Individualized Newspaper - Theory and Use of Mass Customization

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The motivation for this thesis was to find, by a literature review, determinants that could show if the concept mass customization can be used successfully to implement the individualized printed newspaper. With the individualized newspaper, newspaper companies can address developments in their business environment which have lead to a significant decline in their readership. The individualized newspaper is in a new approach which provides the opportunity for publishers to counter that decline, and potentially create new sources of income. It follows the slogan of editors in the 70s, Give readers what they want (Gladney, 1996). But in the 70s this was not possible due to a lack of visionary thinking and concepts, plus the unavailability of appropriate technology. It took almost three decades for the digital printing technologies and information and communication systems to reach a sufficient level of maturity to break through these barriers. Concurrent with the technological evolution the concept of Mass Customization was developed. This describes a method which enables companies to offer individual products or services to the masses. The subject of this thesis has been to investigate the opportunity of using the concept of Mass Customization to bring to fruition the individualized newspaper as a tangible product.