Welcome to the magazine project, whatever that is

What SI might look like on an Apple tablet computer. An Applet?

As our first-year students embark on a CreComm tradition dating back to before even I was a student - "the magazine project!" - the New York Times "Magazine" asks the pertinent question, "What is a magazine?"

It's a good question, given that a magazine is no longer read as often in the medium that the word was born to describe. The answer?

Well. Errr. It's a. Hmmm. It's...complicated. Thank you Facebook and Meryl Streep!

The article suggests that the word "magazine" was used in the 90s as a stopgap, like "bookmark," while we got ourselves used to this wacky, new online medium. Instead, the article suggests, online magazines are now "communities," "websites," "curated news aggregation," or "aggregated blogs."

So, when you embark on the magazine assignment this year, take heart at knowing that this might be one of the last years we ever call it a "magazine" and that you may have already have done a magazine project in the form of your own blog.

As for aggregated blogs? That's sooooo last semester. This semester, we embark upon something new altogether, which I propose we call "The existentialism of magazines project:"



Who's with me?