Magazine Mind Map - Initial Ideas

Practice Magazine design + Student Magazine

This is my Student Magazine made on InDesign, I have used shapes to add backgrounds to the cover lines to make them stand out.

This is my first try at making a magazine cover on InDesign, I have taken an image off of Google and copied it onto Indesign, I then fitted it to the screen size. I then managed to add text to the image and change the colour using the colour swatches. I changed the colour to make the text more suited to the image. I added text using the text tool.

IPC Media from webbinor

Skills Audit

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

In this essay I will be discussing the impact magazines have on teenagers and how much they should be to blame for any social ramifications.

There are many issues surrounding magazines aimed at teenage girls and their content, many say it is one of the reasons that girls are growing up a lot faster than they used to, most articles in these magazines are about makeup and hair styles and boys, these all appeal to teenage girls and may be the reason young girls are wearing more makeup, are more obsessed with boys and are always wanting to keep up with the latest fashions.

An article on The Telegraph states that 'Teen magazines are sexualising readers'. Ed Mayo, the chief executive of consumer focus claimed that magazines are 'pushing the envelope' and said that parents would be shocked at some of the content in the magazines their teenage daughters read. A study by The Sunday Telegraph looked at several magazines and found they contained sexually explicit material which may be crossing the line and breaching the industry's editorial code.
Bliss, Sugar and Top of the Pops, who all have readers aged around 11 - 15 on average, are all magazines that have been found to contain inappropriate material for that age group, including photos of shirtless male models, articles on kissing and sex and one included an article titled "Is it a crush or are you gay?"
The Teenage Magazine Arbitration Panel, which includes publishers and editors has the responsibility of ensuring that "the sexual content of teenage magazines is presented in a responsible and appropriate manner". The Guidelines that apply to magazines who have than 25% of their readership under 16 state "readers will always be encouraged to take a responsible attitude to sex" and "editorial content of the magazines will reflect the typical concerns of the magazines readership."

I also looked at an article on Yahoo discussing how popular teen magazines are having an effect on teenage girls. In this article the writer talks about the many magazines aimed at teenage girls and how most features are about looks, "...you will see that a majority of the headlines revolve around making yourself look better. 'Dress to impress.' 'Easy hair makeovers.' 'Find the perfect hair, make-up and style for you!' 'Be a knock-out!' The writer states that this gives the impression to young girls that the way you look is extremely important and there is not much more to life that beauty. The writer analysed three magazines and most articles featured on most the these magazines were about looks, fashion and celebrities. They also talk about the overuse of the word 'Sexy', "What does sexy mean to teenagers? Do we really want our teenagers walking around trying to be sexy?" Is the word sexy inappropriate for magazines aimed at teenagers? This may make teenage girls want to behave in a 'sexy' way but the way magazines portray 'sexy' may not be the best behaviour to be shown to girls at this age.
The article also states that these magazines could influence the way teenage girls view people and things."...Sexiest Guys in the World Issue." Here we go again with the sexiness. Do we really want teenagers, or in this case girls, as the title of their magazine says, to be looking at guys in a sexual way?" 
The article also discusses the amount of adverts featured. Most are advertising beauty products and clothing lines, this once again conveys the idea that there is not much more to life that how you look and the latest fashions. It then concludes stating that magazines should be more aware of the ideas they could be giving to younger girls and the way they are influencing them.

Though there are many arguments against the contents of these magazines there are some who defend them.
An article on eHow states that magazines can inform, educate and entertain us, they discuss Teen Magazines saying that most of these magazines focus on 'fashion, grooming and movie and music idols' and that these are blamed, along with other media plaforms, have a negative effect on 'body image and self esteem', and the many airbrushed, unaturally skinny models featuring are putting pressure on young girls to have the perfect body. They defend this accusation by stating that magazines like 'Seventeen' and 'Teen Vogue' listened to these complaints and have now begun to feature images 'more reflective of the average women' and have many articles like ones on healthy eating, relationships and exercise that guide teens through their life struggles, and also motivate and encourage teenagers in their work.

There were not many articles on the positive effects of magazines, this shows that most people believe that these magazines have a hugely negative impact on teenage girls. 
I believe that these types of magazines do contain some content that is quite mature for the target audience, there are too many articles on beauty and how to have a skinnier body. This conveys a very bad idea that could really effect some girls self esteem, seeing size zero models in clothes that may not even go above a size 10 can make girls feel like they're not good enough, or not normal. An example of this is the recent issues surrounding the designer clothing brand Abercrombie and Fitch, a brand heavily features in teen fashion magazines. The CEO Mike Jeffries stated in a 2006 interview "That's why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don't market to anyone other than that." These may make girls feel inadequate, the brands clothing sizes don't go above a woman's' large or a pants size above 10. This may exclude many readers of these magazines and make them feel like they're over weight or not good-looking enough. 
Removing adverts for clothing brands like these and articles that are all about looking good and keeping up with the latest fashions and replacing them with adverts featuring normal sized woman that are not airbrushed and features that are about more than looks may have a much more positive effect on these magazines target audiences. 




References:
The Telegraph: 'Teen magazines are sexualising readers, says watchdog'
Yahoo Voices: Popular Teen Magazines and Their Possible Effect on Teenage Girls
eHow: The Positive Influence Magazines Have on People
DailyMail: 'Thin and beautiful' customers ONLY: How Abercrombie & Fitch doesn't want 'larger people' shopping in its stores