Task 3 - Conventions of Teen Magazines

•  Successful celebrity on the cover
• pink and purple themes
• fun masthead fonts
• busy cover, lots of little bits
• lots of cover lines
• focus on fashion
• abbreviations
• lots of colours
• coloquiel language
• plain backgrounds

• 'true stories'
• big writing
• top banner
• use of <3
• little pictures alongside the main one
• gripping words: 'Ultimate' 'Extreme' 'Better'
• handbag size magazines
• variety of stories
• centered around female celebrities
•  links to real life

• Head and shoulders image
• relatable interviews
• 
  

To What Extent Should Magazines Be Held Responsible For The Social Ramifications Of The Representations They Offer?

Magazines often promote a more mature image to younger girls because girls always want to grow up quicker. The magazines have researched into what 11-15 year olds are interested in and pushed it through the fashion and interviews in the magazine. Unfortunately, Magazines have pushed the themes to far in making girls grow up quicker and therefore creating a age group that comes across as suggestive and inappropriate.

On the front cover of Bliss, one of the cover lines is 'Why I Got A BooB Job At 16'. This article is explaining about why a young decided to change her image with plastic surgery when she has not stopped developing yet. This article is displaying the story as a positive thing rather than a hard hitting article which it should be. Because of this article, the young readers will think its ok to dislike their body image and its simple to change it. I think the magazine is responsible for this effect because of the story they chose to print and the way they printed it; if the article was about how the girl regretted it 5 years later then the article would've been acceptable in the magazine. Also, this article promotes a stereotyped body image that only big breast are attractive. This again was wrong of the magazine as the girls of 11-15 would not be fully developed yet and they would be learning about 'their age group' in a totally false way.

The Front cover of Sugar magazine has a cover line of 'Flirt Fashion'. This suggests that it is acceptable that girls aged 11-15 flirt openly with boys of a similar or older age. This article is selling girls clothing that will make them 'attractive' in the eyes of boys. The image that accompanies the cover line is three short dresses with low cut front. This encourages these young girls to dress provocatively and suggestively, showing that this is all that boys are interested in when looking for a relationship (even though relationships are an iffy subject when you're 11-15).

The front cover uses main images of celebrities that are considered role models for the younger generations. The front cover of Seventeen magazine features Katy Perry who sings about sex, lesbianism and manic partying/clubbing. She also poses nude on the album art of 'Teenage Dream'. Perry is seen as a role model for young girls but advertises her music and her person in these adult ways. I don't think that this is the magazines fault but the magazine could have chosen a main image of a tamer role model.