We read a study by the Plaza del Castillo Association of Media Users with the collaboration of the Consumer Service of the Government of Navarra that analyzes magazines for children and adolescents, its name is “Magazines for children and preteens. Critical analysis of 15 headers: contents and values ”.
This study, conducted last year, has analyzed magazines such as Art attack, Bratz, Learn and play with Pokemon, Cartoon Network, Fox Kids Magazine, The Lunnis, Very Interesting Junior or Megatrix among others.
It seems that the priority of lThe editorials of magazines aimed at this public do not value or respect the ethical and pedagogical responsibility they should show, between direct advertising and indirect advertising, publications that create confusion, presentation of commercial news, contests, etc., we find that between 30 and 60% of the contents are merely commercial and propitiatory to consumerism.
They also turn into very striking covers, with gifts, in most useless occasions, but that still motivate children more to want to buy. Another issue that takes value in the study is the way in which children are addressed, the language they adopt with the intention of becoming accomplices of the children, putting parents as “censors”, in addition to not involving them in the subject of the magazine, that is, not showing what the true role of parents is, they put us in the spotlight of jokes.
We thought it was a very interesting analysis that we recommend you read, especially if your children read a magazine. Fortunately, our children have never loved them, to spend some leisure time they prefer comics or stories.
Although many parents will think that although what they read in the magazine is not helpful, "at least they read something", they are not right, because if children read on their own will they will absorb more information than if they read by obligation , in this case, the magazines would achieve their purpose.
