Abstract
Over the past two decades, there has been growing concern among researchers, clinicians, and policy makers regarding the sexualization of female adolescents in the media. Developmental psychologists and researchers argue that adolescents are particularly vulnerable to messages presented in the media, as these messages are internalized as real. These messages afflict long-term emotional and physical effects on adolescent girls. Through content analysis and extensive research, The American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force (2010) argued that the sexualization of adolescent girls and women directly effects the psychosocial development of young women, creating self-objectification, negative self-images, anxiety, shame, depression, eating disorders, and other psychosocial issue. The present study explores the content of Seventeen magazine in the year 2011 to determine if the featured articles have changed in response to previous studies that discuss the problematic nature of the sexualization of women in adolescent focused media and argues for an increase in feminist content within adolescent based media. Through an extensive literature review, I explore the impact and internalization of media's over-sexualization of women and adolescent girls, as well as how exposure to such message can lead to self-dissatisfaction among adolescent girls. This study uses a feminist textual analysis to examine all featured articles from 2011. Findings show a higher percentage of anti-feminist messages than feminist messages present within Seventeen magazine, with 60.5% of the total articles analyzed focusing on the importance of appearance. The overall impact of this study is significant because it addresses the current epidemic of the sexualization of women and how this phenomenon negatively affects adolescent girls. This study serves as an extension of the content analyses conducted by Peirce (1990) and Schlenker et al. (1998).
Advisor
Shannon Miller
Committee Member
Maria Bevacqua
Committee Member
Rosemary Krawzcyk
Date of Degree
2012
Language
english
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
Master of Arts (MA)
College
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Recommended Citation
Trimble, B. M. (2012). A Feminist Content Analysis of Seventeen Magazine [Master’s thesis, Minnesota State University, Mankato]. Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University, Mankato. https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/etds/131/
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