Mercury News interview:
Next generation is
reshaping politics
through social networks
By
Mary Anne Ostrom
They are friends, fellow
Michigan Democrats and,
after moving to Los
Angeles, die-hard Dodger
fans.
Now Michael Hais and
Morley Winograd have
just published a book
about the ways that the
melding of technology
and politics in 2008 has
given young people born
in the 1980s and 1990s -
Millennials - a new
power to shape American
politics with social
networks.
Their book, "Millennial
Makeover, MySpace,
YouTube & the Future of
American Politics," was
published by Rutgers
University Press earlier
this month. Mercury News
political writer Mary
Anne Ostrom sat down
with the authors last
week in San Francisco to
talk about their work.
The following is an
edited transcript of
that interview.
Q Who are Millennials?
A Millennials are born
from 1982 to 2003. They
are the largest
generation in U.S.
history; they are also
the most ethnically
diverse generation.
Forty percent are
African-American, Asian,
Latino or mixed race.
One in five has an
immigrant parent.
There's a million more
Millennials than
boomers. Though no more
Millennials are being
born, some are
immigrating, so the
generation keeps getting
bigger. Boomers are
leaving us and
Millennials are still
gaining in size.
Q Why should we care
about them, beyond the
fact that there are
nearly 100 million
Millennials, about a
third of the U.S.
population?
A Every 40 years, a
large, dynamic
generation realigns or
makes over the political
system, and we
Advertisement believe
that the Millennials are
the generation that will
lead the coming
realignment. The last
realignment was brought
into existence by
another large, dynamic
generation but a very
different type of
generation, the baby
boomer generation. There
are twice as many
Millennials as there are
Gen-Xers, but there's a
million more Millennials
than boomers.
Q You write that they
are a more tolerant,
diverse and progressive
group. Some have
described them as
self-indulged,
techno-crazed kids who
have yet to face a real
crisis. They don't know
how it feels when their
job gets sent overseas
or they get a bad
housing loan.
A Looking at their
political party
identification, at this
point, they identify as
Democrats by slightly
less than 2 to 1. They
are the first generation
in at least three or
four in which there are
more self-identified
liberals than
conservatives. This type
of generation, which we
refer to as a civic
generation, are
historically more
tolerant, liberal.
If you refer to the
possibility that, well,
this is kind of their
youthful enthusiasm,
they haven't gone
through the hard knocks
of life, in fact most
research suggests that
people develop ideas
when they are young and
they tend to stick with
them pretty much all the
way through their lives.
Q What makes them
progressive?
A It's not so much a
backlash against the
current administration
of the last decade or
so, it's actually the
way they were raised.
The Millennial
Generation was raised
the way Bill Cosby
taught people to raise
kids as the Huxtables.
They were always told
they were special. They
were always encouraged
to try their very best.
There wasn't a lot of
win-or-lose competition,
it was a more "Barney"
environment, where
everybody's good and
everybody wins.
Boomers grew up very,
very committed to moral
causes. But they are
also almost always
divided on which values
matter. What it has been
is a generation very,
very committed to its
cause. So committed they
want to enact it in the
political environment
and, unfortunately,
because they are equally
committed, you get
political gridlock.
(Millennials don't) care
about moral issues. They
are interested in
solving problems. They
are doers and builders;
(boomers) are dreamers
and ideologues.
Q Winograd advised the
Clinton administration
on the politics of the
wired worker in the late
1990s. What's more
notable, the Millennial
Generation's outlook or
the arrival of new
technologies?
A We've been debating
which was right for many
years. (Laughs.) What
happens is, the
attitudes and beliefs
that each generation has
determines how they use
the technology, not the
other way around. Here
come social networks,
which could be a very
libertarian kind of
technology - the
Internet was always
thought to be - so we'll
let anybody do whatever
they want.
Except the Millennials
come along and say let's
get all our friends
together and have 1,000
of them on Facebook and
that's how I'll use this
technology because I
want to create a
collective purpose. The
technology always
arrives in time for one
of these generations to
use it to communicate
and organize politically
as well as socially. We
give credit to the tools
to enable it to be so
effective, but we give
credit to their parents
for why they want to do
it.
Q You say
interconnectivity is
driving the way this
generation makes all
sorts of decisions,
whether buying an MP3
player or choosing a
presidential candidate.
How has the generation
impacted politics?
A It's all the same,
consensus: Let's figure
it out together. And, by
the way, it doesn't pay
attention to elites or
experts on what ought to
be done. In the book we
describe the demise of
the music industry that
feels the impact of
peer-to-peer and then we
describe that same
impact on how political
campaigns are run.
The most dramatic thing
is how social networks
take the television
media advisers out of
the center of a
campaign, put the power
and decision-making at
the edges, or net-roots,
of the organization.
We're watching Barack
Obama really do it with
the Facebook platform,
which wasn't even
available in '04. (In
contrast, the Clinton
campaign), the very
best, top-down,
media-dominated,
television-message-controlled
that anybody has ever
seen, is losing. That's
what we see as the
dramatic event.
Q What hurdles do
Republicans face wooing
Millennials?
A Republicans know
television so well and
direct mail and talk
radio. Yet it's very
hard for them to say,
let's bet on the social
networks and get
everybody organized. We
quote in the book a
whole big debate that
erupted after the first
campaign filings came in
and the potential of
Internet fundraising.
They just couldn't
decide if it was
something that was a
long-term trend. They're
caught flat-footed.
Q Will youth voter
turnout in November be a
real test of whether
this generation is
politically engaged and
able to organize with
these new technology
tools?
A An initial important
test is who wins the
Democratic nomination.
It does appear Obama has
a leg up in that regard,
given that his support
is driven very strongly
by Millennials, who are
more active than any
young generation
probably since the GI
generation of the 1930s.
They are united and not
divided along lines of
gender, along lines of
race, like older
generations.
At this point, about
one-third of this
generation will be
eligible to vote in
November. By 2012, it's
an irresistible wave.
Actually, we call it a
tsunami. Our research on
these realigning
eruptions indicates that
usually there is a
sudden and dramatic
change and then that
change is ratified in
subsequent elections. We
believe '08 will be the
change and it will be
ratified in 2012.
FIVE THINGS TO KNOW
ABOUT MICHAEL HAIS AND
MORLEY WINOGRAD
1. For six years, they
have shared Los Angeles
Dodgers season tickets.
2. Winograd led the
Michigan Democratic
Party from 1973 to 1979.
3. Hais worked 22 years
for the research firm
Frank N. Magid
Associates, helping TV
news and entertainment
producers increase
audience ratings.
4. Winograd has five
"Millennial"
grandchildren.
5. The two are part of
the network of the New
Politics Institute and
New Democratic Network,
think tanks that are
studying the politics of
the Millennial
Generation.
