Essay

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

I think magazines are partly responsible for the social ramifications of the representatives they offer, as they can sometimes be misleading to teenage girls and sometimes even teenage boys. Even though many of the magazines target mainly teenage girls they do also attract a young male audience and teenage boys feel just as pressured as teenage girls to look a certain way and act in a specific manner in order to “fit in” with today’s culture. Many of the magazines offered articles that contained explicit and mature themes, such as “More” magazine which reads clearly on the front page ‘sex, fashion, celebs’. Although sex isn’t viewed as a taboo topic anymore, the magazine throws the word around and makes it seem as if it’s a regular occurrence. It also contains a naked picture of the celebrity Rhianna on the front, which is giving the impression that in order to be sexy and appealing you must be naked. Making teenage girls think that in order to gain attention this is what they should do, it also has a reverse effect and makes teenage boys think that girls have loose morals and low self-respect.

  of the other magazines that gained my attention was “Bliss” with ‘Holiday Horrors’ written in bold underneath ‘Raped on the beach’, I think that teenage girls should be taught that the world we live in isn’t always a safe place and ways to prevent and deal with incidents like rape and sexual assault, but I think there should be a more subtle and delicate approach to the situation as it may confuse and frighten some teenagers. Some teenage girls may also find that they are not ready to hear about the details of the topic yet. 

The Selena Gomez edition of “Shout” magazine also got me thinking, on the left third magazine it gives the introduction to the article ‘Make him fancy you’, in young teenagers magazines a majority of the magazinesassume that all teenage girls are heterosexual and include articles on boys. I would like to see more controversial topics included in young people’s magazines like being: gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual. Also to cover more race and religion related topics. If more of the listed subjects were covered and introduced to children from a young age there would most probably be a lot less discrimination, racism and homophobia etc. As children will be able to relate from a young age and learn that everyone is different and there is no right or wrong religion, race or ethnicity. 

I also would like to see teenage magazines encourage that not everything is based on how you look and that show you feel is more important. Magazines pick specific celebrities for their covers, the image of the celebrity is usually reflecting the magazine or magazine articles, or just plainly an endorsement as we are more inclined to buy a magazine with our favourite celeb on the front cover. But the celebrities on the front are usually seen as having the ‘perfect body’ and there isn’t a lot of variation of body types. And teenagers may think that if their body type isn’t there that it isn’t right.

Overall, I think that magazines are partly to blame but there are also other contributing factors like Television the fashion industry, music and social networking sites.