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

Magazines are extremely popular for teenage girls and all the teen magazines out there are extremely similar the content usually consists of make-up, clothes, boys and celebrities. I don't think the age range varies at all for this kind of genre of magazine, its purely 13-17 year olds (depending on the magazine type) and has very similar codes and conventions.

The first magazine i'm going to analyze is Seventeen magazine this is a very stereotypical teen magazine, the colors a very vibrant and mainly consists of lots of pinks.
The main image is Beyonce who is a very good role model for teenage girls, her facial expressions is showing she's happy which suggests this magazine is fun and entertaining to read.

The typical conventions of this genre of magazine is very big bold sub-titles, very eye catching and appealing. Its very busy compared to magazines like Vogue which are more plain, simple and professional.

The teenage magazines also consists of lots of Puffs which stand out and make the magazine cover more fun, another typical convention is the amount of content on the magazine cover it has a lot of text which appeals to teenage girls such as 'How to get the perfect hair!' and similar stuff which make the readers want to read the magazine and figure out how to get 'the perfect hair', this is a good advantage as the magazine will be popular as lots of girl will buy the magazine as they want to read whats inside.













Another typical convention of a magazine is theres a lot of titles which advertise boys, the magazine usually contain posters and interviews with 'teenage heartthrobs' for example on the magazine cover to the right 'Bliss' has articles about Robert Paterson and JLS - These current popular young men have an attraction to teenage girls so this can be another typical convention because girls will always buy the magazine if it has something there interested in. This could be a negative thing, the essay question is saying about social ramifications and sexualizing young girls, the 'advertisement' of men could suggest that teenage girls think they have to be interested in boys at a young age and it becomes more of a pressure for girls to impress boys, this introduces the use of make-up and grown up clothes and it almost may seem that they feel like they have to look like the cover girl which is clearly a lot older than they are. This can start some debates about teenage magazines giving the wrong message to young girls that they have to be something there not, buy putting a lot of make up on, buying the latest clothes and accessorizing which could have a very negative effect for the parents and elder people in our society and could almost be a danger as men may think they are older than they already are.
But then you could argue that magazines wouldn't sell if they didn't have current and new information in it and wouldn't be appealing for young girls.

Another social ramifications that could occur from Teenage magazines is the use of wording on magazines like  'Cosmo Girl!' magazine to my left says ''50 Ways to get sexy hair!'' most parents or guardians wouldn't want there children to have the image of being 'sexy' and most people will say this is a wrong way to appeal to girls in a magazine I agree with this to some extent but I think its good for girls to be introduced to more mature things in a good and fun way instead of finding out about these stuff in any other way.










I think these types of magazines are very successful with there target audiences but they have caused some social ramifications which could in future effect there sales in the magazine, depending on the age group and how old they are thinking 'teenagers' are I think its good to introduce mature and grown up themes into teenagers life but with moderation, I think with most of these magazines say a lot about 'ex-boyfriends' and having a 'hot body' when this could not be good for such young people to be learning about. So I think there should be a balance of what is appropriate to teenagers and a clear difference between adult magazines and teenage magazines. The cover image should always be a respectable women who are successful, have had experience in life or good role models for teenage girls.