The Language Lure and the Developmentally Appropriate Voice
The use of language,particularly the cultivation of an inclusive narrative voice,is a primary method employed by women's and girls'magazines to create a feminine space.Many girls'magazines begin with a letter from the editor,the intimate tone of which,writes Leman,“attempts to establish some kind of‘sisterly'relationship between magazine and reader.”Leman Joy,“The Advice of a Real Friend:Codes of Intimacy and Oppression in Women's Magazines,1937-1955,”In Women and Media,edited by,H.Baehr,p.66,New York:Pergamon,1979..YM's monthly letter from the editor is wrapped around candid snapshots of the editor herself,the magazine staff,and sometimes celebrities.Teen magazine's editorial letter is much less folksy and signed by“the Teen Crew,”while CosmoGirl usually features a close-up of editor Atoosa Rubenstein and invitations to contact her directly(via e-mail).According to Erikson,adolescent attachment to these glamorous,sisterly role models is not uncommon.In fact,the relationship encouraged between magazine and reader is developmentally significant.As adolescents look to their surroundings to mediate identity construction,their“willingness to put(their)trust in those peers and leading,or misleading,elders who will give imaginative,if not illusory,scope to(their)aspirations is only too obvious.”Erikson,Erik,Identity,Youth and Crisis,p.129,New York:Norton,1968..As teen magazines are peppered with images of physical perfection(or society's definition thereof),it would seem as if the first communication from this source,the editor's letter,would foster a reader's aspirations and serve to shape them through the magazine's contents.The editor's letter itself and the attention and importance given to this first and inviting communication mirrors a phenomenon observed by Erikson.The elaboration of the entrances to girls'play constructions symbolizes both the importance of the vagina as gateway and the symbolic importance of any entry to intimacy.The pseudopersonal note from the editor to the readers of the teen magazine is an embodiment to this attention to detail.The intimate,knowledgeable tone taken by the editor in the introduction is a careful seduction and celebration of the magazine's interior.This gentle welcome within the first pages of the teen magazine is clearly significant,both developmentally and symbolically.
This introductory letter from the editor serves both to mask the adult establishment influence on the magazines'publication and to encourage young readers'ownership of the text.Margaret Finders,in Just Girls:Hidden Literacies and Life in Junior High,has observed the effects of this construction:“While...adults produce these(teen)magazines,the girls perceived zines as exclusively their own...(They)never acknowledged any adult presence behind the youthful images.”Finders,Margaret J.,Just Girls:Hidden Literacies and Life in Junior High,p.57,New York:Teachers College Press,1997.Although the teen magazines'editors may indeed be adults,the portraits that accompany their editors'letters are,in Finders's words,“youthful.”CosmoGirl's Atoosa Rubenstein's recent photograph depicts the twenty-something editor in a tight,sleeveless T-shirt,with glowing skin and a confident smile;Rubenstein looks like the fantasy older sister.Moreover,Rubenstein's invitation to write to her“24/7”at her e-mail address increases this perception of intimacy.YM's opening statement from editor Christina Kelly is presented in a hand-written font,looks like a note that might be passed during a boring class,and features a snapshot of Kelly clipped to the text.Finders continues:“By concealing any adult presence,teen zines were embraced by early adolescent females as their own.”Finders,Margaret J.,Just Girls:Hidden Literacies and Life in Junior High,p59,New York:Teachers College Press,1997.The image of the teen magazine as a guiding publication edited by hip young women is cultivated in the editor's letter;the(presumably)suit-wearing,middle-aged business people who financially support the magazines'production and the advertising executives who influence the magazines'content are distinctly absent personalities from the literal text.
