Magazines as Socializing Agents

Magazines are great agents of socialization because they can include lots of information. There are many different types of magazines: like music, health, sports, ? tness, hobbies, animals, teen, community & culture, cooking, woman’s interests, men’s interests, etc. However, though these magazines can provide a lot of good, there are also plenty of negative effects. I’m going to be focussing on how teen magazines effect teenage girls. For starters, lots of these magazines include articles like “get your new hot body now” or “how to be the coolest girl in class” as though these things are mandatory and important.

There are more articles on beauty and how to get the cute boy in school to notice you than about real life stories of real inspiring women or health information. It’s important for teenage girls to know about how other girls like them have changed the world (or themselves), and how to take care of their body. This instills the idea that in order to be “successful” you need to have the newest gadgets, the hottest hair styles, the trendiest clothes, clear skin, a thin body, and a hot boyfriend.

When girls realize that this isn’t as easy as it looks or even sometimes unobtainable, it will take a hit at their self-esteem. Especially girls who didn’t think there was anything wrong about them until they read the list of “how to become the coolest girl” and notice that they ? t into none of the categories. It isn’t fair to put girls into the position to change themselves to ? t how society wants to see them. When teen girls see these magazines that are ? lled up to the brim with ads of girls looking sexy for perfumes or new clothing lines, it creates an idea that that’s how they need to be seen also.

This encourages what the American Psychology Association refers to as “costuming for seduction”. This means that young girls will dress more provocatively to attract male attention. Most of the fashion, diet, and lifestyle advice is a guide on how to become more desirable to men, and less about being happy with the way you are. Magazines like Seventeen include a section in their magazines on how boys rate the current trends in fashion, accessories, and make-up.

There’s always two competing trends and it shows which percentage of boys favored which look over the other (for example, sporty vs skimpy for bathing suits). Of course, the more revealing bathing suit won with the leading 59% with a quote from a boy underneath stating “Why” they chose the skimpier bathing suit. Most of the magazine is how to get a boy to notice you by wearing what they want to see (not what you want to wear, or feel comfortable wearing), how to tell if a guy is into, what “weird” texting behaviours from a boy really means, and how to use guys in your school to help ? ure out if the boy you like feels the same way about you (the boys are separated into 4 categories: the nice guy, the fun partier, the total player, and the attached guy, each with a description of how to use each of the boys to your best advantage when scouting for a boyfriend). I think that teen magazines could be sending out a much more positive message to girls than what is being given. These magazines should be including articles on more serious health issues or how to succeed in your classes rather than telling them to focus all their time on becoming the coolest girl around.