To what extent should magazines be held responsible for the social ramifications of the representations they offer?
Teenage girls nowadays are more conscious about their looks and sexually aware than ever. You could say they are a generation that are growing up too fast. But who is to blame? Most people would say it's the fault of teen magazines and this is what I shall be discussing in this essay.
The above screenshots are five examples of magazines aimed at teenagers, but some of them have readers as young as 11. A recurring theme in the majority of the magazines is looking beautiful and improving how you look. This is apparent from cover lines such as "Look prettier today!" and "181 ways to look hot every day!" Even the jobs they promote could be seen as encouraging girls to try and make themselves look more beautiful as these include beauticians ("Career advice from Amy Childs"), actresses ("Does [Emma Watson] have the best job in the world?") and models ("Model comp alert"). Another contributing factor to young girls' obsession with improving their looks is the representation of the female celebrities on the front of these magazines. They give young girls a supposed idea of what they should look like which may mean drastic changes for some girls. As well as this they are often very 'smiley', sweet and bright (similar to the colour scheme) suggesting that all girls should be like this.
This is supported by that fact that, according to one study, "70% of teen girls agreed that magazines strongly influenced what they thought was the ideal body type (1)."
They aren't just asking girls to change just for themselves either but also for boys. One cover line on 'Bliss' magazine advertises an article about things that "boys hate" so girls know what to change about themselves in order to make a boy like them. In fact, most of them are very focused on boys. Mizz even includes the word in their tagline: "You Style Gossip Boys". This is teaching girls to be interested in boys much too soon. Magazines could also be to blame for girls with the unrealistic expectation of having a relationship with a celebrity as one of the 'Top of the Pops' cover lines states "Union J and District 3, both want your love. Who'll win?"
Growing up too fast is also a big issue with young people and magazines don't help with that either. 'Bliss' magazine is aimed at girls aged 13-17 and yet has the cover line "Gossip, gold-diggers and getting wasted. What really happens at celeb parties". Most of their readers are too young to drink but look up to celebrities and want to be like them, so after seeing this cover line may be more likely to not only drink, but get drunk.
However, as you have probably noticed, not all magazines are like this. In fact, although Teen Vogue talks about watching weight and self-improvement it seems to consider such subject matter in a more critical light than the other magazines. One cover line "Calorie obsessed. Can healthy eating go too far?" seems to go against the grain of what most other magazines may promote. It also uses the mocking cover line of "Attack of the clones" referring to plastic surgery, which could be seen as encouraging teenagers to be unique and individual.
While many of these magazines may be promoting harmful goals for young girls they are not the only form of media to do so. Television (both programme content and advertisements) also bombards the viewer with unrealistic role models and music channels often feature promotional videos that are totally unsuitable to a younger audience and appear to go largely unchallenged and unregulated.
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