Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation, a nonfiction text written by Eric Schlosser, insightfully examines the industry of fast food.  Unlike many nonfiction works presently, the book is not one dimensional and refers to the entire industry, not just its negative effects.  It actually focuses widely on the business concept of the fast food industry (the second part of the novel is set aside for actually describing the food making process).  This arrangement allows the reader to gain an understanding and appreciation for an industry that is often blamed for the corruption of America.  In order to do this, one of the chapters compares Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's to Walt Disney.  They both came from similar backgrounds and used similar marketing strategies to improve their business empires.  Using this extended comparison allows the reader to see how the fast food industry was created to maximize profits.  Also, the author decides to set the story in a city dependent on fast food restaurants for an early chapter.  This choice allows the most extreme effects of the business on everyday life.  Designed to show all sides of the fast food industry Fast Food Nation is able to demonstrate the drastic impact that fast food had on American culture, which in a way helps justify it to the reader.  Its assembly line-like processes were appropriate and fitting for the time period in which these empires began.  The choice to not just bash the industry for its lack of health allows the reader to become attached to the book and allows them to be more open to the author's ideas.  It will be interesting to see if this state of mind changes as the second part of the book gets in to the disgusting practices of the industry.

Airline Merger

Many people have become worried over the recent airline merger between US Airways and American Airlines, thinking that the result will drive airline fares up and cause one airline to hold an extremely large share of the market.  This article, written by a business professor at the University of California - Berkeley, aims to persuade the audience that the merger will actually benefit both the airline business and the normal airline consumer.  The article states that competition will actually increase because the other two major airline corporations (Southwest, Delta) will be more motivated to open up more hubs that will compete with the additional routes offered by American.  Also, the article notes that this will be the last major merger in the airline industry, which has been condensing rapidly due to deregulation. Overall, the merger is expected to both drive stock prices up for all airlines and lower airline tickets across the board.

In order to get the audience's attention on the topic of the article, the author starts out with a series of rhetorical questions appealing to the general consumer.  These questions are specifically designed to mirror the thoughts of Americans on the issue, and the readers then infer that these questions will be answered in the following paragraphs.  Following these questions, the author isolates one abrupt sentence, which serves as the article's claim.  Isolating this has the effect of explicitly stating the contents of the article in a way that cannot be mistaken.  It also answers the questions posed immediately, so at the very least readers are aware of the effect of the merger, at least in this professor's opinion.  The author then incorporates statistics that show the minimal effect on the change in competition and to show how the consumer will actually benefit from the merger.  This logical format calmly and effectively persuades the reader of the positive effect of the merger.

Link to Article

Association Between Income and Insurance Rates

The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) recently performed an experiment on the five largest car insurance companies on the market, trying to figure out whether or not there is a correlation between income and the premium offered by a car insurance company.  The CFA created to fictional car owners with the same background except for accident history, education level, and employment.  One person was created to be a wealthy executive with a master's degree and the other was a high school receptionist with only a high school education level.  The executive had been credited with causing an accident and the receptionist was accident free.  However, 66% of the time, a lower premium was granted to the accident-prone executive over the safe-driving high school receptionist.  When TIME: Business and Money published this report about a week ago, their intent was to prove to the reader the bias and "corruption" in the car insurance industry.  Theoretically, the person with a lower chance of getting in an accident should get the lower premium.  However, this is not the case.  This article may have also been written to enrage the general population and to call for a change.  The author hints at state legislature frequently throughout the article and implies that it is just for a state or county to pass laws prohibiting the use of non-driving factors in granting car insurance premiums.  The middle and lower classes were probably targeted in this report, as they would be the ones that are most frustrated with the results of the experiment.  In order to prove his point, the author cleverly includes a picture of a crashed luxury vehicle at the top of the article.  This emphasizes the point made in the article that wealthier people are not necessarily the safest drivers.  In addition, the author uses hard data and statistics to back up his assertions on car insurance companies.  Quotations are only included for the side that is doing the experiment, not for the car companies themselves.  This has the effect of only showing the side that the author wants to, thus biasing the reader towards his point of view.

Link to Article

History of the Super Bowl: By the Numbers

America's greatest spectacle, the Super Bowl, has changed drastically throughout the years as American culture has progressed.  This series of graphs shows some of the interesting and important changes of the game throughout time.  First, the graphs focus on the game itself: winning margin, passing yards vs rushing yards, and interconference games won during the regular season. The trends show that passing yards have made a surge to the top since the Super Bowl has started; at first, yards on the ground were higher than yards through the air.  Also, the games have been getting closer over the years, which may partially explain the next trend.  As time has progressed, an advertisement spot on Super Bowl Sunday has increased by 1216%, readjusting for inflation.  Likewise, the average ticket price has grown 1212% since Super Bowl I in 1967.  The last trend pointed out by the CNN study is that offensive lineman weigh 27% heavier than in 1967, which is also a 20% higher growth than that of skill players.  With the Super Bowl coming up tomorrow, these fun statistics are representative of the current trends in media.

These statistics are intended to entertain people that are already familiar with the premise of the Super Bowl, which still leaves the target audience open to many Americans.  In order to do this, the graphs are not explained in words but are simplified visually in order to offer a quick glance at the trends.  However, the colors used for the graph on a white background are yellow and orange, which makes them difficult to read.  The color scheme also changes from blue and red to the yellow and orange, which seems unnecessary.  The graphs are also crammed together, making it difficult to see when one graph starts and the next one begins.  All of this organizational clutter makes the graphs ineffective.  If they are supposed to offer a quick and interesting look at the Super Bowl, they should be designed in a way that enables the reader to understand the main ideas easily.

Link to Graphs