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 * __ Representation of Adolescence in the media __**

 **For one example of** media that **represents adolescence, we looked at the Zoo Weekly magazine. With these images came some quite clear false messages about changing and beliefs during adolescence. Some of these messages told us about the appearance of woman and the mindset that comes with it. These include:** · Girls have to be skinny, young, busty and attractive to be happy and popular. · Braces are ugly and will scare people away from you. · Girls should be half-naked and posing to look attractive. · Belly-button rings and piercings make girls look cooler. · Tattoos are the thing that all the pretty and popular kids get. · Tight showing clothes should be worn to attract boys. · Plastic surgery is OK to make yourself look better. · Girls always fall for the body-building, bad guys. · Girls are for the pleasure and entertainment of boys. · Girls are slutty.

· Boys should all be muscular with six-packs and a tan. · Boys should be rebellious and tough. · Boys should have greasy, slicked-back hair.
 * There are also false messages conveyed about the appearance of boys in adolescence. These include: **


 * The Zoo magazine tells us a lot of false information about adolescence. Like that sex appeal is more important than personality and that to be noticed you have to be attractive. However, these magazines make their money on selling these images and messages to young adults. The images they produce are always computer modified to make the subject look perfect, when in actual fact they are sometimes just like the average person. This is one of the main ways that media misrepresents adolescence and identity, through revealing pictures of women and men, that give wrong impressions.

We family also looked at a common sitcom, involving teenage problems. We looked at the series 'Neighbours'. **

media type="youtube" key="uREe8__XVSI" width="425" height="350" This trailer gives us a clear message about teenage problems and what you can expect has a growing adolescent. It shows clips about a teenage girl and boy, who have had a baby at the age of 17 and are married by 18. The wife then dies in a car accident and the husband is left a single father, widowed husband and 18 year old son. This clip gives us the idea that all teenagers will have sex and get pregnant because that’s what the cool thing to do is. It shows us that it is OK to have a baby before your married and it says that you should just get married at 18 without even thinking about it. Not necessarily in this trailer, but in a lot of other media sources, it gives us ideas that all teenagers because quiet and individual during puberty. It says that they start to hate their parents and hate life altogether. This may be true is some cases but in most cases this is false. Media has a huge effect on the ideas and understanding of growing adolescence. It can make teenagers feel like they are nowhere near the standards of the rest of the adolescent population. 