Magazine Analysis

Magazine Analysis 

Although we can gain information from media (e.g. magazines), it can also have a negative effect on society, especially on teenage girls, who struggle with body image issues, self esteem, and acceptance (fitting in). Their struggles with body image issues, self esteem, and acceptance is brought out the most when they look at how perfect and flawless women look in magazines and in the media.

On the cover of a New Idea magazine is the famous American Pop singer, Taylor Swift. Taylor is known for her flawless beauty. Taylor is a perfect 'cover girl' for teenager girls. Taylor sings pop songs that relate to teenage girls and every girl envy's her beauty and her sweet and innocent personality. 
On the cover of the magazine, Taylor's red lipstick goes with the red colour of the title. The red makes us think of love and relationships, it makes the magazine almost look dramatic and interesting. The colour red also relates to strength and power which emphasises the gossip in the magazine and catches the consumers attention.
The images used on the cover of the magazine are the famous people who star inside the magazine for different scandals. The celebrities starring on the front are Harry Styles, Luke Mitchell and Rebecca Breads, Prince Harry and Kelly Osborne, all stars who are well known or who are idolised by teenage girls.
In particular, Harry Styles being connected to Taylor Swift is relevant to the target audience of teenage girls because of Harry Styles being a teen-heart throb and Taylor Swift, a role model to teenage girls.                                                           

On the cover of the magazine the stories involving teenage girl role models are those scandals of "Harry's Heartbreak... Chelsy Moves On", "Luke and Rebecca's Dream Wedding", "Kelly Osbourne.. Back From the Brink with a New Body" and "Taylor's Love Curse... Why her romance with Harry Styles is really over who will she date next?". 

These story titles are dramatised and over exaggerated. All headlines on the magazine, expect for one are about relationships and love. This suggests to teenage girls that it's popular to be in a relationship and have a boyfriend, and it's so devastating and bad if you're single. The story line about Taylor Swift says "... who will she date next?" this suggests to teenage girls that they need to find someone to date immediately next. 

They story line "Harry's Heartbreak" suggests to teenage girls how bad break-ups are, it almost suggests that teenage girls shouldn't end relationships i.e. staying in relationships is more positive/popular.

The head line "Kelly Osbourne.. Back From the Brink with a New Body" suggest that it's something to celebrate when you're back with a new and better body. The article starts off with "Slimmed-down star Kelly Osbourne..." which influences teens who look up to Kelly Osbourne to also be 'slimmed down'.  

Teen girls want to be considered beautiful. When teenage girls look at photo-shopped women, they tend to feel ugly and bad about themselves. All of the perfection and beauty they see in celebrities in the media are photo-shopped, which gives teen girls a perception of what they have to look like to be categorized as being beautiful in today’s society.

The media's representation shown on the magazine is truly different than in real life. On the magazine it portrays that all teenage girls should be slim, flawless like Taylor Swift and be in relationships. This is the opposite in reality, as teenagers aren't all slim, flawless and in relationships. From the cover of New Idea, the magazines portrays teenage girls who are slim and in relationships as 'normal'. This is a huge representation on only the front cover of a magazine, which provides a negative message to teens after only reading one page. It provides the negative message of it being abnormal if you're single or not slim. This gives a negative look on what it's like to be a teenage girl today, as there is huge pressure to be perfect and you're almost an outcast if you're not like people on magazine covers.This negatively effects teenagers as they try so hard to fit in and be pretty and perfect, when there is more important things in life, like careers and education. This can lead to depression and teenage girls being totally self-conscious. Their main goal in life is to be the stereotype of beautiful. 

The images that magazines portray is typical for magazine media.

In the Australian 'madison' magazine, the exact same things are represented- beauty perfection and boys/relationships. With the title "Fake your way to great skin" implies that having perfect skin is almost a necessity so much so that you need to 'fake' it. The magazine also offers 50% of a facial for every consumer- this is sending a bad message to readers suggesting everyone needs facials, therefore buy the magazine. There is a title saying "How to escape a toxic man", like New Idea this magazine is saying you need a 'perfect' relationship and to get that you should read the article on 'how to escape the toxic man'. 



Both magazines are representing teenage girls and how they should be. This affects teenage girls negatively as they are learning from the media that women are only good and used for their looks, this makes them form their goals around looking pretty and being skinny, things that become important to teenage girls where in reality they're not very important morals or values. 
I personally think if media represented strong women on magazine covers who weren't beautiful and perfect, but were doing something that contributes to our society, teenage girls would want to be something more than just 'pretty'. 

Magazines also influence teenage boys. By seeing perfect beauty in the media, boys expect girls to look the way that media portray adding extra pressure on teenage girls to look stereotypically pretty.