Teenagers, girls in particular, are becoming more and more preasured into being something they are not, this is because of what they are seeing in the media. As they are entering their teenage years, young girls feel the preasure of dressing and behaving in unacceptable ways. This 'preasure' is being generated from the media: young girls develop a taste for wanting to become just like their favourite popstars, this means watching them on TV and trying to copy what they see in terms of apperance and personality. Young girls may also have this preasure put upon them by their friends, they will then want to be like their firends in order to remain friends with that certain group of people. For example, a friend may dress a certain way, therefore a girl may feel preasured to do the same, in order to fit in.
I have started by looking at 'Sugar' magazine - A glossy teenage mag, aimed at teenage girls. The issue I have chosen to study contains an image of, then 19 year old, Diana Vickers on the front cover. On one hand, this is a very good presentational device as it almost typifies the product's audience - a young girl aspiring to be a pop star. In addition, the colour scheme is ideal in attracting it's audience - the mixture of pink and white create both style and simplicity. But on the other hand, some Parents may see this magazine as 'too sexual' especially as their daughters are 13/14, they may see their daughters to be too young to be exposed to what is in this magazine. The 'sexual nature' of the magazine is then emphasized by the use of the phrases 'They groped my friends' and 'she's single'. Parents of young girls should take notice of this is realize that their daughters are too young to be reading about girls being groped. Along side this, another main feature of the magazine is titled 'Flirty fashion'. From reading this I believe that the younger, 13/14 year old, girls will see this as tips on becoming something they're not. Parents could also see what their daughters are reading and believe that is influencing them to literally change as a person.
In addition to that, I will be looking at Cosmo, Bliss, More and Seventeen. Continuing my research, I found that it is was more of the same: Cosmo featured a real life story titled "I caught him cheating" with a subheading reading 'what would you do' - the word 'you' being underlined. This, in my eyes, is unacceptable; I believe this should not be in a teenage girl's magazine because personally, I wouldn't want my young teenage (13/14) daughter reading about this type of material. That takes me onto Bliss. This magazine is similar to Cosmo in the way it 'advertises' sex. This magazine cover I have found has a 'Real life girl's drama' story titled "I overheard my boyfriend having sex". Along with that, I have also found I article in More magazine, titled "Just like Peter Crouch... we're young, hot and sleeping with prostitutes" Just like what I was saying about Cosmo, I believe this is also inappropriate, even more so then the last story - I think More's article is simply disgusting! I strongly believe magazine companies, editors, etc, need to reconsider making their target audience's age higher if they are going to publish cover lines like this one because I don't feel it is safe for young teenage girls to be reading about sex in that sort of way. On the other hand, I believe Seventeen doesn't focus on sex as much, but focuses more on looking 'perfect'. The cover of Seventeen that I chose to study feature a caption in the bottom of the page that read 'look like a million bucks for next to nothing!' This cover line suggests to me that readers of that magazine are being put under pressure to look like something they're not. (That is why I believe girls that age complain about the way they look, because of what they see on TV!)
To conclude, I believe that magazines should hold most, if not all, of responsibility for the harm that is caused to our young, teen sociality. This is because of girls admiring celebrities and wanting to be like them, then the magazine companies just take advantage of this and enhance the stars' look (airbrushing, photoshop, and so on) taking the reality out of the persons real look all for the purpose of money. I believe that magazine companies, and most companies for that matter, big things up too much, just for the purpose of sales - even if that means stepping out of reality.
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