Editor-in-Chief: Ann Shoket
Publisher: Hearst Magazines
Copyright: 2011
ISSN: 0037301X
Description
Seventeen is a magazine aimed a 12 to 24-year-old girls and women. The focus is on fashion and beauty, but there are also features on love and dating and social issues. Each month the cover features a female celebrity and the corresponding article contains a photoshoot, information on her life, and her “tips” on fashion, beauty, love, etc.
The November 2011 issues features Heather Morris, an actor on the hit show Glee. Other items include:
- Thanksgiving dinner tips—foods to eat and avoid
- Thanksgiving weekend activity ideas
- The “Best Boyfriends in America” and their girlfriends on their relationships
- Missing girls and their stories
- “Body Peace Awards”
- Girls fight back against sexism and rumors
- “Sneaky Ways to Turn Him Down (the Nice Way)!”
Another major feature of Seventeen is advertising. Of the 150 pages of this issue, 55 contain only advertisements. Sometimes it was hard to tell what was an ad and what was “content.”
Critical EvaluationMy initial reaction to Seventeen—which I hadn’t read in many years, and never regularly—was horror. There are red flags all over the cover: “Perfect Legs, Butt & Abs: No Workout Required!” “Look Cute and Confident: Hair & Makeup Ideas That Make You Instantly Prettier!” In many ways, horror is warranted. Advertising dominates. Not only are over a third of the pages of the magazine devoted exclusively to advertising, many of the features are indistinguishable from ads. They promote certain items of clothing and makeup and list purchasing information. The phrase “your routine” is used frequently. In order to follow the suggestions given, girls would have to spend hours on their personal hygiene and beauty routines. Seventeen seems to assume its readers already do so. There is a fair amount of emphasis on romance and what boys think of girls. Improving one's appearance, though, is the magazine’s overwhelming focus. What’s more, the “articles” are only a couple of pages long. The rest of the copy consists of blurbs of only a few words.
But there are mitigating factors. The piece on perfect body parts was not about a scary diet pill, but was a step-by-step guide to an aerobic dance routine. No workout is required only in the sense that this is supposed to be a fun alternative to a normal workout. There are several features on positive body image (though much of the rest of the magazine’s content works against positive body image, in my opinion). The models and profile subjects are racially diverse. A couple of the articles tried to address social issues. The one about fighting back against “nasty rumors” was reasonably successful (though very short), but the one on missing girls and women was frankly bizarre. As far as I can tell, it used safety tips—of which there were about four—as an excuse to print lurid stories about tragic cases.
Did I mention that the featured clothes are almost without exception hideously ugly?
Why is this title included?
This very popular teen magazine appeals to a broad age range.