Although young Americans are normally less engaged in politics than their elders (Converse with Niemi 1971), today's youth are more withdrawn from public affairs than earlier birth cohorts were when they were young (Bennett 1997). One indicator of youthful disregard for politics is their avoidance of exposure to mass media coverage of public affairs (Pew Center 1996, 1997; Times Mirror Center 1990). Polls conducted during the 1990s indicate that adults under 30 are considerably less likely than those over 30 to read newspapers and to watch TV news-casts, and slightly less inclined to listen to the news on radio. The Pew Research Center's April 1996 poll, for example, found that 31% of persons under 30 claimed to have read a newspaper the day before they were interviewed (compared with 76% of individuals over 30), 45% of young people said they had watched a TV news show yesterday (as did 86% of persons over 30), and 37% of the young had listened to the news on radio yesterday (versus 56% of people over 30).

The young are also less likely than older persons to have dispositions that motivate them to use the news media. The Pew Center's February 1997 poll shows, for example, that individuals under 30 are less likely than those over 30 to say they look forward to reading a daily newspaper (12% vs. 32%) and to report enjoying TV newscasts (14% vs. 30%).

This is a study of young adults' disconnection from mass media coverage of public affairs.

Students of political culture and political theory (Pool 1990; Postman 1985; Merelman 1984, 1989, 1991; Habermas 1975) hypothesize that values associated with individualism have become increasingly prevalent in recent years, with distressing consequences for politics and governance. Putnam (1995), in an article that appeared in these pages, observes that there has been a decline of “social capital” in the United States since 1972 as well, as measured by the number of visits Americans make to family and friends, the number of organizations to which they belong, the amount of trust they report having in other people, and the amount of involvement they report in politics. Ehrenhalt, in his discussion of the tenure of the late Mayor Daley of Chicago, notes that the United States has changed from a society that reveres obedience, authority, order, and a closed political system, to one that reveres freedom, choice, and an open political system.

To Americans of the baby-boom generation, authority will always be a word with sinister connotations, calling forth a rush of uncomfortable memories about the schools, churches, and families in which baby-boomers grew up. (1997, 85)

It is not only the case that social capital has declined, but political capital, as measured by partisanship and confidence in the institutions of government, has also declined over the past several decades (Luttbeg and Gant 1995). If individualism is a causal factor in the decline of social and political capital, the relationship can be explained by the fact that individualism is by nature loose-bounded (Thompson, Ellis, and Wildavsky 1990); self-seeking behavior is the norm, as are self-negotiated relationships.

If there is a single theme that characterizes the public sector in the 1990s, it is the demand for performance. A mantra has emerged in this decade, heard at all levels of government, that calls for documentation of performance and explicit outcomes of government action. While this demand has emerged from governors' offices, state legislatures, and city and country governments, perhaps no activity better embodies this request than the federal Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993, the legislation that has structured expectations for performance-based management in the federal government (see Radin 1998).

The law that was enacted in August 1993 had its origins in legislation introduced by Republican Senator William Roth in 1990. Until Clinton's election in 1992, the legislation remained in the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. However, with the blessing of the Democratic White House, the legislation sailed through both houses of Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support. Despite the breadth of support, there was very little real debate over its provisions, and the legislation that was enacted was framed in very general and often abstract terms. The final bill contained little more than the good government rhetoric familiar to students of public administration. The appropriations and authorizing committees, believed to be major users of the information generated by the law, gave little—if any—attention to the requirements.