Essay Question task 4

magazines contain a hidden yet deeply manipulative intention. Those of a female target audience are especially popular as this is the conventional gender to be more concious on their physical appearance and take critisism to the heart. Although these are not my personal thoughts on gender related audience, this is what the producers have to assume as they need the majority to read and relate to the magazine. Many fashion magazines with a skinny model giving tips on how to look like her is just an example of how an audience can be lead by a single persons thoughts and looks. The intention of most magazines do intend to be harmless,  yet the actions taken because of the magazine can cause a devastating affect. 

Articles in particular that contain weight loss, how to get skinny and how to look your best all the time are one of the major problems that affect people all over the world. It can be dangerous to follow these diets and tips and tricks to get the 'perfect body' if they are not studied and thought out as they are unbalancing their diet. young people in particular are at risk as their bodies are changing and going through puberty; they need a healthy balanced diet. Many readers of these magazines have little knowledge that the pictures of models on the cover are highly edited and tampered with to make themselves look 'perfect.' The thigh gap is a popular look to have at the moment, many girls were starving themselves to make their legs skinny enough to have it. Is is issues like these that cause readers to put their health at risk to look like their favourite model. It is clear that the producers are responsible for including this manipulative information and need to think about the outcome before publishing.

The affect of these articles can have a socially damaging result; they can influence groups of people (young girls in particular) to dress certain ways or wear certain things, as they are growing up they want to be like adults by reading adult magazines and wearing adult clothes. This can socially damage children as they can go out wearing ill suited clothes to their particular age group. The readers of 'now' magazine for example are going through a point in their lives where they are most open to influence and inspiration due to the target audience. The magazine industry seize the opportunity to release articles about 'how to get a sexy body' and 'celebrity gossip,' this constant reading and researching on these categories can get quite addictive, especially for someone who is at their optimum point of learning and taking information in. One of the results of this can be a drop in school work, getting into trouble for wearing ill suited clothing, and not eating certain foods to get skinny like a model. It is clear that most magazines are using the dark technique of taking children's open minds and filing them with celebrity gossip and tips on how to look your best. they are not forced to include the articles but its what makes them sell, although it is partly the parents responsibility to make sure their child doesn't get roped into the damaging content. On the other hand, not everyone has parents and not everyone has parents who care about what they read.

to conclude, i think that magazines should reduce the amount of physical appearance related content but reduce it gradually so the target audience will follow. For example, the magazine has been feeding them information about how to look good all the time, so it should start to introduce articles about not caring so much on how you look or wearing clothes that suit different occasions. This could spread socially because if one popular child likes it and shows it to everyone else, all the other children are going to want to be like them, resulting in them telling their friends and so on. This will reduce the amount of criticism the magazines are getting for publishing so much unnecessary content.