Dissertation Proposal

As I am nearing the end of my Second Year on my course, it was finally time to think about what I wanted to focus my research on for my Dissertation in my third and final year at BCU. I eventually chose a topic that I am very interested in, and also would be enjoyable to write so many words on! And here is the final proposal I submitted!





“To what extent are teenage magazines such as ‘Shout’ and ‘Bliss’ sexualising young girls and what issues does it raise?”


Introduction/Justification

My proposed dissertation research question is looking into the representations of young/teenage girls in popular teenage magazines. I have a keen interest in the way all women are represented through different genres of magazines, especially looking at the way that teenage magazines are portraying teenage girls. I also think it is important for these issues to be addressed in order for people to realise the true extent of how teenage magazines are over sexualising the image of young and teenage girls.  The module I have completed that is relevant to my study would be Journalism in Context and Issues and Representations. There are plenty of issues revolving around the way young and teenage girls are represented in consumer teenage magazines. There are many opinions surrounding the on-going, but relevant debate. The issues are evident when you look through any example of teenage magazines, looking at the articles they publish, the photographs of young girls dressed up in too much make up and high heels, with short and skimpy items of clothing. Also the adverts featured within the magazine, looking at the products they try to sell to these young innocent teenage readers. The over sexualising of young girls is an on-going issue that needs to be tackled throughout the media, as it’s an issue in journalism, television and film. I think it would be interesting to also look at what regulations are set in place, if there are, to protect young and teenage girls from the content of these magazines, as this hasn’t been drawn up on scholarly research before.

It is common in the teenage magazines genre that the young girls are represented as older than they actually are, making them seem more sexualised and also making them feel older, and also desirable to teenage males. Femininity is portrayed through the images, texts and adverts throughout these magazines. However, this wasn’t always the case, many years ago, teenage magazines like ‘Shout’ and ‘Bliss’ weren’t always presented in that way and represented teenage girls as what they were - young, teenage girls. The images, articles and adverts are now just a reflection of modern day society where teenage girls are growing up too quickly, and want to be seen as more mature than they are, and feel more grown up and be an adult. I feel it is important to look into the issues that these magazines raise and to assess whether or not the images of young and teenage girls are being over sexualised.

In this report, I aim to do a textual analysis on various issues of the magazines ‘Shout’ and ‘Bliss’, to analyse how the magazines over sexualise young and teenage girls, and to try and determine why they do this. The magazine industry often portrays ideologies of how they think females should be viewed in society, for example Women’s magazines and also “Lad-Mags”.

Theoretical Frameworks/Critical Survey of Secondary Sources


My proposed research question has three specific theoretical frameworks which will enable me to conduct an in-depth analysis, forming the basis of my research. I will need to explore the representations apparent in the teenage magazines which are my object of study. I feel that Angela McRobbie’s work is relevant to build upon regarding teenage girls’ magazines. She argues that magazines seek to “further consolidate and fix an otherwise more unstable sense of both self and gender”. She focuses on the idea that girls use these magazines as a form of escapism from the real world, defining and shaping a world that the reader wants to live in. The magazines become more of a friend for the teenagers, advising them on what to wear, how to wear their hair, how to act and how to control their love life. Flicking through the pages of these magazines, there is articles on celebrities, real-life, beauty, style, female problems and a lot of emphasis on how to attract boys, which McRobbie refers to as the ‘girls feminine sphere’ when she was analysing largely popular 1970s teenage magazine ‘Jackie’. Feminism in Journalism and representation of Women/Girls in magazines are largely studied topics of debates that have been around for years. I feel that McRobbie’s ideas of the role in which these magazines play in a girl’s development from a teenager to a woman will prove beneficial to me in my own analysis of the two proposed magazines I intend to analyse regarding the representation and over sexualising of young girls.

My second theoretical framework focuses on the over sexualising of young and teenage girls in the magazines. A notable theorist for this framework would be Mary Jane Kehily, in her article “More Sugar? Teenage Magazines, Gender Displays and Sexual Learning”.  She looks at the problems in the magazines help pages. She says that the idea of sharing their problems can be seen as fundamentally sexualized subjectivity. She thinks that reading these problem pages helps discussion and informal learning of sexual issues. These pages are over read by young and teenage girls, sometimes they are seen as a laugh, or something for them to relate to if they are troubled. But some read them with the aspiration of them wanting to go through these problems themselves in order for them to feel like a proper adult, rather than a young teenage girl. I aim to use Kehily’s work in order to analyse the ideas raised in ‘Shout’ and ‘Bliss’ and see what problems are raised in their magazines.

Angela McRobbie, again would be suitable to look at when she studied popular magazine ‘More!’. She said that it embraced and displayed an intensification of interest in sexuality. She notes that this sexual material is marked by features such as exaggeration, self-parody and irony which suggests new forms of sexual conduct for young women. She looks at how girls look at these articles in admiration for what they want to become and aspire to be. She feels that they offer an insight into the practices and behaviours which were points of concern for young women. I aim to use McRobbie in order to look at the articles featured in my object of study, to see how they reflect what McRobbie refers to in her theories.
I also think the theorist, Laura Mulvey would be interesting to look at. She devised the theory of “the male gaze”. In this theory she describes the idea of Women being an object for Men to look at. I can link this to my research into the over sexualising of young and teenage girls. The images of the girls, dressed up with plenty of make-up, will encourage the teenage readers to think this is what boys like to see, and will want to see. Therefore reflecting the idea of them being an object for their male peers to look at.

Lastly, my third framework would be looking at the issues that are raised. I mainly want to look at the issues raised from public opinion, where I aim to either interview, produce questionnaires or conduct a focus group. A good theorist I think to look at to help me throughout my research, would be the work of Stuart Hall. His encoding and decoding theory would be good to look at as to what issues the over sexualising these magazines caused. When I conduct my audience research, either through the methods I mentioned above, as to how the readers and my respondents respond to what is happening in the magazines. Whether they take a dominant response, where they fully understand what it going on within the text, a negotiated reading, where they partly understand what is being told to them in the text, but sometimes reject it and an oppositional response, where the reader completely rejects what is being told to them in the reading.

I would also like to look at the work of Blumler and Katz during my research. Their Uses and Gratifications theory would be good to use, to look at why the teenage and young girls read the magazines. They discuss why people use certain media, such as watch television, read a magazine or listen to a radio show. They say they do this for four different reasons. Firstly, information, finding out about what is happening in the world, and about relevant events. Secondly, personal identity, finding re-enforcement for own values, identifying with others in similar positions, or gaining an insight into their self. Thirdly, social interaction, identifying with others, having a substitute for real life companionship or helping carry out social roles. Lastly, entertainment, escaping problems in real life, relaxing, emotional release or sexual arousal. I can use this, as an idea into why the young and teenage readers read the magazines such as ‘Shout’ and ‘Bliss’ to determine if they use any of Blumler and Katz’s audience theory.

Primary Sources/Primary Research Methods


The primary sources I will conduct a detailed textual analysis on will be the two magazines I have referred to above, and proposed to analyse. I have decided to use ‘Shout’ and ‘Bliss’ as they are your typical and consumer teenage magazines. A lot of the typical teenage girls magazines have been discontinued, such as ‘Sugar’ ‘Teen Vogue’ and ‘CosmoGirl , whereas these two have continued and are still producing issues today. I plan to look at these two magazines, and analyse various publications of them, with a number of pages inside them where I think that there is an issue of over sexualising teenage girls present. I shall perform a textual analysis, analysing the articles, pictures, news, games and adverts that are featured inside the magazines.

I also plan to either, firstly, conduct interviews with people who have seen these magazines before, or even just show them various pages of these magazines, to provoke opinions and see what their own views are about what issues the magazines are raising, by asking a number of typical interview questions. Secondly, I would like to conduct questionnaires, that highlight the issues that I will raise in my dissertation regarding the over sexualising of teenage girls in these magazines, and get people to respond and answer in order to gain a range of answers and views regarding the matter. Lastly, I most want to form one or two focus groups, of mixed genders, and then show them a few examples of the magazines that I will analyse, and then attempt to get a conversation or debate about these issues, and see what people say, and how their opinions differ to the ones I will have raised in my dissertation. I would rather conduct a focus group over interviews and questionnaires, because I think they are allow people to be more open and express their opinions, and debate between everyone. I can also be involved if the conversation and debate gets out of hand or off track to where I need it to be. I would want my focus groups to be mixed gender, so that I would gain a range of opinions, because it would be interesting to see what the males would think of the issue of over sexualising young and teenage girls in magazines.



Bibliography


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