our reader's survey
WE HAD a very positive response to our reader's questionnaire, with around 15 per cent of you replying and lots of useful comments and constructive suggestions for improvements to the magazine's contents and coverage.
UR computerized analysis of the surveys showed up some interesting facts and figures regarding the more specific questions. We were pleasantly surprised that the majority of readers found /V's prices reasonable: 68% in Britain, 81% in North America and 88% in Europe.
This is an interesting breakdown, as going by official exchange rates /V is most expensive in Europe and least expensive in Britain! No doubt due to the relative cheapness of newspapers and journals in Britain, it was here that most people (24%) said it was too expensive.
Very few people said that they disliked the design of /V, with 79% saying that they liked the presentation. However, a number of readers commented that sometimes the magazine looked a bit "heavy", and that they would prefer to see more photographs, graphics, cartoons and maps.
nternationa
HEWPOINT
A number of people also mentioned here that some articles were too long and could have been sub-edited better. But 75% of you thought that the length of articles in general was "OK", with 20.5% saying they were too long and no-one that they were too short. Most people read /V for a variety of reasons, and not just for one sort of coverage. The reasons for reading the magazine were divided up equally between news, analysis, political and economic coverage and news from the Fourth International.
The popularity of the different types of coverage was as follows: special extended features (64%), Fourth International news (57.6%), general news articles (38%), interviews (26.9%), the Around the World pages (26%) and book reviews (15.3%) -although a number of replies mentioned that they had liked the few book reviews
As for the favourite articles in the recent past, there were three clear leaders: coverage on the USSR, on the Middle East and the articles on the world economic situation. In addition, recent articles on Britain, Belgium, Central America, Czechoslovakla, Ireland, lesbian and gay rights, Philip-
Poland and South Africa were particularly mentioned, as were the special features for International Women's Day and on liberation theology.
Most people marked "none" when asked what were the least interesting articles, but all the most popular articles cited above were to be found in other people's "least interesting" lists (which just goes to prove you can't please everyone all of the time!)
Generally, articles and news on the Fourth International and its sections were voted top of the "we want more" category, along with economic coverage and Central and Latin America.
Perhaps the most interesting responses for us were the general comments and suggestions for improving our coverage. Here is a selection of the remarks:
More articles on the role of social-democratic parties, especially for English-speaking activists in places like Australia, New Zealand and Britain; More reports from workers in struggle rather than commentaries; The Fourth International's line and program on all the big questions is lacking — too much of a journalistic approach and too little political leadership; Short extracts from Trotskyist publications around the world as a regular feature... More of what the workers organizations are debating rather than what the academics are "observing"
A publication with lengthy articles on Belgium, West Germany and Turkey will be regarded as remote and obscure in North America...but they are quite interested in the Soviet Union and Central America; Comrades who read IV tend to be active militants with not a lot of time - so please cut out waffle and padding!; There are no references to youth politics — this has got to be improved!.
More analysis, less commentary. the back section should contain longer, more theoretical articles; Overall, I have not found a better source of information and solid Marxist analysis about world events; More pages, more often; Discussions on
READER'S SURVEY FREE DRAW WINNER The winner of a free one year's subscription to IV was Brian P. from London, controversial subjects now and then would be interesting; I would like you sometimes to take a broader look at international developments and describe them from a "transnational" point of view.
More coverage of other tendencies in the workers' movement and of the so-called new social movements; More on feminism, gay politics and anti-racism; Up-to-date analysis of Central America is slipping...more nitty-grilly, street level stuff on what the left is doing - information you cannot get from the bourgeois press; When there have been international campaigns, the coverage has been good — I would like to see more of that.
Finally, many readers sent in proposals for extending IV's circulation. Some of these suggestions are ideas that we have promoted in our past fund and circulation drives, but they deserve to be repeated. Others are new ideas that should be implemented. Just one comment: although we do our best to promote IV from Paris, there is no substitute for groups or individual readers locally taking time out to push /V in their countries or localities. As one reader says, "it just requires energy on a person to person basis".
If all of our readers won just one new subscription to the magazine, we would double our circulation overnight.
What about producing collected offprints of articles with a thematic connec tion?; Give a free subscription to well-known figures and ask them to comment, then use the comments in an advertising drive; You should set up new financial drives like you did last year; Try interesting public andlor college libraries...and ask sympathetic magazines to include an advertising mailing; Try to get the magazine on
"progressive" bookstores; Getting it into indexes of current periodicals should help get library subscriptions. [Great ideas, but please remember to send us bookshop and library addresses!
More contact with your readers... offering special advantages for regular subscribers; Posters inset in issues once in a while; Keep regular column on inside page which plugs sales; An obligation for the sections to spend a lot more effort selling IV...it is just as important as the national papers; Make subscriptions compulsory for [English-speaking?! members of the Fourth
IRELAND
Mass raids and arrests in West
Belfast