Task 3: Essay

To what extent should magazines be held responsible for the social ramifications of the representations they offer?

I have found 5 examples from the internet of magazines aimed at teenage girls. I will be talking about the conventions within the front covers of the magazines and whether the magazines themselves should be held responsible for the way teen girls are represented and how it makes them view themselves. The five magazines I chose to look at are; Bliss, Teen Vogue, Sugar, Shout and Teen Now.

To make these magazines appeal to the same audience there needs to be set conventions to guide you into creating the right look of a teenage girl’s magazine. These will include the placement of mastheads, coverlines and images, the celebrities who appear on the front covers all have to have some sort of inspiration or influence on the teenage girls, people who they idolise. The colours used on the entire front cover all need to be similar too.

The colours of the mastheads on all magazines share the same girly and feminine colours; of pinks, purples and turquoises. These colours are also quite faded and not really bright and over the top. All of these colours are stereotypically associated with females and young girls, if you were to look at the front cover of a men’s magazine they would not share the same colour choice as it wouldn’t appeal to them, the men’s colours would have to be dark and masculine. I think pink has been used a lot for the coverlines scattered around the cover, as this again reinforces the idea of being targeted at girls, it also stands out and is clear to read and understand. On Teen Vogue one of the coverlines read ‘Rock your style’ this has been written in pink and below the information taken from the inside article is contrasting the use of girly pinks and purples as it is written in black. I would associate black with a men’s magazine or the inside text of most magazines. The girly colours have been used to make them more attractive and appealing to their intended audience.

Bliss, Teen Vogue, Sugar and Shout look really similar on the front, with the layout of the text and images. In the centre of all of these magazines one image of a female celebrity or model has been placed there. These people will have been chosen to be on the front cover as they are good role models to the teenagers and they will be relevant to the time of publish as they’re releasing something targeted at this age group or these celebrities are idols to the girls. However, on Teen Now the layout is very different. There are many more brightly coloured image and text boxes which can seem unpleasing to the eye; there are more images of celebs on the front although there is still a main focus on one celebrity in particular. It can be hard to find what it is you want to read or see within the magazine as there is so much information; it makes everything unclear and quite messy. Teen Now is the only teenage magazine out of my chosen five to have male celebrities also featured on the front of the magazine.

They are mostly images of relevant boy bands that are loved and crushed upon by many teenage girls so they have also taken into account the fact that girls also have male pin ups. They have been featured innocently unlike females would be featured on a men’s magazine.

I would say that these magazines have a negative effect on girls as they are stereotyping teenage girls, for them all to be into the latest fashion, gossip and boys. However, in reality they are not all like that, not every girl is interested in the same things. It is influencing girls to feel or look a certain way and making them feel self conscious about themselves. There is a coverline that reads ‘Beauty Wars’ this is encouraging girls to turn their looks into a competition to see who is the prettiest, this is making the unconfident girls feel targeted to look or act this way. Also the uses of some of the stories found within the magazines aren’t always appropriate to the age of some of the girls who do read these magazines. One of the stories is about a girl shooting her parents, you could just imagine the gory details and the detailed reasons as to how she came to do such a horrifying thing, this could make some readers feel uncomfortable or maybe get ideas on how to do such crazy things.

I wouldn’t say that magazines are initially all negative, there are positive aspects. Like there are pages with fashion available to keep young girls in the loop of all the latest clothes and accessories, magazines are also used by many to keep up to date with all the celebrity gossip. Teenage magazines always contain some sort of competition where the winner will win such amazing prizes that they may not otherwise be able to afford or obtain. The use of help questionnaires and agony aunt pages within them help girls to relate to each other and to realise that there are others feeling the same way as them.

Magazine publishers should be held responsible for these effects on the teenage girls as it is their fault these airbrushed celebrities appear on the cover to create insecurities that some girls may never have had before. Also the articles can sometimes be really extreme, things that will make girls scared or just find what they’re reading is boring and has no meaning or relevance to them. If I was a magazine publisher I think I wouldn't have so many one sided fashion tips or ideas, I’d show a bigger range of clothes that most people will wear and be able to afford. I think I would also use natural make up, nothing over the top on the cover celebs that appear on every issue to show that natural beauty really is beautiful.