Essay

In this essay I will be talking about the influence magazines have on teenage girls by looking at 5 different episodes of ‘Seventeen’ magazine and the codes and conventions that make young girls change their looks and actions.

The main image on each cover is a young woman celebrity who is seen as ‘perfect’ smiling and looking straight at their target audience, young teenage girls. As if to entice them into buying the magazine; most photos in magazines are altered so that wrinkles, fat, and pores disappear. Readers only see perfect and unrealistic bodies represented, having a person who is the image of perfect makes young girls want to buy the magazine to look through and be influenced by their looks and almost copy them. This is a type of insecurity that magazines cause in young vulnerable teenagers, they publish relationship facts, make-up tips and hair tips to lure the teens into trying these themselves

using ‘pretty’ on all five magazines makes girls feel paranoid and self-doubting on whether they look the right way, they desire for the skinny, shrunken look and diet and a large proportion get anorexic. They worry about a bad hair day and want to miss school if they even have a tiny spec of a zit on their face.

Four out of five of the magazines have articles about ‘best’ body, but or flat abs these articles often include information on how get "perfect" ab muscles, advice on how to apply makeup, and tips on what to wear that will make your body look good, Teen magazines are a way for a teenager to find news about the newest fashion trend. Advertisers, marketers and designers know that fashion is very important to most teens, so magazines are a very profitable way to persuade teens to purchase a particular fashion product magazines often include ads for beauty and hair products, clothing and perfume. Many of these ads feature women that are underweight ‘the best spring cloths’ ‘the cutest clothes’ ‘ultimate beauty guide’ ‘perfect hair and ‘party hair’ all five sub headings telling teens how they need to change making teens feel they are not right because they are not what everyone else looks up to making their lack of confidence fall more and more every time they read a magazine When people are unhappy with their bodies, it can lead to depression, anxiety, or even eating disorders.
Each magazine has the colour pink in, because pink is stereotypically a ‘girly’ colour making girls feel they have to be girly in order to purchase this magazine making teenage girls feel as though they will not be accepted if they do not follow these rules causing them to be ashamed of their indifferences and individuality; and making them follow a code, be girly, be pretty, wear this, don’t wear that, magazines are a guide on how teenagers live their lives and most don’t even know that it’s happening because it is such a discrete way of controlling them.

New magazine cover analasys.

There are no adverts on the front cover to maximise room for more story teasers and gossip.
The bar code is at the bottom on the left of the cover so that it’s out of the way of the stories.
The main colours of ‘heat’ magazine are red, white and black. The red text implies urgency, and stands out against the white background, so does the black. These colours are used because they are simple and effective, someone looking at magazines in a shop would immediately be drawn to the large amount of red used on the cover of this.
The main cover image is a picture of Victoria Beckham to draw in attention because everyone knows who she is so they may be interested in stories and gossip about her life. This draws the reader to buy the magazine.
The price is £1.65, and is positioned between the masthead and strapline. This makes it visible but discreet and not distracting from the rest of the front cover. The date is placed alongside the price, so that it too doesn’t distract from the rest of the front cover. There is only one feature article photograph on the cover of this issue of heat, making it appear less cluttered so the main headline stands out further, and shows how important it is. Clearly the stories presented in this issue are bigger than usual, as heat is usually cluttered. There are 3 fonts used on the whole cover – one is for the main headline, and has the biggest size. This distinguishes that it goes with the biggest picture, and that it is the main headline. The second is for the slightly less important information, but you can tell that it is still important because it’s written in capitals. Putting the words in capitals makes them stand out and look important, as if the magazine is shouting to you because something is so shocking. The last font used is that for the masthead. The masthead is not in capitals which tells you that the magazine is informal and friendly, and gives a general idea of how the information will be shown throughout. It is written in red, making it vibrant and making it stand out, red can mean romance or love, which heat has a lot to do with, e.g. gossip on celebrity relationships.
The strapline ‘This week’s hottest celebrity news’ clearly indicates the genre (gossip) and content of the magazine, so you don’t need to flick through it to see if you’d be interested.
Heat magazine is issued once a week, making £1.65 fairly expensive for a weekly magazine, however it isn’t essential that you buy each one and is cheaper if you subscribe. It also means that the news in it is fairly up to date, so you know what’s happening as soon as it happens.
A puff covers the bottom half of the article photograph. The purpose of this is to explain in short what the article inside will be about, and draw in buyers.
The teaser at the bottom of the front cover tempts people to buy the magazine with ‘THE BRAND NEW MAGAZINE EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT’. Free magazines and other items inside make it seem a better deal for the price, which makes you more likely to buy the magazine.