Today's 3 Must-Read Youth Stories

I'm about to get on a plane (again, sigh). Here are some must-read stories around the tubes today:

• Anya Kamenetz pulls together a lot of recent data about young voters and takes a stab at outlining a youth policy agenda.
• The New York Times looks at a PEW survey from December and wakes up to the fact that young people get their political news through social networks on the web - aka digital word-of-mouth:
  

  According to interviews and recent surveys, younger voters tend to be not just consumers of news and current events but conduits as well — sending out e-mailed links and videos to friends and their social networks. And in turn, they rely on friends and online connections for news to come to them. In essence, they are replacing the professional filter — reading The Washington Post, clicking on CNN.com — with a social one.

  ....

  In one sense, this social filter is simply a technological version of the oldest tool in politics: word of mouth. Jane Buckingham, the founder of the Intelligence Group, a market research company, said the “social media generation” was comfortable being in constant communication with others, so recommendations from friends or text messages from a campaign — information that is shared, but not sought — were perceived as natural.

• Davey D. posted an article suggesting that young black voters are bucking the generational trend and becoming more independent and less Democratic in their party loyalties. This seems to be caught up in the rather complex dynamics of the historical role of African Americans in supporting the Democratic Party, and current divisions between the hip hop generation and the civil rights generation.
• In other news, Chelsea Clinton plans on attending the Young Democrats of North Carolina State Convention, and Rock the Vote lets us know about a bill now before Congress which would allow all 17 year olds the right to vote in local, state, and presidential primaries if they turn 18 before the general election.
  
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