TASK 3: Essay
To what extent should magazines be held responsible for the social ramifications of the representations they offer?

Throughout this essay I going to be discussing whether I believe it is magazines that should be blamed for social ramifications or whether it is other media. I partly believe it is blamed for social ramifications, especially teens are affected by the representations of celebs and models in magazines today such as Cosmo girl, Bliss, Seventeen and Sugar.

When looking at my 5 magazines I noticed a similarity in all of the. They all mainly revolve around the idea of how teen girls should look and act, the idea that runs throughout these types of magazines is you have to be attractive, wear makeup, be fashionable and act a certain way for boys to like you. Beautiful women smiling positively and brightly are always splashed across the page, which is suppose to ‘inspire’ the magazines target audience. They contain straplines, tags, pugs and captions all suggesting insights inside the magazine of todays fashion and beauty tips. It's likely that this will have a negative effect on teen girls as at this age it is thought many are vulnerable and are usually very conscious of their appearance, weight and just want to fit in. Magazines do not help these issues in no way, teen girls believe more and more they must be like celebrities, be skinny/slim, dress nice, always wearing fashionable clothing and always wearing make up. Magazines should not be giving this idea especially as mostly every magazine today features someone famous or a model that has been edited to look ‘better’. The term ‘sexy’ or ‘perfect’ also featured on mostly all the magazines I saw, this is a negative aspect as I believe teenage girls should not think they should have to look or act sexy or have sex apeal as they are not adults.

I believe it is not purely magazines that should be held responsible for social ramification as other mediation such as music videos, films, images and television also contribute to the social ramifications. Although there are some positive aspects of these magazines, real life story’s feature on teenage magazines such as ‘I nearly got killed on my way home from school’ although sounding horrific articles like these would help keep teenagers more aware and safe. Also magazines have tips and advice for teenagers involving school work and how to be more comfortable and confident.

In conclusion although teenage magazines do at appeal to the target audience, when studying these types of magazines, they are unhealthy and unrealistic portrayals of appearance, life and relationships. The ramifications for each magazine are all similar, revolving around boys, fashion, looking ‘perfect’ and real life stories throughout.