To what extent should magazines be held responsible for the social ramification of the representations they offer?
Many magazines use certain techniques and conventions to appeal to there target market. For magazines aimed at teenage girls they use many techniques too, but are they using the wrong techniques to attract teen girls from the age of 11.
On these 5 examples of magazines famous teen/ young girls have been used to attract teen girls to the magazine. This is important because teenage girls tend to look up to celebrities and they tend to follow them to find their own personalities. By using younger girls the audience is more likely to relate to them making them more interested in the magazine. By younger girls, this means, teenage girls that age from 16-20. Where the cover girls are wearing certain clothes and their image is portrayed in a certain way the audience are going to think it is right to dress that way and look that way, even at a young age.
Furthermore the majority or the magazines have used the same colour themes or coloured fonts to attract there audience. Teen vogue has used more down toned colours that mix well and still manage to catch the readers eye. This also make the cover girl stand out more because it contrasts well altogether. As for the other magazines, they have all used the same colours to highlight the fonts in.
They have all used the colour pink to appeal to their target audience. Whether it is on the title or just general text on the cover to make the text stand out more they have used the colour pink as a stereotypical colour for teenage girls. By using this stereotypical colour it makes the magazine look innocent and young, also girly. This then creates a wider range for teenage girls, so instead of their target audience being 13-19, they end up attracting 11-12 years old at the same time. This is where the negativity comes into the magazines because it means younger girls are introduced into boys, dating and possibly sexual meaning before there time.
On the other hand, even though this may have a negative effect on the audience it does mean that they do become more educated quickly, meaning that they are more likely to feel more aware of things as they get older, this would make them more mature as well, meaning they would be able to watch out for signs when getting older. 
The magazines advertise clothing on the cover to interest and intrigue their audience on what is 'hot and new' to wear. I believe that this is a negative thing to do because even though it may look harmless, the young girls are going to want to buy the clothes. Moreover, the clothes that are being advertised are starting to get more and more revealing as the weeks go on. Now, this happens because of the new fashion that is introduced but I don't think it is appropriate for the younger end of their target market because at that age they shouldn't be thinking about revealing certain parts of there body, they should be concentrating on more important things. I believe that it is wrong that young teenage girls walk around in some of the clothing that is advertised in magazine, I think it is setting a bad example and it is making the younger generation of girls more vulnerable to boys, especially if they are mistaken for an older age.
The only positive thought I can take from this advertising
is that they would be able to show their parents and their parents can decide if they are allowed it as a present possibly.
In all 5 examples, they all use include information about boys and how to attract them. I feel this is unacceptable for a magazine that has a target market of 11-14 year old girls. I believe that young girls shouldn't have to feel the pressure of impressing boys until they are at least 15 possible even 16 because they are more mature then and it means that they can take control of the situation if they don't like that is going on. Also it means where they are more mature they know what they are getting themselves into, where as younger girls won't understand what is going on.
I think these kind of articles should only be available to girl no younger than 15 because otherwise things get complicated and girls start to feel the pressure of impressions at a younger age and also it could portray the wrong message that it is right at a young age. 
When magazine publishers are producing magazine articles and designs they need to think about what they are putting in the magazine and whether it is acceptable for their target market age range. I think that publishers should take responsibility for what the effects that teenage girls experience from these magazines because at the end of the day they should be more careful with appropriation. On the other hand, even though the magazine publishers are responsible for what is included in the magazine and what is shown on the front cover designs, I also believe that it is the parents responsibility at the same time to make sure that their children are reading appropriate materials and that they are not being exposed to the wrong things. If the parents agree for the children to read the magazines then they are giving permission for them to go through the effects the publishers may have intended. So I believe it is 50/50 between the magazine publishers responsibility and the parents responsibility to make sure that teenage girls aren't effected too much.
If I was given the chance to change parts of the magazine covers I would change the colours maybe, to look more mature, almost like the Teen Vogue magazine at the top because it doesn't give of a complete young teen girl feel where as the others do. By changing the colour scheme it would mean the younger end of the age range would possibly stray away from buying it which would mean the articles involved would be more sufficient to the age range as it may increase to 15-20 years old.
No comments:
Post a Comment