SPECIFICITY OF THE CONTENT AND DESIGN OF THE MINI-JOURNAL “BABILONCHIK” (“BABYLONCHIK”)

Abstract

The article reveals the essence of one of the editorial experiments of the 1990s: combining different-age reading audiences in magazines with film content. The purpose of the article is to identify the specifics of the content and design of the mini-magazine “Babilonchik” (“Babylonchik”) and to formulate recommendations for modern publishers based on its strengths and weaknesses. The article analyses the content and design of the mini-journal “BABILONCHIK” (“BABYLONCHIK”), designed for a children’s audience and published in the magazines “BABILON”, “BABILON-XXI” (transformed name – “BABYLON XXI”). The author paid attention to the anthropomorphic means of modelling the image of the minimagazine, the communicative techniques used by the editorial staff to communicate with the children's audience, the font design of the text fragments and the name of the mini-magazine, the specificity of its illustrative and informative content. The article also pays attention to the history of the functioning of the magazines “Babilon”, “Babilon- XXI” (transformed name – “Babylon XXI”) and emphasizes the invariability of the editorial policy regarding the publication on their pages of a mini-magazine with children's entertainment content, which became a unique marketing technique for attracting a larger readership in the 90s of the twentieth century. The article states that the mini-magazine “Babilonchik” (transformed version – “Babylonchik”) contributed to the development of children's creativity, performing cognitive, communicative, advertising, stimulating, aesthetic, and developmental functions. Having analysed the content of the publications, the author also drew attention to the shortcomings of the use of an editorial experiment in combining content designed for different age audiences, and offered recommendations addressed to modern publishers.