Activities Ideas

Magazine Ad Survey

Time:  30-60 minutes, depending on length of discussion

Materials: Discarded magazines (enough for each group or each individual), blank paper, pencils.  Optional: poster board, glue, and markers.

Note: When working with students, you may want to survey the magazines ahead of time and remove any overly suggestive or sexual ads or pictures to avoid disruptions that detract from the purpose of the activity.

Objective: For students to become more sensitive to the images and implications of ads that are targeted to them and to develop a habit of thinking critically about the messages and intentions of the ads.

Hands On: Have students work individually or in small teams (no more than 3) and give each a magazine.  Have them survey and collect data about the ads they find.  The type of information they are seeking should be predetermined by the group.  in your initial discussion determine such questions as "What kinds of ads are we counting?" (alcohol? tobacco? beauty products? sports products? all kinds?), "What do we want to know about them?" (Do they feature celebrities? Do the models appear young? What race/ethnicity are the models?  What images or activities are the products tied to?), "How will we tell the group about what we have learned?" (One option is to make a collage of pictures and words on poster board.  Another option is to compile the data from all groups on a large sheet of poster board to compare all the magazines.)

Allow the students about 15 minutes to survey the ads.  Keep a close eye and do not allow them to get sidetracked into other discussions generated by ads or articles.  Each small group should have a spokesperson ready to bring the information to the larger group.

Follow Up: You may want to take this one step further and have the groups do an ad campaign for some pro-health message (such as smoking prevention), using the same advertising techniques that they discovered in their survey.