Magazine Analysis

1.) My Magazine is Sport Illustrated, the issue published on Feb. 9th 2009 after the 43rd super bowl. The article I randomly selected my 100 words from was the main article about the Super Bowl. It had 5 sentences and 148 syllables, which calculates to the readability level of a 14 year old.

2.) The whole magazine had 70 total pages with 16 of them containing ads. The content to ads ratio comes out to 27:8. This content ratio is considerably high for a sports magazine, but it still has many ads. It shows that this magazine has multiple page articles that cut down on the space for ads. This particular issue may have been higher in content than others because its main article was the Super Bowl, which is kinda important in the sports world I'd say, meaning the article would be more detailed and longer.

3.) The other magazine at my table was a fishing magazine, with a readability of a 12 year old. It's content to ad ratio was 5:3 but with more ads than content. This comparison shows that most magazines that would be aimed at an older male audience, fishing and sports, are very low on the readability level. It shows that, when reading a magazine about a basic interest or hobby, males don't want to read anything that will challenge their brain. It shows that Sports Illustrated is a little more challenging because it has more content than a fishing magazine.

4.) The profile of a common Sports Illustrated reader would be a male, ranging from the age of a early teenager to a grown man, with grown men being the most common reader because they're the ones subscribing to it. The immediate interests of the consumer would be sports and subjects such as athlete interviews, game coverage, and behind the scene sports stories. The socioeconomic status would be pretty much anything, but most commonly middle class teenagers and their fathers. The values of the reader wouldn't be too deep, but they'd be reading this magazine for entertainment and inside knowledge. The reading level of most readers would be generally higher than the 14 year old that the Fry Graph suggests, but the older readers aren't going to turn away the magazine because it's content is so basic. The journalistic style is not so much journalism as it is a report on a game so the readability should not be too difficult.

Data Driven Essay

Sean Mathews

10/14/13

F Block

Data Essay

Is space travel worth the time and the money?

            “I always wanted to be an astronaut,” recalls Mansfield High School student Chris Cameron, “I got the idea from watching Star Wars when I was young”. Chris’s childhood dream is not an uncommon one when asking current high school and college students. The new millennium was supposed to be the beginning of the sci-fi era of flying cars, extensive space exploration and robots. Star Wars made space all too real, and Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles took place during the early 2000’s. Fast forward to 2013, none of this science fiction seems to be happening; which begs the question, is it just that, fiction? It just might be. With the 2011 closing of the NASA shuttle program, many saw space travel taking a step back. Now, with the current government shutdown, space travel is growing increasingly at risk. NASA is shut down along with the government. Its website is down and although the people already in space “are safe”, there are no foreseeable rockets being launched.  What does this mean? Is space traveling just a waste of time and money? How does the younger generation feel about their childhood dreams being shut down, once and for all? High school and college students gave their different opinions.

            Local high school and college students were asked if they; strongly agreed, agreed, disagreed, strongly disagreed or were indifferent to the statement, “Space travel is worth the time and money”.  Out of a pool of 22 students, 17 of them agreed with the statement. 8 of these 17 “strongly agreed” leaving 9 simply “agreeing”. Only 5 students disagreed with the statement and none of them voted “strongly disagree”. Perhaps the most alarming conclusion from the survey was that no student said they were indifferent.

            In a day and age where young adults are quick to say “who cares” the subject of space ignited fierce opinions within some of the 22 students in the survey. No student expressed indifference, but some students were adamant behind their feelings toward space travel. Most students who strongly agreed with space travel had in depth defenses on the matter. Boston University student John Snyder was most passionate in his response claiming, “I don’t care how we fund it, it just has to get done. I’d pay 50% income taxes if it all went to space travel”. However, he went on to say private space is superior to NASA, “because private space isn’t determined by a bunch of clueless old rich dudes”. Now Snyder brings up a whole different argument, which has to deal with the recent progress made by southern California companies, launching their first rockets into space. Others, such as Umass Dartmouth student Russell Orcutt shared Snyder’s opinion by saying space travel, “moves faster with private industries”. On the contrary, Norton High School student Nate Barrett countered with, “We already have a great program running”, in regards to NASA. Another college student, Connor F or the University of New Hampshire agreed with Nate, “I don’t think the private industry is well-equipped to handle such an endeavor”, but he also offered an alternative that suggested international help with the space program, “if several of the world’s superpowers were to combine funds and resources, things would move much quicker”.

            Out of all the different opinions thrown out on the subject matter, most of the students in favor of space travel expressed the need to find a planet to occupy once Earth is used up. This fear was common in about half of the students who advocated space travel. As Merrimack College student James Patten puts it, “as a species, we have a time limit on the planet we reside on”.  Norton High student Sam Carignan shared the same opinion and stated, “bottom line is, we need to invest in it (space travel) for our own survival”. Finally, A Brockton High School student, Tyler Bryan, had a darker view on things saying, “With the way we treat our planet, we have no choice but to explore other possible planets”.

            Others, however, were not concerned about when doomsday comes, but were simply intrigued by exploration as a science in itself.  Norton High school student Kylie Werner said, “Discovery is worth it” and her classmate Nicole Littlefield said, “who knows what we could find”, but only after admitting, “it’s really, really dangerous”. Similar to Patten’s opinion, regarding humans as a species with a duty, Assumption College student Matt Olbert was quick to state, “We are explorers, with nowhere to go but up”. There was certainly a sense of duty felt in some of the students in the survey.

            Only a small portion of the 22 students disagreed with space travel, but the opinions expressed by the 5 disagreeing students all seemed to concern the problems here on earth first. Norton High school student Cody Shannon was blunt in saying, “it’s just too much money”. Others, such as Levi Kahn, elaborated and said, “We have enough issues on earth to worry about”. The tendency of students against space travel is that they think the government is shut down and that at times, humans can’t even function properly on earth. Space should not be a priority. As Bridgewater State student Brian Farrell puts it, “Let’s explore our own oceans first”.

            Space is out there for humans to explore. Is now the time? For some, yes it is, more than ever. But for some, it’s just a waste, a hopeless endeavor and a distraction. However, among young adults and students, the common opinion is that yes, space is worth the time and the money put into it. Whether it may be for survival reasons or just for pure exploration, most students seem to think NASA and private industries must continue to receive funding. Some students don’t agree and see the government shut down as representative to our society, where we have too many problems to be in space. One thing is for sure though, students have an opinion on space travel and they all seem ready to defend their opinion to whoever asks.

           

           

           

           

            

Data Driven Research Question

I'm very interested in space travel, and with the 2012 closing of NASA's space shuttle program, along with the recent government shutdown basically guaranteeing the complete shutdown of NASA, I wonder: What do students think of space travel? Is is worth the money when poverty strikes much of the world? Is it worth closing down after we've gotten so far/already spent billions of dollars to get to space?