Teen Vogue | Media Diary 3

The text I have chosen is an issue of Teen Vogue featuring Karlie Kloss in 2010. I think the target audience for this magazine, is clearly teenagers due to the title, and I also think it is aimed at girls because of the use of feminine words like 'pretty' and 'beauty' and using a supermodel to promote their product, which is a profession usually associated with girls and their 'goals.'  Relating to the 4C's, I think it would be aimed towards The Aspirer and Egoists, due to the fact that it says 'Get pretty now' and promotes 'beauty' so they would find it appealing because its giving them ways they can make themselves more attractive.

Preferred Reading
The editor of this front cover promotes ideologies that looks are important, due to the use of a famous supermodel, and using phrases such as 'Get Pretty Now.' The fact that an imperative is used gives us the impression that looking good has to come before anything else. The encoders aim is to probably want young girls to feel happy about the way they look, by suggesting certain ways to look like popular celebrities and models . Similar to this cover of Teen Vogue, many others seem to also celebrate appearances and a trend seems to be putting pressure on girls to make them look a certain way. On another issue, it tells us to 'look like a model' in bold writing. Not only does this again promote the ideology that looks are important but it suggests to the audience that celebrities are better / more powerful than us. The underlying message in Teen Vogue in general seems to be that keeping up with the mainstream fashion and trends is important which possible promotes fitting in with the crowd rather than being yourself.

Oppositional Reading
Some people my understand what the text is trying to say but disagree with the messages and ideologies promoted. For example, people may understand that the magazines aim is to boost girls' confidence and make them feel as though they fit in with what's normal however they will not agree with the way it is being promote to young girls, due to the pressure and sometimes inappropriate wording used. These people may have ideologies where they believe that everyone is unique and everyone should be themselves however many covers of Teen Vogue contradict this ideology by telling girls things like 'look like a model' and '263 ways to brighten your look' as it suggests that maybe you're not good enough .

Negotiated reading
Someone who takes a negotiated reading to Teen Vogue covers could agree with ideologies that looks are important and fitting in with society will make you more 'popular' however they could disagree with the ideologies that looks is the only thing that's important, because we rarely see anything other than looks and reputation being promoted. For example, these people might want to see ideologies like mental health or intelligence being promoted rather than your appearance all the time.