The first convention of teenage girl magazines is that the main image is of attractive, young, female celebritys who are all smiling; because they are all smiling it indicates to the reader that this magazine is going to be fun, which stereotypically is what the target audience want. Also, because they are all role models for teenagers it inspires there mood to change and become happy as they look up to them. I think they used younger celebrities to make the target audience feel like they can relate to the celebrities more as believe they will face the same problems/issues.
Another convention is the color scheme used throughout the magazine. In all magazines the color pink is used because is sterotypically assoicated as a 'girly' color and therefore appeals to the target audience of girls. Pink is used so that when walking into a shop to buy a magazine, the target audience of teenage girls with automatically look for pink magazines as it is a color they like. From a young age girls and boys are sepearted by colors; all girls toys were pinks and all boys toys were blues, so now we automatically assoicate the color pink with feminity. Also they all use bright tones of pink to make the magazine stand out and therefore urge the target audience to buy it as grabs there attention.
Also another convention of a teenage girl magazine is that they share similar coverline themes about fashion, weight, boys and gossip which are topics teenage girl typically are interested in. Teenagers don't normally have a lot of money so by using plugs and puffs on the front page it creates the effect that they are getting more for there money for example '382 ways to be irresistible' and '625 pretty looks for you'.Serif font is another convention of teenage girl magazines. Serif font is typography and is a traditional font for magazines; the font is percieved as girly because the letter curl and therefore will appeal more to the target audience. Overall, the 5 different magazines I looked at all have the same conventions. This is because the magazine companies are trying to attract to the same audience of teenage girls.
For my essay I will be discussing to what extent should magazines be held responsible for the social ramifications of the representations they offer. All magazines can be very influencial due to there re-interpritations of the truth, however the most influencial are teenage magazines because the target audience are more vunerable and therefore are easily influenced. Serious ramifications can apply due to these magazines; i will develop my ideas further throughout this essay.
Watchdog argues in the telegraph that 'teenage magazines are to blame for the "early sexualisation" of their young readers'. The article reveals that most of the content within a teenage magazine holds inapproiate and explict material such as naked men and coverlines that read 'Gang raped- for a mobile phone'. The coverlines link in with sex at least once in every teenage girl magazine; this introduces teenagers to the idea of sex at a young age and after repeatedly reading the material they will soon become interested in the subject and then become influenced. Also this article says that The Sunday Telegraph conducted a study of several magazines and found that they all contained sexually-explict material; they do this because the target audience are attracted to this topic and therefore will continue to buy the magazine. source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/4990907/Teen-magazines-are-sexualising-readers-says-watchdog.html
Wales online states that there is a direct correlation with reading teenage magazines and teenagers with eating disorders. This is because in teenage magazines there are lots of photo's of celebritys with the 'perfect' body; by reading these magazines regularly it will start having a negative effect on the readers self asteem if they don't have this 'desired' body type. This could lead to skipping meals, being sick after eating or binge eating which is extreamly dangerous espically on young peoples body as they are still developing. A lot of people argue that the magazines should stop portraying skinny celebrity bodys, when most have been photoshopped, and start showing a wide varity of body types to reassure the audience that know spespific body shape is correct. Dr James White conducted a study to see if reading gossip magazines linked to eating disorders. His results were that most people who had a eating disorder were regular gossip magazine readers and they also stated that they felt under pressure by the unrealistic pictures in gossip magazines. Gossip magazines go into every little detail of celebrities lives and are frequently criticized for either putting weight on or looking less perfect then usual. Most gossip magazines include diet tips, some are quite extreame, making it even easier for the target audience to lose weight and become closer to looking like the idolised celebrity. However it is not just teenage girls that face this pressure of feeling they should look a certain way, recent studys show that there is a huge rise in teenage boys with eating disorders; this is because in magazines there is always pictures of attractive men with faultless bodys. This adds pressure to boys to become this way as society think its correct to look like the models/celebritys.
source: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/magazine-images-linked-teenage-eating-1914020
Overall, I believe that by not putting in pictues of size 0, toned celebrities in gossip magazines it will have a postive effect on the target audience because it will take away the pressure of trying to look like them. By replacing these photos with celebrities who have a healthy, normal and realistic weight will encourage the target audience to eat healthy and excerise to become healthier not skinnier. Also I believe that even though teenagers should be aware of sex, it isn't right filling gossip magazines about it because it will make them believe that they should be having sex and therefore may feel pressured into it.
No comments:
Post a Comment