The last 12 months contained no lack of major news events. Two especially historic events stand out: Edward Snowden’s release of information showing the NSA was collecting data far more broadly than previously imagined, and the completion of the first period of enrollment under President Obama’s new healthcare plan. Among the wonkish denizens of Washington, these events were political earthquakes. However, to the average young American, they had astonishingly little impact.
Each spring, the Harvard Public Opinion Project poll asks a series of “typology” questions, which go beyond any specific theme or news story to survey respondents’ beliefs about core political issues. This repeatability makes them a credible prism through which to view the impact of the news cycle on young Americans’ core beliefs.
For the two stories mentioned above, however, there was very little impact, if any. Since 2010 HPOP has been asking respondents to agree or disagree with the statement, “I am willing to give up some personal freedom and privacy for the sake of national security.” After a summer of soul-searching following NSA spying revelations, for most young Americans, strangely, the response was a shrug.
Support for the statement increased 4 percentage points to 30 percent, only slightly above the threshold for statistical significance. The percentage of respondents disagreeing with the statement stayed constant at 37 percent. Moreover, the increase in support is only continuing a previous trend. Levels of support in 2013 similarly showed a jump in support from 2012, and levels of opposition did not change significantly from 2012 to 2013. In a year when news stories about Snowden won Pulitzer prizes and inspired changes in legislation, it seems many young Americans simply didn’t care.
The key phrase is “most young Americans.” There was one subset whose reaction to this statement changed dramatically: those who self-identified as politically active. For them, only 24 percent were neutral on the “privacy versus security” question. This is not only a lower level than overall young Americans at 32 percent, but also represents a dramatic 17-point drop from spring 2013. These previously-undecided respondents largely moved into the “somewhat agree” and “strongly disagree” categories (italics added for emphasis). Each of these categories saw an 8-point increase to 28 and 24 percent respectively. The politically active behaved more in a way that would make sense in the context of the NSA data revelations. However, because they only represent 19 percent of all responses, overall change in views was unremarkable.
The next news story, Obamacare, has not emerged as dramatically, since it has been in the public debate for a few years. However, the completion of the first period of enrollment for healthcare offers a convenient point to reflect on how its progress has impacted young Americans.
Since 2010, HPOP has asked respondents to agree or disagree with the statement, “Basic health insurance is a right for all people, and if someone has no means of paying for it, the government should provide it.” However, responses are again unimpressive. Forty-two percent of respondents agreed, a figure that has not changed appreciably since 2010, when the Affordable Care Act was passed and signed into law. Again, this paints a picture of little reaction to changes in news cycles.
Similarly to the Snowden example, a small subset of the population did react. In this case, it was the Republicans, who represent 19 percent of overall respondents. For them, disagreement with the given statement in spring 2014 stood at 47 percent, far above Democrats at 12 percent, but a sizable 7-point drop from 2013. Interestingly, this drop reflects not a longer trend, but instead a return to levels of opposition present in 2012 and beyond. It is worth noting that it was in the summer of 2012 that the ACA was ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court, potentially leading to the spike in Republican opposition that is now abating.
Both of these examples tell a story of little change in long-term core beliefs in response to dramatic news events. On the one hand, this could indicate youth apathy, but on the other, it could reflect a tendency for beliefs about vital political issues to change slowly, rather than jerkily in the response to chance events. In any case, dramatic changes in views among small subsets—the politically active, or Republicans—shows that news events can have impacts on very specific groups of young Americans.
Anjali Fernandes, Ellen Robo, Meg Panetta, Rahul Dalal contributed to the reporting of this article