Seventeen Magazine on Hooking their Readers

Conventions
For over 70 years, the Seventeen Magazine has been publishing articles about fashion, beauty, romance and dating, and life. Their magazine covers are distinguished with the italicized magazine name in lowercase font. As society has become fascinated with reality television and celebrity gossip, the teen magazine has evolved to appeal to this by the featuring of celebrities on the cover. The names of the celebrities, like Maddie Ziegler and Selena Gomez in the examples above, are directly beside the faces to create anchorage. This allow the reader to associate the name to the face, otherwise the simple image of the celebrity carries no meaning. The celebrity, usually a female image of pop culture or a famous boy seen as attractive to young girls, makes eye contact with the reader as a mode of address, conveying a playful expression that makes young girls want to be like them or be with them. The utilization of 'your' in the strap lines is a form of mode of address as it makes the reader feel as though the magazine is speaking directly to them, creating a sense of intimacy between reader and writer. The formation of intimacy gives the appearance of a formed relationship, increasing the likelihood the viewer will want to purchase and read the magazine. The selected colors of the cover coordinates with the outfit of the featured celebrity to establish cohesiveness and flow. The colors are purposely chosen to contrast with the background color and to stand out, like the use of pink text across a yellow background. The buzz words are in a different color than the rest of the cover lines to highlight their importance and draw in the reader's attention. Similarly, the cover lines and headlines include exclamation points to convey excitement and indicate that reading these articles are of great urgency.

Demographics
The magazine aims to appeal to teenagers between 12 and 16 years old, with the median age of readers being 16.4 years old.  Although their main target population is primarily teenage girls and young women, approximately 256,000 boys will read the published issues over a 30-day period following publication. The magazine generally reaches white middle-class American girls that are already employed, however 1 in 3 girls that read the magazine belong to a racial minority in the United States. 

Content
Seventeen magazine states that their mission is to inspire teen girls to become model workers and citizens. They accomplish this through a mix of celebrity lifestyle, fashion, beauty, romance, health, and advice about navigating life as a teenage girl. The magazine tries to add credibility to their content through using celebrity names and accounts. They understand that teenage girls value the opinions of their role models and are reassured in knowing that even celebrities face similar conflicts. The cover image of a celebrity helps to attract this target audience since it is a familiar face.