Task 3: Essay

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

Teenage girl magazines include a very materialistic content, which is either stereotypical or influential towards the target audience, of which i am going to investigate.
This certain type of magazine include such things as;

• skinny models,
• unrealistic/airbrushed skin,
• makeup,
• fashion,
• adult content e.g boyfriend tips etc. 

This could potentially influence many girls views and make them want to change who they really are so they can fit into the categories, that have been made in the magazines like being 'normal' and  having a 'pretty' image, also it could make teenage girls see hunting boyfriends and beautifying as the norm; which could be argued that these are made to be their sole purpose in life.
The magazines do not seem to ever include interests such as politics, environmental issues, or any kind of music that ventures beyond the 'popularity', these could be included, with cleverly placed items between all the materialistic pages, to remind and teach them of reality.
 This means the teenage girl, by the power of teen magazine, have been heavily stereotyped, and their interpretation of society might depend on the personal knowledge that magazines have presented to them, the articles expects her to be interested in boys, sex, fashion, beauty and fame. The magazine is therefore a "powerful ideological force" of image and behavioural traits presented within the magazines that become the stereotypical norm for the teenage girl. All this taken into consideration shows that magazines should be taking a healthy amount of responsibility.

However i feel that this is something that teenagers enjoy and use this as their past time activities to escape from reality, which i feel is very reasonable.. IF, magazines would include a number of things such as;
making a little logo that shows that what they are seeing is real or photo shopped etc, also a back page explaining that these images and stories are all for entertainment purposes and should not be taken so literally, and then if they need any guidance they should include helpful pages and/or contact details to guide them through various difficult situations. This would all provide professional advice. Then if this is all included, the parents take on the role of authority and responsibility, by letting their daughters buy them, and read them, as long as they understand that what they are seeing is not real and does not have realistic goals.

It is also not all about the parents, or the magazines taking the whole responsibility, as its also the actual products in the magazine such as fashion and makeup, that are wanting to advertise their clothes and marketing campaigns, which are being viewed by young girls, and this is all being authorised to be distributed to the public. If they have a problem or a concern about any issue they should stop it and discuss changes, causing no conflicts to the general public.

Overall magazines should be hold the majority of responsibility for the social ramifications of the representations they offer, because they are ignoring obvious rule breakers, that include quite strong content, but i do believe that with a few tweaks of the magazines, they could be resolved of some of the responsibility, but as it stands at the moment they are very much curve balling around rules and regulations causing conflict and disagreements throughout, which i feel can be easily fixed. Giving some authority and responsibility back to the magazine editors, by not having to be dictated to, by the advertising companies.