Musiikin Suunta

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THE FINNISH POP CULTURE PORTAL

Magazines : Musiikin Suunta
Interview : Merja Hottinen / Editor in chief

When was your magazine first published?
Musiikin suunta was first published in 1983.

Who's idea or concept was it?
The Finnish Society for Ethnomusicology wanted to have its own magazine to have better possibilities for publishing articles by Finnish ethnomusicologists and to make the field better known in Finland.

Would you say that your magazine now is different from the first edition? If so, how is it different?
Yes, it is different. The magazine reflects the interests of the different authors and editors as well as the changing subjects Finnish ethnomusicologists have been studying and discussing in their articles. Of course the layout has changed also.

How would you present your magazine to our readers who don't know it?
Musiikin suunta presents research-based knowledge of music as culture to all interested people, from professors to laymen.

What are the main topics or areas that your magazine covers?
The focus is in music as culture. The articles discuss different kinds of musics from various perspectives, as well as other cultural phenomena related to music.

What is the periodicity of your magazine?
4 issues per year.

Could you present your "editorial line"?
We try to represent the variety in the finnish etnomusicological discussion, both as a variety of topics and as a variety of writers. We try to keep Musiikin suunta as a forum for research papers, but also as a forum of public discussion and new ideas.

Who are your readers? Do you aim to touch or focus on a certain part of the population?
The readers are mainly the members of the Finnish Society for Ethnomusicology - students of (ethno)musicology, scholars, professors, journalists, teachers and other people that are interested in music because of their profession or hobbies.

Do you have any competitors?
There are few magazines that publish (ethno)musicological research papers in Finland, but Musiikin suunta is the only magazine that publishes research-based articles but is not directed only to other researchers.

Is your magazine distributed all over Finland?
Yes

Do you know if it is available abroad?
It can be ordered from abroad through the book agents of Stockmann/Academic bookstore (in Helsinki).

How is the situation with the Finnish press (newspapers, magazines) nowadays?
There is much competition, because there is such a rich variety of magazines and newspapers. But people seem to enjoy reading magazines nowadays, so the situation is quite good. But of course also the Internet, television and other forms of communication are competing with newspapers and magazines, and the economical situation gets always tighter.

Do you think that this situation will continue or are there many chances that it will change in the future?
I don't think it will change in the near future, but the communication culture changes nowadays so rapidly that one never knows what will happen. Maybe people will appreciate "traditional" forms of communication (magazines printed on paper etc.) even more in the future "techological" world.

Would you say that the "traditional magazines" suffer or benefit from the internet?
I think they could benefit from the internet. Of course it is often easier to find information directly from the internet than to find and buy a magazine. But traditional magazines have also advantages that the internet doesn't have: you can read a magazine in a bus or in bed, and the information is in a nice package instead of millions of chaotic possibilities that the internet offers. A magazine can also offer certain standard and reliability of information, but you never know what to believe in when you search for information in the internet.

But the two can live together: an interested reader can find in the internet much more information than a magazine can offer, and the internet might also act as an advertisement for a magazine.

Do you have a web site?
We have a small "sub-site" under the web site of Finnish Etnomusicological Society www.helsinki.fi/music/ses - the page contains basic information about the magazine. More informative is perhaps the site of Kultti ry www.kultti.net . That web site publishes the content list of the newest edition. The site is only in Finnish - but so is Musiikin suunta too.

What kind of information do you publish on-line?
General information about the magazine, information about deadlines etc.

Have you ever considered the possibility to propose an identical version of your magazine in an electronic format?
Yes, we have thought about it. It is lot of work though, and we would prefer that the people would buy the magazine instead of reading it on internet.

Interview by Vincent Lefrançois - 2003