teen magazine essay

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

This essay will be focused around teen magazines designed for young girls, it will also cover the way that teenage girls are represented in these magazines and the effects these representations have.

If you were to look at a range of teen magazine covers, one of the most obvious things that you may notice about these magazines is the blatant and consistence references of sex and beauty. Currently, the legal age for sex in the United Kingdom is 16 years of age, yet magazines such as Sugar and Shout (all with a target audience ranging from 12 year olds to 16 year olds) continually feature articles relating to relationships, sex and "sexiness".

 

You may suggest that, in a way, these magazines are educating a younger audience about sex, but do we really want 12 year old girls dressing to try to be "sexy" like these magazines suggest in many of their articles? There is growing evidence that premature exposure to adult sexual images and values has a negative impact on the psychological development of children, particularly on self-esteem, body image and understanding of sexuality and relationships, so you may ask; Why is it exactly, that these magazines seemingly advertise such subjects to such a young audience?

 

These themes are often associated with the portrayal of girls and women as passive sexual objects, never once do teenage girl's magazines discuss the topics of career choices and education in their cover stories, quite literally suggesting that work and education is less important than beauty and relationships. So are the girls that read these magazinez, if they are as influenced as teenage girls are suggested to be, destined to feel as though they are not adequate if they do not have "beauty" or a "boyfriend"?

 

In an age when women have equal rights to men, you would expect girls to seize this oppertunity to become successfull in whatever walk of life they choose. But what hope do they have if from an early age they are brainwashed in to believing that they must dress to impress members of the oppsite sex and to follow trends and fashions because if they did not, they would be social outcasts and rejects.

 

An element of fear and propaganda also effects the way young teenage girls enterpret the articles featured in these magazines, with images of teenage models dressed to look as "sexy" as humanly possible, it is easy to see how young girls may feel as though they should be doing the same.

 

But it would be unjust to suggest that teenage magazines are wholly to blame for the effects of the representations they offer, this is because the importance of appearence is thrown in one's face wherever you go, you only need to walk down the high street to understand this. Sultry, beautiful looking models are plastered all over billboards and posters to advertise clothes, products that claim to make you look more beautiful or sexy, and even perfumes that make you smell "sexy". Sex sells it is said, and quite rightly too, because it obviously does. I'm not saying that it is good or bad, that is for you to decide, but what I mean is; If you seek to blame something or someone for the consequences of the representations of girls in teenage magazines, you would have to blame 21st century society and attitudes as a whole.

 

I think that teenage girls magazines should at least mention something about future careers or opportunities in education to their readers, so that young girls could actually understand the opportunities that they have and what they could do with their lives instead of believing that beauty and relationships are the most important part of a teenager's life.