topics, likes, and comments on the Kosovarja Facebook page.

High interest of audience in showbiz topics is understandable considering the fact that 47.5% of respondents declared that they use social media mainly for amusement during leisure. Kosovo’s audience is not an exception in this regard. Also, similar situation is in other countries, for instance in the United States, “Fashion, celebrity, lifestyle (including health and fitness), and travel are the most popular genres of magazines that the participants connected with through social media platforms” (Jain, Zaher & Roy, 2017, p.8).

Audience perception of magazines in Kosovo

Based on the survey of respondents, which is included in this paper, it was found that the magazine is the medium that is least followed, attracting just 3.9% of the audience in Kosovo. Approximately 40.3% of the respondents did not know whether a magazine was still being published in print in Kosovo. Approximately 25.3% of the respondents thought that Kosovarja was still being printed, two years after the magazine stopped the print version and moved only online.

Only 28% of the respondents were informed about the activity of online magazines, while 72% of them stated that they had no knowledge of them. While 100% of the respondents in the age group over 65 years old were completely uninformed about online magazines, since they encounter practical difficulties in following online content. As Friedrichsen and Kamalipour conclude (2017, p. 75), “an audience used to traditional forms of media may resist change to embrace a new way of receiving information. As a result, those with a lack of technological skill will be unable to take full advantage of new media especially old people who may lack the computer literacy and those with visual or physical disabilities.”

Approximately 72.9% of respondents thought that new developments in technology have negatively affected the magazine as a medium. The results of the research also show that a large number of younger respondents know very little about 20th century magazines. Approximately 66.1% of them have no knowledge of any magazine that was published in the 20th century, while 65% did not know in which century Hylli i Dritës was published.

Those who were least informed about the magazines that were active in the 20th century were also respondents with a low level of education. Only 6%, and respectively 7%, of those who had no education, or just primary education, declared that they had heard of Hylli i Dritës. A key factor influencing how informed people are about magazine activity is the respondent’s region, as 68% of those living in rural areas had no knowledge about magazines in Kosovo. On the other hand, 87% of respondents with secondary and higher education were informed about the magazines of the last century. The results for online magazine activity are similar. Just 8% of respondents without any education, or with primary education, stated that they knew about online magazines, compared with 24% of respondents living in rural zones. Meanwhile, respondents who were over 65 years of age were the least informed about this type of media.

Conclusion

This research was conducted in order to understand the situation of magazines in Kosovo especially to shed light how the content was changed as a result of transformation from print to online media. For the purpose of this study, an example of a classic media magazine was used that has resisted new technology, like Hylli i Dritës which was very influential in the 20th century. In comparison, through its online activity Kosovarja has gained almost half a million followers. Thus, interest has completely shifted to new media forms, which is well-matched to second principle of Fidler’s theory of mediamorphosis (1997, p.29). Kosovarja managed to change the content comparing to the printed version but this is not the fundamental reason that this magazine still exists in the market. Activity online is not automatically equivalent to success since, as noted, some magazines in Kosovo, although active online, such as Flatra, with 15,000 followers, and Teuta, with 6,500 followers, do not have many followers as Kosovarja (H1 is not confirmed).

These magazines operate online, and they have adjusted their content like Kosovarja, but their number of followers continues to be modest. Kosovarja appears to have implemented the most important key elements of an online media strategy based on the Effing and Spil elaboration. It has maintained its focus on identifying a target audience and content activity. Its strategy has also included choice of channel and objectives.

The results of this research try to bring a new approach concerning adaptation and activity of media in online platforms. Besides many fundamental changes that technological advancement has brought, another crucial segment which determines the success of online media is the level of presence of their content in social media. Information filtering in social media networks is not very well regulated and this is what attracts new audiences. And the media which tend to strictly control their content by avoiding social media novelties create high chances of losing their new audiences. This is key reason why social media is already transformed into an important source of the online media content.

Based on this situation a new issue emerged regarding the general quality of mediatic information. Traditional media in Kosovo are more correct and enjoy greater trust than online media. Regardless of this, trying to keep its audiences and in search of new ones, traditional media constantly changes and this way they are more and more unified with online media not only in their content but in their form as well.

Magazines cannot preserve their traditional content on the online platform. In order to adapt to the dynamics of social media, magazines change the topics they cover because adapting to readers’ interests is the only way to maintain their activity (H2 is confirmed).

Audience degree of access to, and the absorption capacity, for digitally transformed media depends decisively on the level of education and region of origin. Thus, an audience’s absorption of digital content is in direct proportion to the higher level of education attained, middle and younger age groups, and urban origin. There is also a correlation between age and the affinity for absorbing online media content (H3 is confirmed).

It appears that the consequences of digitization have been more radical for magazines, as the results show that the magazine is the least followed medium in Kosovo. Over 2/3 of the respondents thought that the development of technology has negatively affected both the magazine as a medium and its content. On the other hand, online newspapers have achieved satisfactory results in the new media environment. Meanwhile, television holds the primacy as the most preferred media.

A further study of this trend could help to better understand this dynamic of magazines in Kosovo and also to conduct deeper research regarding their online presence, activity, and network.

References

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