The Reality of Magazines

Reality is far from what is projected in the magazine. The average article in a teenage magazine revolves around shopping, body image, boys and celebrities and whilst for some teenagers these are the only things to worry about in growing up, for others there are more important issues such as teenage pregnancy, bullying, or the more extreme, coping with money and family issues. These problematic issues of teenage development are less likely to be addressed. Entertainment and glamour are projected at the expense of reality.

Another interesting way magazines try to situate themselves in reality- apart from the real life stories- is to use the readers as a voice within the magazine, for example through the problem pages, cringe pages, letter pages and the reader debates. It is often a complete fabrication of reality, as the majority of these so-called readers are in actual fact written by the employees. This is extremely shocking as it completely removes magazines from any sort of reality- what you think is the true voice of someone who reads the magazine in actual fact is someone pretending to be a teenager and pretending that they are someone in which to relate to. How can the magazines actually get away with this? And how, up until now, have I remained completely oblivious to this fact. All throughout my teens I have read and believed from various magazines that there are girls with the same problems and views as myself but in reality it was possibly all fantasy. How is this affecting the teens of today, is this fabrication of problems and embarrassing moments only serving to give teenagers new insecurities, making them think that every teen has them when in fact they are created by someone possibly twice their age?

It leads me to question whose voice and opinion it is that we are reading in these different magazines, and how is it possible to for a thirty year old woman (this image may be generalised but is also roughly the age of typical teenage magazine editor) to know what a 10, 14 or 19 year old girl wants to read. Are we all being persuaded by a group of people that they know what we want, and as long as they deliver it in friendly, readable information that makes it seem like someone of the same age has written it, we will believe it? Again it is the contradiction of fantasy v. reality. Magazines have to get the balance of this right in order for the readers to buy into the fantasies within the industry; realistically young girls do not have the disposable income to create the life that is constructed for them within magazines- but if we buy into this fantasy enough, will it become reality?