To what extent should magazines be
held responsible for the social ramifications of the representations they
offer?
Teen girl magazines have been
around for many years and have developed greatly in terms of style and
representations of young teen girls. A few examples of magazines that are aimed
towards teen girls include; Teen Vogue, Bliss,Shout,Cosmo-Girl,Sugar and Seventeen
which has been around for 70 years!
Above are 3 examples gathered
from Google images, the codes and conventions of these magazines are all
extremely similar. Both of these magazines have used girly colours which will
appeal to younger girls, fun, quirky fonts and a huge main image of a young
female celebrity in which many young girls aspire to be like. Also their
articles all differ to one another but still are based around the same thing i.e.
- fashion, make-up and boyfriend stories.
Young teen magazines have
sparked many debates and conflict due to the idea behind the way they portray
their content to a young girl; these magazines hold a bad representation and
encourage young girls to become sexualised at too young of an age. My above
photos are a prime example of this, all three of these magazine covers have an
article on fashion; fashion is something that many women converse about and has
now also become a hot topic to young teen girls, this genre of magazine gives
the impression that young girls have to be interested in the latest fashion or
the sexiest hairstyle therefore putting too much pressure on the young girls in
today’s society.
I have looked into an article
titled:
Popular Teen Magazine and
Their Possible Effect on Teenage Girls
This article was published
via yahoo on May 30th 2006. This was 7 years ago and the articles content is
still of the same today, the article has quoted language that teen girl
magazines have used;
'beauty is the eye of the
beholder' , 'beauty is only skin deep', 'dress to impress', 'be a knockout' and
'find the perfect make-up for you' - these are prime examples into how these
magazines cause young teen girls to become so body conscious at an incredibly
young age. As well as the social ramifications of fashion and make-up, there
comes the idea of young teen girls having to look attractive to grab attention
of boys. Boys are always a subject of conversation in a teen girl magazine,
there is no escaping the subject no matter what teen girl magazine you pick up.
This is a very negative thing as it implies to the young girls that looking
good is the only way to 'grab yourself a boyfriend' - again this shows the
negative content of these magazines, and makes girls have too much of an
interest in fashion, make-up and boys at such a young innocent age. Finally a
well debated matter is the issue of low self-esteem caused by these magazines
through the choices of article affair such as Anorexia, magazines have a
tendency to focus on weight and diet related issues in both young teen girl and
women's magazines in general this therefore is a highly negative choice of
topic and affects the majority of girls and women.
A headline that has crept up
in the media is 'These magazines are making girls sexualised at too young of an
age' - this is the topic that has been debated and discussed for many years
however no action has been done to stop it, nevertheless it’s not only young
girl magazines that take an effect on these girls it’s also the media in
general. Media is everywhere whether it is billboards, adverts or on social
networking sites there’s no escaping the negative perceptions it portrays. In
my own opinion I do not think that teen girl magazines are the only
responsibility to the making of sexualising girls at a young age, I think that
general advertisements play a huge role into the way a young girl sees the
world, on TV there’s constantly ads on the latest make-up, hair dye and new
clothing websites etc. This also causes negative associations and again makes
these young girls feel like it’s a normal part of life and have to show a
genuine interest and liking to these topics.
I gathered some research in
which I asked three people what they thought of about teen girl magazines:
My 11 year old brother - He told me he does not know what a
teen girl magazine actually is but has seen them on shop displays.
A friend aged 16 - She told me that she used to read
Sugar magazine when she was around the age of 13, she read it for the articles
on fashion and make-up as well gossip on celebrities. She does not think it caused
her to have too much of an interest in make-up, fashion and boys at a young age
but feels that the magazines she reads now have more of an emphasis on make-up
and fashion.
My mum - My mum thinks that these magazines
do have bad representations and put too much of a pressure on young girls
however she said make-up, fashion and boys is something that all girls become
interested in, so there’s no reason why they can’t have such high interests if
they are in magazines that they are reading.
Overall my analytical
response shows that there seems to be no good coming from these girls magazines;
from a personal view I think that these magazines are damaging girls in today’s
society. I think that topics such as 'how to attract a boy’, 'how to look good'
and 'the latest fashion' should be scrapped from these magazines all together
as they all cause to much of a strain on teen girls. Although I do think some
real life stories from young girls themselves should be introduced into these
magazines as I feel that they will inspire young girls and make them want to
achieve something rather than worry about make-up, fashion and boys at too
young of an age.
Reseacrh link used - http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/30544/popular_teen_magazines_and_their_possible.html
Good use of research!
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