Media essay;
Conventions of these magazines:
These 5 teenage magazine front covers are all very similar to each other in the way that they are set out. Apart from 'cosmo girl' the colours are very bright and feminine; as you can see they stand out to the reader and obviously apply to their 'niche market'.
On the front cover they all have 'teenage roll models' (mainly music artists) or celebrities, that are always looking glamorous and perfect, because that what these magazines are about. The cover lines of these magazines normally contain stories like
'Be a style sensation' or '163 wear me-now trends!' these cover lines make it obvious to the reader what the magazine is going to contain.
However a lot of people consider these magazines to have a major negative effect on young teens who read these magazines. Many articles on the internet talk about how these magazines can lead to many teenage girls suffering 'depression' and low 'self esteem'. One article from the website 'eHow' actually talks about:
'The perfection of celebrities' some cases have said that the way these celebrities are shown on these magazine front covers can lead to dissatisfaction in teenage girls. This can evidently cause extreme behaviour, for example eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia can occur because the girls who read these magazines are trying so hard to look 'perfect'. The problem is with these images on fronts covers are always edited.
Another problem that has been raised by many people is that ' teen magazines are sexualizing readers' an article in the telegraph by 'watch dog' talks about how these teen magazines are going too far. 'A study had actually been conducted by the telegraph'
The Telegraph of several magazines aimed at teenage girls found that they contained sexually-explicit material which was potentially in breach of the industry's 'editorial code'. Apparently they had found out, that the magazine 'seventeen' is actually read by children as young as 11, which some people could see as shocking.
Bliss magazine, whose readers have an average age of 15, have actually featured stories such as "The Sex Factor, your questions answered on p46" and "Gang raped – for a mobile phone. This questions the responsibility off the magazine editors in my opinion.
however other comments are being made on the 'ehow' website saying that some people actually think seventeen and teen vogue and a few other (and I stress few) magazines now feature images more reflective of the average woman for example (less air brushed models), Articles about safe sex, relationships, healthy eating and exercise guide teens through their 'life struggles’. They say there are Features on the academic side or a teenager’s life and careers. Apparently they motivate and encourage teens in their progression through age. But what do you think?
Personally in my opinion I feel that these teen magazine are filling the teenagers off this generation with mislead information. And I think the editors are to blame, they have stopped caring about making a decent magazine and now they only care about the ratings and readings, so they can make money. I disagree with children the age of 11 they shouldn’t be able to buy these sort of magazines at this age. However we are talking about how 'we disagree with all the explicit content that is involved'. If these magazines cut out all their 'interesting stories' what else would they write about? School? Teenagers don’t want to read about that.
