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The Insider:
Global Politics Magazine
Jacob Halpin, Director of Global
Politics Magazine
Issue five marks the one
year anniversary of Global Politics
Magazine - so happy birthday!
This time The Insider is
about the magazine itself, how it got
started and where it is going next.
In the beginning…
Unlike some big ideas,
Global Politics Magazine didn’t arrive
in a flash of inspiration. And there
were no booming voices from above giving
divine guidance. Rather less
dramatically, it was more a steady
accumulation of ideas. While writing up
a lengthy dissertation I had the feeling
it should be possible to publish and
promote the wealth of ideas and
arguments in students’ essays and theses
which tend to remain hidden away in a
dusty corner of academia. This evolved
into a more ambitious and rather more
exciting raison d’être. Student
essays expanded to become the writing of
young people of any occupation, and the
emphasis on a wide range of
nationalities was introduced. We also
realised that the political exchange
this could generate between young people
from politically diverse parts of the
planet could be part of something much
bigger. We saw that there was potential
to develop understandings and shared
ideas that didn’t previously exist,
something which would be highly
significant among a global network of
individuals embarking on careers in the
world of international politics.
And so Global Politics
Magazine was born in September 2006. I
gathered together a group of friends and
fellow politics students at Sheffield
University, UK, and managed to persuade
them that not only was the magazine a
good idea, but that they should put pen
to paper and write the articles for the
debut issue. After lengthy debate over
the substantial (and not so substantial)
aspects of the magazine, we reached
broad agreement on the size, shape and
content. Blissfully ignorant of how
tricky web design is, I volunteered to
learn how to transfer our ideas from
paper to the internet. I invested in a
copy of Microsoft Frontpage, which did
at least remove the need to learn what
html actually means. After many
frustrating weeks of battling against
web browsers destroying my carefully
planned pages in weird and unpredictable
ways, Global Politics magazine was
finally ready to go.
Our initial team of eight
included people from Mexico, the US,
France, China and the UK. Of these Nick,
our editor, and I have been closely
involved throughout. Others have drifted
away and have been replaced by new
people keen to be part of the project.
Although structure and editorial control
are necessary to keep things running
smoothly, we like the project to be
open, and we keep the production team as
flexible as possible, taking up offers
of involvement when possible and
encouraging people to contribute as much
as they are able.
The publicity machine
Having produced issue
one, the only thing we lacked was
readers. So we contacted as many
university politics departments as we
could, asking friendly secretaries to
spread the word to students, which they
kindly did with few exceptions. Our
marketing began in the UK and to date we
have also done ‘formal’ publicity in
South Africa, the United States and
Ireland. However, many more
nationalities have been involved because
of the international mix of students at
many universities. We now intend to
focus our marketing on other parts of
the world.
We don’t produce a hard
copy version of the magazine and
currently there are no plans to do so.
As a publication designed to reach as
many nationalities as possible, the
internet is the ideal medium. The
international nature of the project
would become difficult to maintain if we
were to introduce a hard copy version.
And coincidentally, the internet is also
the cheapest way to publish, which suits
our current financial situation rather
well. Presently, the budget is very
simple: nothing comes in, and (almost)
nothing goes out, which does at least
make the maths simple.
Yes, but how big is it?
OK, a few statistics:
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Since issue one in
January 2007 we’ve had about 14,000
visitors.
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As I write this, the last
500 page loads have been requested by
people in 39 countries, ranging from
Luxembourg to Iran to Zimbabwe.
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Articles have come from
people in countries including France,
India, Bulgaria, Israel, Mexico, the UK,
China, Singapore, Serbia and the United
States.
We’re pretty pleased with
this. We aren’t yet ranking alongside
Foreign Affairs or the Economist, but
it’s not a bad year’s work! What has
been particularly encouraging is the
enthusiasm we’ve received from new
readers. There has been no shortage of
article proposals which I think is a
clear stamp of approval.
Next step, the world
As we move into year two
of the magazine we want to get involved
in more countries. Our readership is
disproportionately ‘western’ at the
moment and we would like a more even
distribution worldwide. More readers,
with a greater mix of nationalities,
will lead to more article submissions,
an increasingly high quality of
published pieces, and a more genuinely
international debate/discussion, which
is what we are all about, after all.
We hope to involve new
people in the production team,
especially as editors and to take
responsibility for some of the
additional sections which sit alongside
the main features. This additional
support will be particularly important
if begin to produce the magazine with
greater frequency.
Finally, we would like
some money! Not for salaries, I should
add, as it’s a voluntary project, but
for developing the website and boosting
our marketing. There are a few options
to explore here, so watch this space. In
fact, if you log on one day and discover
a slick new website then you’ll know
we've been successful!
Some thoughts for the
future
To whet your appetite,
how about these for some future
possibilities:
A new issue every two
months, and then every month,
high-profile interviews,
contributions from every continent
in every issue, publication in
several languages, on-line debate
with recognised political
figures, marketing teams
focusing on specific regions,
discussions with authors, the
opportunity to publish alongside some of
the best new ideas around the
world, a ‘Fresh Ideas’ section
bringing together new thinking from
across the world, a dedicated
webmaster maintaining regular
updates, the best internet blogs
brought together on one site.
Like the sound of it?
Then get involved!
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