The youth vote: Hip or Hype?

Seven thousand college students across Indiana are registered to vote for the first time this election, and 2,500 of them are from IU, according to The Associated Press, which reports that college students are traditionally the least likely to vote. \nThis phenomenon could be explained by the overload of advertising designed to motivate this age group. From television to music to Web sites, the campaign to move the student vote is almost as fervent as the campaigns devoted to attracting students to one party or another. \n"Join Christina Aguilera in the largest online voter registration drive ever," advertises www.declareyourself.com, a Web site that provides voter registration, candidate information and a history of the Declaration of Independence. The Web site also attempts to make voting entertaining by offering a host of public service announcements by popular directors Kevin Smith and David LaChapelle, as well as spoken-word poets who toured college campuses this summer. The site set a goal to register one million people; it has now surpassed that goal. \n"It's interesting because 18- to 24-year-old advertising is more like they don't want to be marketed to, they don't want to feel like they're being sold," said Jonlee Andrews, an associate professor of marketing at IU. "It's a little more irreverent."\nKasia Derbiszewski said she has seen a lot of T-shirts advertising voting. \n"My favorite T-shirt is the one that says 'I want you ... to vote,'" she said. "So it has that double meaning." \nThe bumper stickers and T-shirts might be effective forms of getting out the need to vote because they provide name recognition, Andrews said. \nThe Declare Yourself Web site sells "vote" shirts from designers such as Isaac Mizrahi, Richard Tyler and Todd Oldham for $20 a pop. Even rapper Sean "P. Diddy" Combs got in on the trend, selling his "Vote or Die" T-shirts for $30 each at www.citizenchange.com. He sold out of all but the men's XL and XXL by about a month prior to the Election Day. They were all made by Sean John, P. Diddy's clothing label.\nIn fact, P. Diddy is one of the most vocal celebrities encouraging students to vote, completing his tour of college campuses, which ended Oct. 28 in Miami, Fla. His campaign goal is "to make voting hot, sexy and relevant to a generation that hasn't reached full participation in the political process," according to the site. \nSenior Matthew Laird doesn't believe advertising voting as "hot" or "sexy" is necessarily the answer to a lasting increase in voter turnout. Instead, he said, advertisers need to focus on the root problem behind the low turnout in this demographic, which he said is not young adults believing it's not cool. \n"Politicians don't address the issues of the youth vote, since that demographic doesn't vote in as large numbers as older demographics," he said. "And since candidates don't talk about what matters to (youth), 18- to 30-year-olds are even less likely to vote. They feel like their voice doesn't matter, and to a significant degree, they're right."\nSenior Carrie Vrabel agrees: she didn't vote in the last election because she felt as though Indiana was a Republican state and her vote would make no difference. \n"The whole Electoral College thing is what really stopped me last time," she said. "But after the last election, with all the problems in Florida, I thought that maybe there would be questions this election and people would start looking more at the popular vote." \nShe registered for this election, though she said that it was not motivated by the recent rise in advertising.\n"I went to the courthouse with my mom, and we registered together," Vrabel said.\nEven P. Diddy is commenting on the extent to which politicians have ignored the 18- to 30-year-old demographic. \n"Instead of throwing a football around, (Kerry) should take his butt into the inner city and see how a young kid is going to school," said P. Diddy in an AP story. "And you don't see Bush taking the time to go to BET or MTV." \nPoliticians seem to be aware of the trend, however, and have begun to modify their campaigns. John Kerry interviewed twice with MTV; John Edwards once; and while Bush declined an interview, he sent Ken Mehlman, his campaign director. MTV made all the interviews available at https://MTV.com/chooseorlose. \nStill, Laird believes the media attention is misdirected. He cites especially Nickelodeon airing commercials that tell children to tell their adults to vote. "Spewing propaganda about voting being 'cool' in no way addresses the underlying issues which have led to the decline in voting percentages. The only way to solve this problem is systematic reform."\n-- Contact staff writer Janice Neaveill at jneaveil@indiana.edu.