Honest, passionate feminine voices can find outlets in online magazines, according to a panel of female staff members for three online magazines.

‘When you care about what you’re posting, your content is that much better,’ said Jessica Coen, editor in chief of Jezebel, an online women’s interest magazine.

Coen spoke as part of a panel for ‘The Digital Mystique: Women’s Editorial Online’ presentation Monday in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium. The panel spoke on the unique feminine voice in online publications.

Fellow panelists included Anna Holmes, founder of Jezebel; Edith Zimmerman, founder and editor of general interest blog The Hairpin; and Lori Adelman, writer for online feminist community blog Feministing.

During the presentation, the panelists discussed online publications’ relationship with print magazines, the selection of content for feminist sites and the role of men in online feminine websites.

The panelists stressed the community aspect of online forums that results from the immediacy of content and the ability to comment on topics.

Speaking of traditional print magazines, Coen said, ‘It kind of feels like they’re talking at you, and I think it feels that way because you can’t actually talk back to them … whereas online we have comments and you can respond to what we said immediately.’

For Holmes, an additional difference in the two media forms is volume.

‘Online sites are loud. A lot of the sites agitate against and for certain things and do it constantly and very loudly,’ Holmes said.

Holmes attributed the relentlessness of online forums in presenting issues as a major difference from the superficial formula of traditional women’s magazines.

‘The web saw an opportunity to be different from mainstream media and to speak to an audience that was tired of being spoken down to,’ she said.

The selection of content for women’s web magazines is based on the critical balance of topics like style and celebrities and heavier social issues, like reproductive health, panelists said.

Coen said that the editorial decisions of article location are important in maintaining balanced, diverse posts. The diversity of posts attracts readers who might not otherwise be interested in deeper social topics, Holmes said.

‘There might be a younger readership that would be attracted by the celebrity and fashion stuff but would become politicized because of the conversations not only amongst the writers, but the conversations going on in the comments,’ Holmes said.

Holmes, Coen and Zimmerman said they were hired by men to produce female-oriented content. They noted this allowed them a greater degree of freedom in production. Coen said publishers trusted that they knew what they were talking about. Both Hairpin and Jezebel employ male writers.

‘It’s been cool to see the kind of pitches we get that have nothing to do with any type of gender relation type things,’ Zimmerman said.

Sarah Schmalbruch, a sophomore magazine major, said she loves print magazines and enjoyed hearing about online opportunities.

‘It opened my eyes to a positive side of online magazines,’ Schmalbruch said.

Emily Shearing, doctoral candidate in magazine, newspaper and online journalism, said she is a fan of Coen and Zimmerman.

She said, ‘I feel like there’s something to be said for women to start their own blogs like this, and I think that anybody in this building here is more than capable of doing that.’

nagorny@syr.edu 

Published on November 7, 2011 at 12:00 pm