 A NY non-profit is banking on YouTube for young Votes By Anthony S. Calypso
Young people today who have embraced hip-hop as a culture might help to decide the outcome of the next presidential election.
When it became clear that both parties had presumptive nominees, the Hip-hop Summit Action Network (a New York based non-profit) launched Voteforit!08, a non-partisan online video campaign to help draw young Hip-hop fans of voting age into the voting booths. The public service announcement, which features Doug E. Fresh, George Lucas, and R&B chart-topper, Ciara, was uploaded onto YouTube in July.
Seven years ago, the Hip-hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) kicked off with a town hall type meeting with participation from entertainment and music industry leaders. Since then, the organization has been using Hip-hop culture as a bridge to connect youth to community-based initiatives.
“That meeting was so powerful,” recalls Valeshia Butterfield, HSAN’s executive director. “The first objective was to address the Rockefeller Drug Laws, but also [to] engage young adults in the civic process.” In 2003, HSAN began its first push towards youth voter registration. Through its work with other organizations, Butterfield maintains that HSAN has helped register approximately 1.8 million voters.
“Looking [at] this election cycle,” adds the North Carolina native, “it was important for us to have a heavy online component.” To launch the Voteforit!08 public service announcement, HSAN partnered with CPXample, the philanthropic division of CPX Interactive, a New York based online advertising company. Currently, according to YouTube, the public service announcement has been viewed over 1.3 million times.
In addition to YouTube, Time Warner Cable announced that it would distribute the public service announcement on several platforms, including channels with strong youth-oriented demographics. Web surfers can also click onto the HSAN.org website to register to vote.
The question still remains, will the million plus clicks onto the YouTube Voteforit08!PSA translate into actual votes? It’s hard to say. At the same time, it’s not too hard to imagine that young people under thirty like, even an MTA worker in New York City and a ranch hand in Montana have something in common when it comes to the politics in their respective playlists.
And according to civicyouth.org, an online link to the Tufts University based non-partisan Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, over 6.5 million voters under the age of thirty participated in the primaries and caucuses across the nation this year. Issues like the economy, the minimum wage, education, and domestic security are central to this young voting demographic, says Butterfield. It’s interesting to note that the R-word (“race”) isn’t part of Butterfield’s assessment; the issues young people speak to her about cut across racial barriers.
Professor Michael Dawson, the John D. MacArthur professor of political science at the University of Chicago, believes that the young, tech-savvy urban demographic could help to sway the upcoming election in critical states. Dawson foresees a racially fluid voting bloc buoyed by the influence of young, black, and brown Hip-hop artists crossing over into more diverse suburban areas made up of whites, Asians, and middle class voting age youth.
“We have to think about how large the urban demographic is in particular states,” says Dawson. “In states like Michigan, Ohio [and] Pennsylvania, the urban demographic is large enough to tilt the election, if voters come out in very large numbers. I think that what we’re seeing among young people is that they’re embracing technology. We’re going to see to what degree these technologies have paid off in mobilizing groups of voters. In the long run [it] speaks to the transformation of American politics.”
More about the Hip-hop Summit Action Network (click here).
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