Magazines Survey and Results

1. What is your gender?
10 males
13 females

2. What is your age?
17-33 years old

3. What is your marital status?
18 single
1 engaged
3 married
1 other

4. What is your ethnicity?
12 Hispanic
3 African American
2 White/ Caucasian
2 Asian
4 Other

5. Do you read magazines?
13 yes
10 no

If so, what magazines do you read most often?

Glamour
Arts Projects
Game informer
Playboy
FHM
Cosmopolitan
Men’s health
Nylon
Teen Vogue
Elle Girl
Time
Discover
Entertainment Weekly
Rolling Stone
Spin
Redbook
Seventeen
Sports illustrated
Vogue


6. Have you ever compared yourself physically to a model in a magazine?
12 Yes
11 No

7. Do you believe models in magazines can influence the way a person feels about them self?
12 yes
11 no


8. Does the media put pressure on males and females to look like the media images that they advertise?
17 yes
3 no
3 other

9. What do you believe the ideal woman looks like based on magazine advertisements?
thin, tall, good skin, big breasts and booty, fair skinned, and absurdly tall, toned, tan, gorgeous face Skinny, beautiful, pretty much FLAWLESS, Size 2, long healthy hair, no curves, fashionable, Caucasian, fit, flawless light skin, no wrinkles, rail thin pouty lips, big infant eyes.

10. What do you believe the ideal man looks like based on magazine advertisements?
muscular/fit, tall, handsome, ripped body, clean cut, fair skinned, beautiful smile, good looking, buff, dark, athletic build, tall, handsome, Caucasian, tan, muscular, and six-pack abs.

RESULTS:
In conclusion, there were 23 people surveyed in total. The majority of the people surveyed were females, single, and Hispanic. The majority of the respondents said that they did read magazines and more people said that they have indeed compared themselves physically to models in magazines. The same amount of respondents believed that models in magazines could influence the way a person feels about themselves. The majority of the respondents said that the media puts pressure on both males and females to look like the media images they advertise. When asked what the ideal woman looks like based on magazine advertisements, the majority of the respondents said that she was tall, skinny, gorgeous, and CAUCASIAN. When asked the same questions about the ideal male based on magazine advertisements the majority of the respondents said that he is tall, muscular, good looking, and CAUCASIAN but with a tan.
There were a few problems with this survey/study which were mainly the questions. Due to the fact that the survey website i used i was only allowed to asked 10 questions limiting the amount of information i could collect. For future studies more questions needed to be asked especially those related to race and sexuality represented in magazines.
For this survey I used non probability sampling, relying on available subjects. Do to the fact that the respondents did not represent the whole college student population, but only those who had a "facebook" or "myspace" we cannot conclude that these findings are what all college students believe.

-[Christina Lopez]