Language in Use: The Case of Youth Entertainment Magazines is a collection of seven studies by several Romanian, Bulgarian and Slovenian linguists on the discourse of entertainment magazines targeted at young readers, and published in their respective countries.
The starting point of the seven studies was the idea that the discourse specific to the variety of printed media products selected for analysis was characterized by distinctive features and that these features might exert a manipulative influence on the linguistic and social behavior of the targeted readership. The scholars’ initial aim was to validate these hypotheses and to confirm their soundness across countries. However, they hope that, besides suggesting new perspectives on the discourse chosen for analysis and thus filling a gap in the eastern European literature in the field, they may also develop (admittedly, within limits) media literacy in young readers, by equipping them with skills that could transform them from passive media consumers into responsible readers, able to make informed decisions and thus be less vulnerable to the strategies of manipulation employed by those who control information.
