Abstract:
The current generation of youth, sometimes called Millennials, has had a
reputation of political apathy. However, in recent years, youth voter numbers have gone
up. If an individual or organization wanted to continue this trend of increased youth
political participation, I wanted to explore the areas that could support or even motivate
youth to vote. My paper focuses on the political socialization process, detailing how K-
12 education, the internet, and soft news influence youth. I first looked at historical
trends, comparing the Millennials, to the 1800s and the 1960s. In addition, I looked at
how the lifecycle effect may also account for low youth turnout. In education, I
concluded that rote memorization doesn’t work and explored alternative methods to
teaching high school civics. Political information available on the internet has exploded
in recent years, with politicians using Facebook and Youtube to spread their messages.
Finally, youth have turned away from standard evening news programs towards soft news
such as the Daily Show and Saturday Night Live.
