Task 3: Essay

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

The five magazine covers I chose to analyse were all targeted at teenage girls. Comparing them all I saw that they all shared similar conventions and characteristics that may influence teenagers to act or think they have to look a certain way. I will explore whether or not the magazines should receive the blame for social ramifications (such as eating disorders, problems with relationships, sexuality and peer pressure) and how they may encourage these ideologies.
  A dominant characteristic in these teen magazines is the main image on the front page, a celebrity is used, under the age of 27 that the readers can relate too and idolise. The use of images of 'beautiful' or even 'sexy' stereotypes act as a role model to the teenagers, and they subconsciously see them as a figure of what they are meant to look like. This is especially reinforced when combined with the cover lines, some of my chosen examples included '4 moves to a strong, sexy body' and 'get pretty essentials' this relates to the celebrity image as the magazine has presented them as an 'ideal' to relate too. 
  The readers may read these cover lines and look at the image and then believe that if they follow the magazines steps they may achieve a body image similar to theirs. This can be seen as alarming as some of the readers of these magazines are as young as 10 or 11, and for the encouragement of looking 'sexy' would also persue younger girls to mature faster and they may fall into bad situations, maybe even stimulating health issues such as eating disorders as they strive to fit into the 'ideal skinny celebrity'. This point brings us to the essay question and shows that magazines can be seen as influential when it comes to body image, as the cover lines show clear encouragement to be seen as better looking. Furthermore they also imply that your body/looks are not okay as they are now, so they may result to lowering self esteem and creating paranoia in the teenagers subconscious. 
  Another frequent occurring topic appearing in the coverlines of these magazines is the subject of teenage relationships and boys. In my examples, there is '5 guys you'll date.. and why you'll dump them' and 'how to ditch your dating disaster.' These statements imply massively that girls are seen as high maintenance in relationships as they present female dominance. Maybe also suggesting that men are inferior to us. This also stereotypes teenage girls as the subject isn't raised (from my recent research) of sexuality. The reference to boys in relationships may make gay girls feel like they're different in negative manner and may feel like being straight is 'right'. 
 The magazines use the idea of 'fitting in' and popularity to entise readers. One cover line of a real story shockingly read 'pretending to have sex made me popular.' This is an extreme encouragement of negative behaviour and the use of being 'popular' suggests that it's something you should strive to do.The use of clothes and fashion is used on the covers of magazines to promote sales, the items are labelled as 'must haves' or 'the next trends' these uses of terminology also make teens believe they will not fit in to what is 'popular' if they are not on trend or have the newest fashions. 
  However, all of these arguments favour that these teen magazines have massive influence on their readers and how they choose to act because of their content. But obviously, on the other hand some readers may not be interested in what the magazines have to offer and not 100% of girls buy or read the magazines. So perhaps they cannot receive total blame for the social ramifications of today's society. 

 All in all i believe that teenage magazines are too specific, i think that they should open up their ideas and not be so drilling as to what their 'perfect image' is and why everyone should resemble it. It is obvious that some of the content is not intentional but it's having a massive impact on the youth as they promote what to wear, how to look, who to 'date' and degrade their readers into thinking they're not good enough.