Print Imprint: The Connection Between the Physical Newspaper and the Self

As reading becomes “an increasingly digital pastime” (Kretzschmar, Pleimling, Hosemann, Füssel, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky & Schlesewsky, 2013, p. 1), print, including newspapers, magazines and books, often is considered less relevant than it once was. After all, the notion “print is dead” has permeated everyday life (Chyi, H. I., Lewis, S. C., & Zheng, N., 2012). While perhaps less relevant, print is not irrelevant, to be sure. This article’s objective is to explicate print’s meaningfulness, specifically situating its argument around readers of a weekly newspaper but offering a discussion of the medium’s meaning at large.

This study explores the print newspaper through the absence of the print newspaper, building on 19 in-depth interviews with former readers following the 2018 shuttering of a weekly newspaper in the United States. This research broadly argues that we must rethink the simple ink and physical paper of a newspaper and consider more than the medium’s content. To some, including those interviewees at the heart of this research, the newspaper elicits what this article conceptualizes as a distinct “print imprint,” an emotional, sensational and influential connection. This paper illustrates the significance, usefulness and uniqueness of the printed newspaper and, importantly, takes a theoretical step forward, contending that the printed newspaper draws out the meaningfulness of ownership, touch and nostalgia, all influential ingredients of “The Self.”

The self encapsulates cognitive, affective and social experiences that shape personality and the mindfulness of that personality (Mead, 1934). We are not given a self, instead the self is developed based on our physical and social activities. As Mead (1934, p. 149) writes, it is “necessary to rational conduct that the individual should thus take an objective, impersonal attitude toward himself, that he should become an object to himself.” Ultimately, this research argues that the loss of the weekly newspaper prompted a loss or lessening of self for the shuttered product’s abandoned former readers.

Theoretical Framework

Recently, there has been a wave of scholarship dedicated to the modalities of reading the print and online newspapers, offering discussions of the characteristics, features and emotions the printed platform provides (Boczkowski, Mitchelstein, & Suenzo, 2020; Fortunati, Taipale, & Farinosi, 2015; O’Sullivan, Fortunati, Taipale, & Barnhurst, 2017; Zhou, Kiesow, & Guo, 2021). These studies find that reading on paper and reading digitally are unique experiences, even though the actual content is similar if not the exact same. As O’Sullivan et al. (2017, p. 88) note, “digital does what print does, not better, but differently.” The research shows that news reading is more than a simple communicative act but a process in which different technologies enhance different sensations.

The printed newspaper provides a unique sense of completeness, ownership and embodiment for readers. The digital newspaper is fragmented with a seemingly endless supply of links in which readers lose the “sense of totality of the object” (O’Sullivan et al., 2017, p. 87). Conversely, the print newspaper “is considered as an object completed, finished in itself” (Fortunati et al., 2015, p. 835). This prompts a different “sense of ownership” for readers (O’Sullivan et al., 2017, p. 87). Print newspapers are purchased and possessed, and readers can use them any way they see fit (cut out articles, frame full pages, etc). They can be used for art projects, housework or lining the bottom of a birdcage (Barnhurst & Wartella, 1991). Newspapers can be shared with friends (Berelson, 1949; Bentley, 2001) or kept for posterity.

Issues of embodiment are critical in the comparison between the print and online experiences. A print newspaper offers a sensory advantage, a “pleasantness,” compared to a “sensation of coldness” (Fortunati et al., 2015, p. 841). The material objects are part of the news experience, with a print newspaper offering a “nostalgic emotional experience” unmatched by the online newspaper (Boczkowski et al., 2020, p. 576). One participant in the aforementioned study said, “the truth is that I like newsprint, the smell of ink, which is a thing you carry from your youth” (Boczkowski et al., 2020, p. 572). In their research, exploring a texto-material approach, Boczkowski et al. (2020) build on the work of Alexander (2010), who implores us to consider that when people encounter material artifacts it is “experienced aesthetically” (2010, p. 13). According to Alexander, “contact with this aesthetic surface, whether by sight, smell, taste, sound or touch, provides a sensual experience that transmits meaning” (2010, p. 11). This meaning of materiality connects to the self.

Recent scholarship has examined the changing nature of news, since the digital evolution, and the connection of news to its consumers. For instance, Peters (2012) described a “journalism on the go,” which has altered the everyday relationship between news and reader. Peters argues that journalism is produced to facilitate mobile places of consumption (space), faster pace of the information age (speed) and desire for multiple channels of access (convenience). Gutsche and Hess (2020) introduced the concept of “placeification,” describing how digital spaces are assumed as places of meaning, illustrating a need for richer understanding of the relationship between places of news consumption and the readers.

Research also has examined the unique relationship between small-town news organizations, like the weekly newspaper in this study, and their readers. Though small-town journalism, or community journalism, remains an under-researched space, there is a foundational understanding of community journalism in scholarship, principally from Byerly (1961), Lauterer (2006), Reader and Hatcher (2011) and, more recently, Smith (2019), Mathews (2020), Ali, Radcliffe and Donald (2020) and Journalism April 2020 special issue, “Journalism in Small Towns.” This scholarship has argued the functions of the local community press are different than larger metropolitan newspapers. Compared to larger, metro newspapers, small-town newspapers provide a “sense of community” (Lauterer, 2006; Mathews, 2020). Small-town newspapers have a “nearness to people” (Byerly, 1961, p. 25) and a sense of “our us-ness, our extended family-ness” (Lauterer, 2006, p. 14). Community journalists and their readers often share the same social space, leading to a certain intimacy between the newspaper staff and readers (Rosenberry, 2012). Lauterer (2006, p. 52) even suggests communities have an “emotional and philosophical ownership” of their community newspapers. It is important to note, there is complexity to the discussion. Even while expressing affection for a small-town newspaper, some deride the paper with mocking nicknames such as “The Depress,” instead of “The Press” (Mathews, 2020).

Significantly, this overall discussion is not exclusive to the printed newspaper. In a study of print magazines, for instance, Davidson, McNeill and Ferguson (2007, p. 213) found that readers held a strong attachment to the copies and were “quick to express their inability to part with.” Regarding books, people enjoy displaying what they have read. One book industry executive said, “the book lover loves to have a record of what they’ve read, and it’s about signaling to the rest of the world. It’s about decorating your home, it’s about collecting, I guess, because people are completists aren’t they, they want to have that to indicate about themselves” (Handley, 2019). This comment points toward the next section’s exploration of the self as a “reflected entity” and on the connection between print and the self, the “print imprint.”

The Self

This section explores three distinct, yet intersecting, elements of the self as they connect to readers of the printed newspaper: 1) ownership, 2) touch and 3) nostalgia.

First, our “extended self” (Belk, 1988) is characterized by the possessions we own. Belk (1988, p. 139) writes that “knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally, we regard our possessions as parts of ourselves.” Belk (1988, p. 139) argues possessions are “incorporated into the self-concept” and help achieve “a sense of continuity.” Belk establishes how a sense of self is “intricately tied to mundane and emotionally charged material belongs” (Warde, 2015, p. 121). Possessions connect an individual’s identity to others, gaining recognition and social prestige, thus acting as symbols of self (Cooper, 1976). Further, Furby (1978) proposed the “psychology of mine,” which argues ownership is a connection between a person and an object. This tie triggers the perception that the possession plays a prominent role in the owner’s identity (Belk, 1988; Dittmar, 1992; Gao & Riley, 2010). As Sartre (1969, p. 591) writes: “The totality of my possessions reflects the totality of my being. … I am what I have … what is mine is myself.” The word “mine,” writes, Rudmin (1993, p. 55), is a “is a small word. It is deceptive it is power and importance. It controls our behavior, but we rarely notice.” Belk explores consumerism and draws from possession of such things as large as houses and cars, as affecting as collections and pets and as mundane as photographs and newspaper clippings. Belk argues that such possessions generate “meaning in life” and show it is an “an inescapable fact of modern life that we learn, define, and remind ourselves of who we are by our possessions” (1988, p. 160). Indeed, physical items are often “imbued with meaning unrelated to their physical attributes,” (Wheeler & Bechler, 2020, p. 6), exhibiting deep, personal, symbolic meaning (Csikszentmihalyi & Halton, E., 1981; Dittmar, 2008). This is revealed when people are unwilling to part with possessions (Winterich, Walker Reczek & Irwin, 2017) or, in extreme cases, suffer from a hoarding disorder (Kings, Moulding & Knight, 2017). More recent scholarship finds physical possessions are a larger part of the extended self than their digital counterparts, such as ecards, audio/video files and digital newspaper stories (Siddiqui & Turley, 2006). These virtual possessions are stored within software, easily replaceable and less tangible, thus leading to less attachment than to physical possessions (Watkins & Molesworth, 2012; Belk, 2013).

If we agree that possessions are extensions of the self, the loss of possessions should be observed as a “loss or lessening of self” (Belk, 1988, p. 142). For instance, Clayton, Leshner and Almond (2015) found iPhone users reported a lessening of self during a separation from their iPhone. Specifically discussing mobile technologies, Harkin (2003, p. 16) writes that they are “an extension of our physical selves – an umbilical cord, anchoring the information society’s digital infrastructure to our very bodies.” A sudden non-voluntary loss, through either burglary or casualty, leads to a lessened sense of self. Rosenblatt, Walsh and Jackson (1976) suggest burglary victims suffer grief and mourning, similar to those who lose a loved one. “What is lost in both cases may be a part of self,” Belk (1988, 142) surmises. Elliott, drawing from Marris (1986), described loss as an “unmooring interior experience, one that disrupts the stable meanings that frame our lives and that root our senses of identity and belonging” (Elliott, 2018, p. 305). Loss is related to identity, as Charmaz argued that any loss causes a “crisis of the self” (1997, p. 232).

The second line of research on the self, as it relates to printed newspaper readers, is that of touch. “Touch is an everyday medium for meaningful intercorporeal acts, in both human-only interactions and those between humans and nonhumans,” write Kinnunen and Kolehmainen, 2019, p. 30). There has been a recent surge in media studies scholarship on touch, highlighted by a 2017 special issue on haptic media studies (Parisi, Paterson & Archer, 2017). In arguing for haptic media studies, Parisi and Archer (2017, p. 1524) write that media studies have “ignored, under-studied, and undertheorized the role touch plays in using and apprehending media.” The authors’ call for more empirical work on touch comes at a time of advancements in human-computer interfacing, such as touchscreens. Write Parisi, Peterson and Archer (2017, p. 1515): “The haptic moment in which we find ourselves now is a sort of aftershock of technological change, as we assess and come to terms with the ramifications of touch’s transformation.” While acknowledging the importance of looking forward in the relevance of touch in the digital media space, this paper looks backward, to an extent, exploring the importance of touch in material objects, such as the printed newspaper.

While understudied in media studies, touch is prominent in such fields as sensory studies, anthropology, architecture, museum display, psychology and sociology. One theoretical strand that relates to the constructions of self is that of “somatic work,” which explores not just touch but all senses (Waskul & Vannini, 2020). Somatic work refers to a “diverse range of reflexive symbolic, iconic, and indexical sense-making experiences and practical activities” (Waskul & Vannini, 2008, p. 54). Through sense-making experiences and activities, “individuals produce, extinguish, manage, reproduce, negotiate, interrupt, and/or communicate somatic sensations in order to make them congruent with personal, interpersonal, and/or cultural notions of moral, aesthetic, or and/or logical desirability” (Waskul & Vannini, 2008, p. 54). Somatic activities, such as touching the printed newspaper, relate to a sense of the self, as they “reach deep into our personal lives” (Synnott, 1997, p. 187). Thus, object meanings, “reside not in the object itself alone, but in the interaction or transaction of conduct directed toward it and the qualities emanating from it” (Waskul & Vannini, 2008, p. 69). As Mattens (2017, p. 695) writes, “touching cannot … be reduced to the observable interaction between a perceiver’s body and other objects since a tactual perceiver enjoys tactile feelings. In fact, we touch in order to feel” (emphasis original). Touch, thus, demonstrates our “relationship with the world, which is a matter of belonging and connectedness” (Ratcliffe, 2008, p. 24).

The third line of research on the self is that of nostalgia, which intersects with ownership and touch. Nostalgia, as Davis (1979, p. 31) writes, “is deeply implicated in our sense of who we are” and is central in the “never ending work of constructing, maintaining, and reconstructing our identities.” In other words, key to a sense of who we are is a sense of our past. Thus, possessions are “convenient means of storing the memories and feelings that attach our sense of past” (Belk, 1988, p. 148). “Memory-evoking possessions” include such objects as “newspaper clippings and trophies representing past accomplishments, mementos of past romances, and souvenirs of enjoyable travel experiences” (Belk, 1988, p. 149). Sensations also can serve as memory-evoking events, reminding us of past times, places and people (Hirsch, 2006). Such sensory memories could be triggered by nature sounds, food or an old, comfortable blanket (Waskul, Vannini & Wilson, 2009). Davis (1979) asserts that nostalgia allows the stability of identity by identifying, through memory, a previous version of self. Previous research also has explicated a particular type of nostalgia, media nostalgia (Lizardi, 2015; Menke, 2017; Niemeyer, 2014; Pickering & Keightley, 2006), defined as the “longing for past media culture and technology” (Menke, 2017, p. 626). Menke (2017) points to the charm of analogue photography has an example. This is noteworthy to consider as nostalgia often is brought forth from media because memories are accessible and recorded in media (Pickering & Keightley, 2006).

Methods

This study explores the 2018 closure of a weekly newspaper in a rural county in an East Coast state of the United States. The county had about 30,000 people in July 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and the county seat is roughly 45 miles away from the nearest metro media market. The county had about 50 people per square mile, compared to 200 statewide, and 73% of households with a broadband internet subscription, compared to 84% statewide. This research highlights 19 in-depth interviews (10 female, nine male) conducted in early 2019. Respondents have been identified by pseudonyms, and all references to the newspaper’s name have been changed to The Press. The participant age range was from 37 to 86, with a mean age of 68.8. The median age was 72, compared to the median age of the county (40.1), state (38.2) and United States as a whole (38.1). The closure of the weekly newspaper left the county classified as a “news desert” (Abernathy, 2020, p. 18).

Interview participants were identified through a snowball method, beginning with a colleague introducing the researcher to a county resident who did not participate in the study. Upon completion of each interview, the researcher asked participants if they would suggest other community members to interview. During one of the study’s first interviews, a participant invited the researcher to a community meeting, offering to introduce the researcher to the organization at large. That offer was accepted. The participant briefly introduced the researcher to the organization’s gathering of about 30 residents and later individually introduced the researcher to a few organization members. This led to multiple interviews. All participants subscribed to The Press in its final days, either through home delivery or their place of business. This purposeful homogenous sampling was used since the study’s goal was “not to generalize to a population but to obtain insights into a phenomenon” and to “maximize understanding of the phenomenon” (Onwuegbuzie & Leech, 2007, p. 111).

Interviews, which were semi-structured in nature, were conducted in person in public spaces (coffee shops, restaurants, community centers, etc.) with one exception (a participant in his/her 80’s was interviewed at home). Interviews averaged about 45 minutes. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and then analyzed after each of the three weekends of fieldwork. This allowed for the constant comparative method of analysis (Fram, 2013). Themes from interviews were included as open codes to begin the process (Strauss & Corbin, (1990). Codes were categorized and compared across transcripts. The researcher used member-checking to add credibility (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), inviting each participant to review transcripts and edit, add or retract comments. Six accepted the invitation, with one person requesting small changes and another retracting multiple comments. Noteworthy, the comments retracted were comments directly related to community leaders and had no relevance to this study’s analysis.

Findings

This section explicates how the participants reveal the conceptual “print imprint,” the distinct connection between the printed newspaper and the self, through three characteristics of the self: (1) ownership, (2) touch and (3) nostalgia.

Adam could not remember how long he had subscribed to The Press. “It was at least 50 years,” he said. Talking about the publication’s shuttering was difficult for him. “The newspaper was more than just news to me,” he said. To Adam, the newspaper clearly was an extension of his self. “When it closed,” he said, “I lost a loved one.” Betty echoed that sentiment, significantly knowing the exact year of the publication’s birth. “I always grew up with The Press. It had been in existence since 1919,” Betty said. “It was like losing a friend.” Adam explained this relational connection: “I miss the newspaper. … I spent hours slowly thumbing through the newspaper every week. There was no distractions. It was just me and my paper.”

The my paper sentiment was strong with the former readers of The Press. “It’s odd how this would be, but you feel a sense of ownership,” Carl said. “The Press was a staple, 99 years. Every week for 99 years. It was reliable. And then all of a sudden, it goes away.” Added Emily: “It wasn’t the (Anytown) paper, it wasn’t the (nearby metro paper). Many residents in (the county) probably subscribed to all three.” But for Emily, The Press was my paper. “You take pride in that.” The ownership was expressed even in a mundane office setting. “We had one that came here,” Carter said of the weekly edition. “Got it in the mail.” Carter laughed at recalling how the office administrative assistant would race to get the mail on Thursdays, publication day for The Press. “She would get that damn paper, and she would take it in her office and she would read it first,” Carter said. “That’s my paper,” Carter told her. “I want to read it first. I’ll give it to you. I swear I’ll give it to you.”

The county, with the sole printed publication, was unlike metropolitan areas or even other rural counties across the country with multiple newspaper organizations. “There was one newspaper,” Carl explained. “There weren’t five. And we lost the one. … There’s a significant feeling of loss.” David agreed. “My best description of my feeling about the loss of the newspaper is a feeling of diminishment,” David said. “It is diminishing, and it’s regretful.” Carl was upset the organization did not, at the least, maintain its previous digital presence. The news organization offered a website and social media accounts, and Carl routinely searched them. “When they closed, they said, ‘There’s no online, there’s no paper, there’s nothing. There’s nothing,” Carl said.

That was the case for the first four months after the newspaper shuttered. Then, however, county resident Zachary attempted to fill the void with a media start-up. Zachary began the venture with a website and social media presence, covering the news and events of the county. For the first five months, Zachary’s enterprise remained digital only. That changed following a county government meeting. During the public session, a resident addressed a county issue to the elected officials but later turned and addressed Zachary, who was covering the proceedings. “ ‘You’re an online product; I can’t find anything,’ “ Zachary recalled the resident saying. “ ‘I want a paper.’ “ Important to Zachary, “I began to hear, ‘Amens’ in the crowd.” After the meeting, Zachary recalled, a different resident approached and told him, “I want a tactile paper that I can feel. That’s what I miss. I want my paper back.” Shortly after that meeting, Zachary printed his first edition, distributing 1,000 copies for free throughout the county. Often just four pages, it resembles more of a newsletter than a newspaper. “It’s a small paper,” Carl said. “But I think a lot of people have appreciated the attempt to actually have a physical paper again.” Zachary received positive feedback for the decision. “They said, ‘Oh, you’re a real paper now. You’re a real news source now.’ Just because we have a printed product.” Clearly, Zachary’s digital-only attempt, with news stories and social media posts, was inferior to a print product and did not draw the same attachment for residents as the physical possession of a printed newspaper, a notion observed in previous research across disciplines (Watkins & Molesworth, 2012; Belk, 2013; O'Sullivan et al., 2017).

There are ways, of course, to simulate the newspaper with digital news stories. “(News that) comes off the computer, you (can) download it and print it or something,” Gina acknowledged. But it is not the same to her. “You don’t have that personal touch,” Gina said of digital news. The Press left evidence of its connection to readers. “The newspaper marked you,” Adam said. “If you read it for just a few minutes, you had to wash your hands. My fingers are too clean now. I feel sad without ink smudges.” The printed newspaper offered a simple joy to Leslie. “I want my newspaper in my hand, so I can read it when I want to read it,” she said. “If I’m drinking a cup of coffee, if I’m watching TV, … I want my newspaper in my hand.”

While not a specific focus of this project, the participants importantly discussed the ability to have the newspaper in their hands whenever they wanted – meaning access to the newspaper. As addressed in the methods, a quarter of the county households did not have broadband access. Broadband access is not ubiquitous across the country, in particular in such rural counties. The FCC reports that roughly 16 million rural Americans lack access to broadband infrastructure, and one organization suggests at least 42 millions Americans lack access to broadband (Busby & Tanberk, 2020). Also, access does not mean people have the necessary digital skills to utilize the internet (van Dijk, 2020). Said one of the participants:

I don’t use a computer or one of those damn phones. I can’t use the internets. … Drive through the county. This is country. This is rural. I don’t want to use the internets. Don’t know how. Don’t want to learn. With the newspaper, I didn’t have to. It had been printed every week for almost 100 years. I could count on it every week.”

The “preservable” nature of the newspapers points to nostalgia’s connection to the self (Davis, 1979; Belk, 1988). Indeed, as generations demonstrate with framed articles, scrapbooks and archives, printed newspaper editions offer meaning for years and decades after their publication dates. That is in contrast to today’s digital content. “In the paper, if there’s a nice, color pictures, it could be a frameable thing,” Carl said. “Online, it would be like, ‘That’s, neat.’ Maybe you share it. But, then, that’s it.” Said Betty: “You don’t see people saving Facebook pages; you see people saving clippings out of a newspaper.” Added Gina: “I use social media, I use it but there’s no permanent record there. You have a newspaper, you can cut out the picture and can save it. (It’s) preserving history.” Emily recalled a time when she and her mother came across old editions of The Press during a renovation at her great-grandparents’ home. “We actually had a ball sitting at the kitchen table going through them,” Emily said. “The Press has a huge responsibility, or had a huge responsibility, as it related to history.” The printed newspaper preserves life’s moments, no matter how inconsequential the moment. Said Frank:

If your kid’s picture was in there, holding a pumpkin that was the biggest one, or something, there was prestigious with the newspaper – in The Press. You may make fun of The Press 364 days out of the year, but you are going to tell everybody about that one edition and buy a bunch of copies.

Obituaries, of course, provide an important demonstration of marking moments, and they were cited as newspaper clippings preserved by participants. “It was printed one day a week,” Frank said of the newspaper. “So what good is that for obituaries? Right? 95 percent of the time, the obituary is coming out after the funeral.” That did not matter. “People want it in The Press.” Adam bared a very real, poignant and heartfelt sentiment about how his few remaining friends would learn of his own death. “When I die, how will people know?” he asked. “They won’t read about it in the newspaper.” As Belk (1988) noted, “newspaper clippings,” such as obituaries or other milestone moments, and/or complete editions of newspapers are considered “memory-evoking possessions,” important components of the self.

Discussion

This research conceptualizes a “print imprint,” an emotional, sensational and influential connection between the print newspaper and the self of a reader. This research, which reiterates previous findings on the uniqueness of the printed newspaper, takes this important theoretical leap, arguing that the printed newspaper elicits significant feelings of ownership, touch and nostalgia, all fundamental ingredients of the self (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Belk, 1988; Mead, 1934). This paper, built on 19 in-depth interviews of readers whose weekly newspaper shuttered, ultimately argues that the loss of the printed product prompted a loss or lessening of self for those abandoned readers.

Belk (1988, p. 140) argues that that our possessions are “parts of ourselves,” and thus elements of a person’s “extended self.” This sense of ownership was strong with this study’s participants, who said “I want my newspaper in my hand” and “it was just me and my paper” (emphasis added). Previous media studies research on newspaper readers identified this “sense of ownership” (O’Sullivan et al., 2017, p. 87), especially with readers of community newspapers (Lauterer, 2006). Beyond just the printed newspaper, the feelings of ownership also are strong with print magazine readers and book readers (Davidson, McNeill & Ferguson, 2007; Handley, 2019). One book industry executive explained why book lovers keep their books, saying, “they want to have that to indicate about themselves” (Handley, 2019). Studies in “somatic work” on the significance of our senses suggest sensory activities, such as touching and holding the printed newspaper, relate to the self, as they “reach deep into our personal lives” (Synnott, 1997, p. 187). Previous research found the “smell of ink” appealing to newspaper readers (Boczkowski et al., 2020, p. 572) and that the printed newspaper offered a sensory advantage, a “pleasantness” (Fortunati et al., 2015, p. 841). One of the participants in this current study lamented that his fingers “are too clean now” without the weekly product. “The newspaper marked you,” he said. “I feel sad without ink smudges.” Finally, nostalgia is “deeply implicated in our sense of who we are” (Davis, 1979, p. 31). Belk (1988, p. 149) argues that “memory-evoking possessions,” such as “newspaper clippings,” remind us of past times, places and people (Hirsch, 2006). Generations of people have framed articles, scrapbooks and collections of newspaper editions. A newspaper’s meaning endures for years after its initial publication date. One participant in this current study compared the printed newspaper to its digital counterpart, saying, “you don’t see people saving Facebook pages; you see people saving clippings out of a newspaper.”

There are noteworthy elements of this research to mention as potential limitations. First, it is fair to argue that the participants in this study might be influenced by their longtime relationship with the weekly newspaper and the fact it shuttered within a year of the interviews. For instance, participants discussed feelings of “I lost a loved one” and “it was like losing a friend.” Previous research has pointed to a special intimacy between a community publication and its readers (Reader & Hatcher, 2011; Rosenberry, 2012; Mathews, 2020). These sentiments might skew their thoughts on the printed newspaper. Second, the participant population skewed older and included only former newspaper subscribers. Perhaps, interviews with a wider selection of the county residents, including younger non-subscribers, might have produced different dynamics within the results.

Finally, this research centers on a shuttered weekly newspaper in a rural county in the United States and, thus, is not meant to be representative. Many of the findings do mirror previous research on the printed newspaper, however (Fortunati et al., 2015; O’Sullivan et al., 2017; Boczkowski et al., 2020). This paper pushes forward, articulating a “print imprint,” a theoretical construct that does not focus on the content of the newspaper, instead focuses on the newspaper itself and its relationship with its readers. This concept is a noteworthy addition to the media studies scholarship, especially now as newspaper organizations, struggling to draw online revenue to supplant lost print revenue, fight for their survival (Chyi & Ng, 2020; Jenkins & Nielsen, 2020; Nielsen, 2020). This concept also importantly shines a spotlight on a dedicated, if smaller, print audience, underscoring its intense connection to this increasingly underappreciated product. Future research could apply this construct to a world of printed content, not the least of which include newspapers, magazines and books. As much of the notion that “print is dead” is prevalent, print, and its audiences, remain relevant.