What is "GLÖD"?
The Swedish youth magazine GLÖD ("GLOW") is addressed to readers between 13 and 19. Today it has a circulation of 100.000. The aim of GLÖD is to reinforce young people’s self-esteem, their sense of identity, and their health. This involves supporting the young to make sexuality an integral part of their identity.
At GLÖD it is crucial to place matters of sexuality into a broad context, the context of everyday life. Evaluations show that GLÖD is known, read and enjoyed by a large proportion of the teenagers. They also show that we DO reach young people in less privileged areas, for instance immigrant boys.
GLÖD is distributed free of charge, ordered by schools and youth health clinics. It is also available at youth centres, treatment homes and libraries all over the country. Twenty thousand copies of the magazine are handed out by a group of 600 teenagers, composing a network around the magazine. 
GLÖD serves as a complement to the formal sex education classes provided by the schools. That does not mean that GLÖD only writes about sexuality and relations.
Methods
To attract readers, we need to vary the content and write about what THEY want to read about. This demands working methods that involve the readers in the production process. GLÖD constantly talk to teenagers to gain inspiration and collect ideas and material for upcoming issues.
The reference group
During the production process, we go through the material with a special reference group of five teenagers. They read all the texts and tell us what they think before the articles are published. They often object to words/ phrases they find old-fashioned. Slang and informal expressions have to be up to date to be credible.
They point out where we have been unclear or have painted a false picture of something. They also participate at the layout stage. When an issue has reached its readers we discuss the content both with the reference group and with other young people.
Those participatory methods give the paper credibility; one of the main things we really hope to achieve is that the readers trust GLÖD. In this process, we try to incorporate young people with different backgrounds. Boys and girls, different cultural backgrounds, sub cultural groups, geographic areas etc.
A positive and supportive tone
One basic idea is that the words and pictures should focus on the strength and potential that can be found in every young person, no matter how confused his or her life may seem. This attitude is especially important where non-privileged teenagers are concerned. That does not mean that we trivialise. GLÖD is full of strong feelings, like love and hate, and it addresses psychologically sensitive topics.
Sense of coherence
A sense of coherence is essential in what we communicate to our readers.
The coherence GLÖD wants to provide is respect for the WHOLE INDIVIDUAL, and the support of what is good and strong. The media often focus on warning signs and dangers like anorexia, violence, anabolic steroids. Young people feel insulted and unjustly accused when they are lumped together as a group and criticised in the media.
When GLÖD writes about serious and difficult matters, it does so from the young person’s point of view and from several different aspects. One way is to let young people from different backgrounds meet in the magazine. It could be a meeting between teenagers with completely different tastes in music – death metal and hip-hop – or young people with roots in different countries meeting to discuss attitudes towards love and sex. Another thing that can contribute to a sense of coherence is to discuss social issues from the teenager’s viewpoint.
Continuity
A magazine that comes out at regular intervals provides an opportunity to speak directly to young people via a channel they trust. Some regular pages are the Question and answer Box and a column where the readers can publish their own poems.
Special target groups
GLÖD is for all young people, but aims especially to attract readers among those who are less privileged in society. We want the magazine to be read even by young people who don’t usually read very much.
GLÖD wants to give visibility to young people from different areas and with different backgrounds, and give them an opportunity to express themselves in a way other young people can relate to. The readers should be able to look inside other teenagers’ everyday lives and realise that their experiences and circumstances are shared by many others.
If GLÖD interviews a young person from a family of immigrants living in one of the poorer suburbs, we don’t ask how it feels to be an immigrant or what it’s like to live in a run-down neighbourhood. We ask him or her to describe how it feels to be hopelessly in love or to break up from a relationship. That way, almost all GLÖD’s readers, regardless of their background, can identify with the boy or girl in the interview.
At GLÖD, we hope these attitudes and working methods, based on mutual respect, will help build bridges between teenagers from different social and cultural backgrounds.