Harry Potter and the Millennials

The ‘Euphoria’ effect: A popular HBO show, Gen Z, and drug policy beliefs

“…More recently, a substantial body of work has emerged across several disciplines on the effects of entertainment media that is not overtly political, that is, that does not involve real-world politics. Research examining the political effects of nonpolitical entertainment media now includes works on the effects of the Harry Potter series (Gierzynski and Eddy 2013;Vezzali et al 2015;Mutz 2016), the effects of fictional narratives on the belief in a just world (Appel 2008;Gierzynski 2018), the way fictional framing of abortion in the movie The Cider House Rules affected opinions on abortion (Mulligan and Habel 2011), agenda setting and priming effects on issues of crime and healthcare from the television dramas Without a Trace and ER (Holbrook and Hill 2005), the impact of Law & Order on attitudes about criminal justice and the death penalty (Mutz and Nir 2010;Slater, Rounder, and Long 2006), the impact of science fiction on attitudes about autonomous military weapons (Young and Carpenter 2018), the impact of the authoritarian-dystopian genre on attitudes justifying the use of radical forms of political action (Jones and Paris 2018), the effect of reality shows on beliefs about economic mobility (Kim 2023), and the ability of popular films of V for Vendetta and 300 to activate authoritarian attitudes (Glas and Taylor 2018). And, as Furman and Musgrave (2017) showed, fiction, specifically Tom Clancy novels, can affect the foreign policy beliefs and actions of political elite as well.…”

“…The latter meant that political science scholars often dismiss(ed) the potential effects of political and politically relevant content of entertainment media because they mistakenly believe that people select their entertainment the same way they select their news—based on their awareness of the political content of the program. However, as scholars studying the political effects of entertainment media have argued (Delli Carpini 2019; Gierzynski 2018; Gierzynski and Eddy 2013; Holbert 2005; Mulligan and Habel 2013; Mutz and Nir 2010), people do not choose entertainment for the same reasons they chose news, leaving selective exposure theories incapable of fully explaining entertainment media choices. While the motivation for selecting news media in the current era of intense partisan polarization is driven largely by political considerations, the same is not true for most entertainment, especially fictional entertainment that has no content related to current political divisions.…”

“…Gen Zers are at a point in their political development when they are most open to acquiring new political perspectives—they are in their late adolescence and formative years (Dawson, Prewitt, and Dawson 1977; Jennings and Niemi 1974; Jennings, Stoker, and Bowers 2009). With timing similar to that of the Harry Potter series for Millennials (Gierzynski and Eddy 2013), in Euphoria , Gen Zers have a fictional world rife with politically relevant messages, including those we focus on here, at the moment when they are in the malleable stage of their political socialization.…”

Millennial Generation Environmental Law Compliance Analysis Through Clean Beach Activities

“…They tend to prioritize user-generated content, prefer smartphones over traditional television, have limited interest in conventional reading, and use technology to access information. Style and appearance hold significant importance for them, often appearing idealistic and unrealistic [6]. In Indonesia, millennials are classified as part of the youth category under Article 40 of the 2009 Youth Law, emphasizing their role as moral influencers and agents of change in national development [7].…”