Task 3: Essay
Cosmo girl is set out to be for a teenager, It contains a well known pop star that many teenage girls will know and relate to, it also has very girl related colors with the reds but also with the black gives the readers the idea that they are reading a more sophisticated magazine and one for an older audience and thats what they want to be. The idea of having a well known pop star for the whole audience to recognize continues throughout the magazine of 'More' and 'Bliss' connecting to the audience as they want to be like them. On these magazine also there are lots of colors that relate to the female teen audience including a lot of pink and attracts the audience. On all of these magazines it contains what these young girls want to be and makes them also want to be like them. On the covers it also shows very underweight girls and this is seen by the audience to be the perfect body even though they have the perfect body.
EssayTo what extent should magazines be held responsible for the social ramifications of the representations they offer?
There are many social effects on teenage girls due to the content of these magazines and although some give off the idea that looks is not everything, most still say glamorous girls are what should be seen and that all the girls should go out and glamorize themselves. This causes many effects in that young girls are pushed to wear make up and look slim to be like the girls on the magazine however in reality the models are underweight and the readers are the perfect weight but still are pushed to change their figures to look like these girls and this can cause to anorexia and other problems. Also on all the front covers of these magazines there are always beautiful women of a different level which give young girls a bad view of themselves and make them want to improve themselves to look like these women on the covers.
Also on the front cover of these magazines there is a cover line relating to the way that these teenage girls should be dressing, how they should have their hair and how much make up they should be wearing putting great pressure on these young girls as it is seen as a must to have these features and also damages the self esteem of those who did not look like these models and at the ages of around 12-16 girls should not be worrying about these sort of things.
On a lot of the teenage magazines there are a lot of female related colors including pink and reds however there are also very sophisticated colors such as a lot of blacks which makes the young audience feel older then they actually are and then pushes them to continue to act like someone of an older age. Also on the magazines shown the fonts used are some of serif fonts that again give a more sophisticated look to the magazine and again make the audience seem older and makes them dress and style themselves in an older manor due to them feeling more mature.
Another topic that is discussed when talking about female teen magazines is that the magazines are too explicit for the young audience showing the models on the magazine with short skirts and tight tops and makes these young girls go out with the same sort of style presenting themselves in a bad way for such a young age and also makes young girls obsessed with their figure making sure that they look 'perfect'.
To conclude i believe that on magazines aimed at young teenage girls the models should not be presented to the audience as glamorous as they are to damage girls self esteem and to put pressure on the young girls and also to make the models and images on the magazine less explicit for the readers to make the audience want to go out like them and dress explicitly. Also there should be more of a specific target audience for these magazines for example having a certain genre for up to 17 and then another genre for 18 and above so the younger generation don't try to mature themselves to early.
