Essay and research

This genre of magazines which is teenage girls seems to have some clear conventions:

The colours stand out and compliment each other and seem to be girly colours like pink, there is a reduced palette so the colours almost become the signature colours for that issue.

The body language seems to be inviting and friendly. The model is stereotypically a girl who looks her best and is the biggest thing on the cover, the facial expression conveys an emotion that is nice and happy and don't tend to be sad.

The model can give a direct message so the eyes are following you all the time which is a good effect and helps connect with the audience. 

The models are wearing informal, casual clothes and the magazine is promoting fashion and clothes which will attract a lot of girls, the fashion is affordable not ridiculous making it more relatable to the audience and giving the magazine a good repuatation.

There is an interesting story or intriguing story on the front cover to attract the audience e.g. from Cosmo Girl “I saved my drunk friends life”, this is a positive story and will make the audience want to read it.

There is a good and clever use of language, e.g. from Cosmo Girl “Fashion Freebies” which is alliteration, there is rhythm e.g. from Seventeen magazine “Fashion tips and beauty tricks” and from Bliss “Passion for Fashion”; this makes the magazine look and feel professional when the audience reads it.

The font is quite casual and the colour is normally a girly colour to match everything else and attracts a female audience and use slang to relate to the audience.

The tone of the magazine is fun and carefree, but does have some serious elements which is a good mix in creating an effective and successful magazine.

The magazine normally has something to do with relationships and school so more teenage girls can relate to the magazine.

Here are the magazine covers I looked at to help with my research:

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

Magazine covers can give out plenty of different messages, it depends on who we are and how we interpret it, if you are a teenage girl reading a magazine like Cosmo Girl, you are going to feel pretty down about yourself seeing a beautiful girl on the front cover and it might make girls think they need to look that good, the girl is always skinny or slim which can promote the wrong message that people should be that size and lead to unnecessary dieting and a unhealthy life style. That brings me onto my next point, there never seems to be anything about healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle, they seem to focus on dieting and staying slim which is irresponsible as people are going to think they have to diet to fit in, it is going to make boys expect girls to be slim and wont settle for anything else which is so wrong.

Magazines can promote fashion and make girls and boys think they have to buy clothes like that and if they don't then they are going to look cheep which is not true, not many teenage magazines promote high fashion clothing which is good but magazines like Vogue do, but that is what you expect from that type of magazine. Although it will make people think they need to have those clothes, it might inspire people who are unemployed to get a job and earn the money which I think is actually a good message to give out for people to work especially teenagers who need to have some experience.

Another social ramification of magazines is that they give out the message that you need to have a boyfriend or girlfriend to be happy which is not the case and that can lead to people just being in a relationship to fit in. Also magazines never seem to say much about or for gay people unless it is a gay magazine which can single them out and make them feel insecure when they shouldn't

Although teenage girl magazines can help girls through things and entertain them, they can also drive them into the wrong direction, there are many bad hints of sex and trying to make yourself look better for boys, which I think is bad considering the average age for magazines like Cosmo Girl and Bliss is around 14-15 so magazines can be held responsible for under-age sex and teenage pregnancies. 

Magazines can also make boys look very bad or a necessity, some magazines say you don't need a man or women in your life, and some put pages and pages about how to look better for them which you should not need to do and show photos of them with they're top off which can be a bit much for some magazines and makes them look like a piece of meat which is wrong.

Magazines can include celebrities stories about how they were misfits or bullied or things like that which can give teenagers hope if they are in that situation that not everything is going to be as bad as life at school and maybe one day they can become famous and I like that message.

Magazines can not be held completely responsible for some of the things we do but they do play a important part and I think they should really think about they're audience and what are they are putting into peoples heads, I would like to see more about healthy lifestyles and less on sex if I'm honest, this is for both girl and boy magazines but mainly girl magazines. 

www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/4990907/Teen-magazines-are-sexualising-readers-says-watchdog.html

www.associatedcontent.com/article/30544/popular_teen_magazines_and_their_possible.html