Fox News' "The Y Factor"

Last night Fox News had an hour-long special on the youth vote called "The Y Factor." I have to admit that when the introduction mentioned that Millennials could be the decisive factor in the presidential election and that there was a youth vote revolution I was impressed.

The feature started out by talking about some of the characteristics of the Millennial generation: that it is the most marketed-to generation in history, that authenticity and genuineness are valued, and that the generation has been shaped by seeing organizations and corporations essentially screw over their parents.

It also talked about what the first impression of US politics was for many Millennials. The first major political news story that many were aware of was the Lewinsky scandal and the first Presidential campaign that Millennials remember was Clinton vs. Dole in 1996.

As was expected, the feature spent a lot of time talking about our generation's use of the internet and affinity for user-generated content. Specifically, to many young voters, if it doesn't exist on the internet it might as well not exist. Because of all this, word-of-mouth influence is key.

An interesting point that was made is that the reason many older people remain skeptical about the political involvement of young people is that a lot of their involvement occurs over online mediums, and those mediums are not being monitored by older people.

Winograd and Hais, authors of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics, were interviewed in the piece and talked about some of the things they covered in the book, including that this will be a defining election in which this generation's attitudes will turn America's politics.

Another thing that was interesting was the comments made by young Republicans that were interviewed. They seemed disappointed with the Republican Party's youth outreach and admitted that their party tends to ignore young voters.

The segment ended with the following advice: Take a chance on the future of America. Respect the youth vote's intelligence. Old-school political consultants try to tell candidates not to pay attention to it, but whoever takes the chance on young voters may walk away very happy.

I've heard that there was also a segment on CNN about the youth vote but I missed it. If anyone saw it and has any thoughts please share them in the comments.