skills development

Do you know how to scan images into a Mac?

Task 3: Essay - To What extent should magazines be held responsible for the social ramifications of the representations they offer?

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

In this essay, I will be explaining to what extent teenage magazines should be held responsible for the consequences of their media representations.

When searching for a magazine, teenage girl magazines in particular the first thing that captures your eye is the front page and how it has been represented. This may tell you how to dress, how to do your make up or how to do your hair sticking to the key stereotype of a teenage girl. By telling girls how to look and what to look for some may think that this is damaging teenagers self esteem by not letting them have there own style and a sense of individuality.

 Bright colours such as pink and blue are being used to tell us that this magazine is aimed towards the female teenage generation, this colour scheme is linked to girls and this age through stereotyping that pink is a very feminine colour and that baby blue is a very innocent colour that should determine how girls should act. If the magazine was for a different crowd such as rock music listeners the magazine in that area may have much grittier colours to link with the genre.

Teenage icons play a large part in the industry of teenage magazines. Many may look to these people as role models and may use them as a basis to set their own style upon. If your icons are telling you how you should dress what you should say and how to do your make up, what chance of individuality do you or the reader have. They are telling you what you should look like, sticking to the stereotype of a teenage girl and most of all telling you where you should spend your money, first of all on this magazine as its being promoted by a teenage icon that you may look up to and is talking about subjects that supposedly a teenage girl is suppose to be interested in according to the stereotype, and second of all on what clothes and makeup to buy as you should be sticking to a certain style and by certain brands as they are the brands your icons a buying.

 The subjects being brought up in these magazines have to be questioned “are they really appropriate to the age group its aimed towards” I ask this as they put pressure on girls with sexually explicit material. Many magazines have the average age range of readers between 11 and 16. At the youngest age, it may not be appropriate to pressure girls with this type of media material and this can have social ramifications.

The models being used in these magazines are models, readers may feel pressured into the idea that to feel socially accepted they have to look the part, whether it be size, weight, or looks, this is the disgusting impression that is given to the readers, that they are far away from perfect and should change the way they look just because someone wants them to be a part of a stereotype that doesn’t even exist in this day and age.

For my conclusion I have come to the decision that I believe that the writers and editors of these magazine should understand that in this day and age there are no stereotypes any more when it comes to teenage girls, individuality cant be set so there for you cant have any influence into what products girls should be buying and how they should dress. Its clear that some of the articles in this magazine are inappropriate to the readers such as talking about sexual material and stereotyping.

I would much rather like to see a magazine aimed towards teenage girls that actually has advice to their everyday life rather then just having your self esteem knocked down.