Content Analysis - Teen Magazines

I got this photo from: http://www.creme.co.nz/features/new-look-march-issue-out-on-monday/

 

The magazine that I studied was Cream magazine June 2013 with Taylor Swift on the cover. I think Taylor Swift was used as the cover girl for this magazine to attract young teenagers who like Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is known as a sweet innocent girl who also draws people into wanting to know about her life as a singer and her relationship breakups. The colours on the front cover were pinks, whites and reds with the occasional blues. This helps attract young teenagers in buying this magazine due to it having colourful girl’s colours which portrays happiness and brightness. These colours also match what Taylor is wearing which make her the main focus of the magazine. Also the captions on the cover stated “How to be hearted, stay calm and get what you want.” This shows teenage girls that getting what you want is good when in reality getting what you want is spoilt . “New look fashion – fashion under $50– step by step DIY – style stakeout and so much more!” This is attracting teenage girls due to new fashion looks which draws them in wanting to buy these cool new trends to look good and fit in. Fashion, Makeup, advice, boys, and celebrity’s in this magazine all contribute in attracting young teenage girls (13-15) due to it being a common interest for all teens.

 

In this magazine most of the models were skinny, pretty, with long hair and pretty eyes, with the perfect figure. Taylor Swift comes under this stereotype as well due to her being a singer, actress, blonde hair, blue eyes, good body and comes across as a sweetheart. However, if a teenager is reading this and magazine and she isn’t happy about her looks or body, this stereotype of models could affect the way she thinks about herself which doesn’t provide a positive image on teenage girls.

In this magazine there were a lot of advice articles which can help you with relationship breakups, family issues, and friend issues. This is a positive source to the magazine due to it helping teenagers who may need some advice.

The models in these magazines are close to perfect. Every facial feature is perfect and gorgeous. Every magazine I have read or looked at there are no plus sized models in them. What I have picked up is that they don’t even have freckles on their face, this indicates to me that they are all airbrushed which makes these models fake. This doesn’t show their natural beauty. Women are often jealous of the incredible good looks of the models in magazines. Would you still be jealous if you knew that every single image you’re seeing is an illusion? 

 

This video shows the use of photoshop in teen magazines which can cause teenagers feeling bad about their selves comparing them to these perfect models. But do they really know that these models are photoshopped from head to toe.

Noticeably the media is portraying a view of perfection in girls in magazines and on television that is near impossible for teenage girls to reach. By doing this the magazines are creating the teenage girls in New Zealand and around the world to become insecure which can lead to depression, anorexia and bulimia. Around 8 million people in America suffer from an eating disorder; over 90% of them are women. This shows the effects of the media on women and how it is affecting their lives. Bulimia causes 5 deaths in every 1000 who suffer from this eating disorder. Within those 5 people, 2 deaths are from girls committing suicide.

However, teenage girls should not have to feel stressed and under pressure by the media to have a specific style and fashion. By having stunning models promoting expensive designer clothing makes teenage girls who are incapable of buying the expensive designer clothing feel as though they don't look decent or as good as they are expected too. This shows that it is still having a strong effect on New Zealand's teenage girls.
Other than these serious statistics, the fashion in the magazines attract teenagers due to the teenagers (being 13-15) wanting to try new styles and who are willing to try modify their looks.

 

The articles advertised on the front cover involve teenage representations for example “New fabulous looks for you!” Also another article advertised on the front cover of Crème is: “A girl’s best friend” which is a strong indication that if you want to be ‘cool’ girl you have to own this magazine. Most articles advertised on the front cover are about celebrities. This indicates to us teenage girls continuously need the celebrities to desire and look up to. Inside this crème magazine, there are frequent articles and adverts involving clothes and make-up/beauty merchandise. On the other hand the clothing in these articles has a very high price range and we would expect that not many teenagers would be able to afford them. This is encouraging girls to ask their parents or friends for money to buy these clothing items and beauty products. This also encourages girls to think that they need to buy these beauty products and also to need to wear expensive clothes all to fit in and be the ‘cool’ girl.

 

However, the only articles in this magazine are about fashion, beauty products, boys, girlfriends, and advice on breakups or boyfriends, friendships and family. We see no sign of any adverts talking about world affairs and politics. This is because if topics like this were in a magazine for teenage girls they would not be interested in buying it due to it being about an uninteresting topic. All teenage girls really care about is fashion, boys, make-up and reading these magazines with sex stories, fashion articles and information about their favourite bands. These girly articles are in there for a reason which is to attract young girls to buy this product, they wouldn’t want to buy it if it had “World affairs and Politics” on the front cover.