Summary of Findings:
When looking at past issues of preteen-teen magazines including Teen Vogue, Cosmo Girl, and Seventeen, it can be concluded that the advertisements are swarming with inappropriate images. Ideas of nudity, sexual undertones, and a sexual portrayal of woman’s bodies are constantly reoccurring page after page. It is important to keep in mind that the average age demographic for these publications is 12-17 years old and 8 out of every 10 preteens and teenagers read magazines. (Magazine Publishers of America)
Summary of the Previous Studies:
“How Men’s Magazines Sexualized their Covers to Compete with Maxim,” by Jacueline Lambiase and Tom Reichert was used as a style basis for “Sex-As Seen Through the Eyes of the Teen.” This previous study looked at covers of men’s magazines including Details, Esquire, GQ, and Rolling Stone from January 1995-2000. These covered were looked at and compared to covers of Maxim over time. The variables used to determine the degree of sexuality seen in the covers was used as a guide to follow through with the content analysis used to determine the degree of sexuality seen in the advertisements looked at in the various teen magazines. Variables for the previous study included Pose, body view, dress, eye contact, facial expression, and posture. As a result, the study showed that women, more so than men, are sexually portrayed on the covers of the men’s magazines. (Reichert and Lambiase 73-83)
Literature Foundation:
The literature of the previous study was based on an older study conducted in 2001 by Brinkley and Fowler called “The Politics of Aesthetics: A comparison of Appearance- Driven Messages on Men’s and Women’s Magazine Covers.” This study reviewed covers of American women’s and men’s magazines from the 1990s for sexual dress and language. The study concluded that women are more commonly on covers than men, women are more sexually dressed then men, and the text messages on the covers of women’s magazines focused more on women’s self improvement then male magazines. (Reichert and Lambiase 72)
Corpus and Method:
Advertisements in magazines including Teen Vogue, Seventeen and Cosmo Girl were analyzed to complete the study. Variables including dress, posture and facial expression, and body view. Dress was measured for any degree of suggestive clothing, partially clad or full nudity. Posture and facial expression measured how inviting the model was or if they were in a position associated with a sexual behavior. (This was not limited to photos with two models. Single model or multi-model photos were included.) Finally, the body view variable included advertisements that focused on only particular body parts were being shown- mainly the sexual body parts or one’s bottom. Any advertisement that withheld these variables was tallied. It is important to keep in mind that although many advertisements were seen several times during research they were only counted once in the study. A total of nine magazines were used in the study- three of each magazine listed earlier.
Findings:
Out of all three magazines, the sexual focus model was a male three times in the advertisements. The rest of the ads contained one, two, or three females engaged in or dressed to exhibit sexual undertones. The three Teen Vogue magazines contained the most sexual undertones. Naked or partially clad women were seen in 22 of the magazine’s advertisements. A female model’s bottom or chest was the main focus of 10 of the advertisements. Models exhibiting a sexual or inviting posture or facial expression were seen in 15 of the magazine’s advertisements. Cosmo Girl and Seventeen magazines contained fewer sexual advertisements. Together, only 29 advisements had sexually dressed models, 9 showed the partial body images of a female’s bottom, and 22 advertisements included a sexual posture or inviting facial expression. Since several advertisements throughout the magazines were repeated, a total of 448 advertisements were considered over all. Of these 448 advertisements, 107 contained sexual images that are being seen by preteen and teen readership. Therefore, 341 advertisements over 9 magazines were pretty much clean.
Conclusion:
It is important to keep in mind that the overall age of readership for these magazines is between 12 and 17.(Magazine Publishers of America) It’s hard to imagine a 12 year old boy or girl taking in some of the sexually bases images that are seen in these publications. Samples of some of the intense ones are to follow this write up. It can be concluded that although the number of sexual advertisements is not outstanding, a little goes a long way. Despite the number of actual advertisements, preteens and teenagers are being exposed to the promiscuous sexual acts at young ages. The repercussions of these advertisements seem obvious. As more magazines for young people are looked out more and more sexually induced advertisements will inevitably be found. Young teens will continue to see the explicit images as long as they continue readership of magazines made for their age demographic.
Reference Page
"Market Profiles: Teen Market." 2004. Magazine Publishers of America. 1 Dec 2007
Reichert, Tom, and Jaqueline Lambiase. Sex in Consumer Culture. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates , 2006.
