Web-Based Periodicals as an Emerging Cultural Form: Incumbent and Newcomer Producers in the Early Stages of Industry Revolution

This research is an investigation of Web-based periodicals, an emerging cultural form that presents magazine content in an electronic medium. Specifically, we compare and evaluate the characteristics of incumbent producers that publish Web-based complements to existing paper publications, and newcomer producers that publish Web-based documents exclusively. Drawing on evolutionary perspectives from the organizational theory field, we develop hypotheses predicting distinctions between incumbent and newcomer producers of an emerging cultural form. Hypothesis tests on a random sample of 114 Web-based periodicals, combined with a rigorous qualitative analysis, show that incumbent producers have more characteristics that suggest longevity than newcomers have: symbolic ties to other organizations that add credibility, advertising solicitations that attract environmental support, and clear target audiences that confer market viability. Newcomer producers exhibit greater technological sophistication, but new media applications that may have distinguished newcomers were impractical for mainstream use.