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allowed them to mark up the cost of books by 25%. How would you react?” All the
students initially settled on an individual strategy of buying their books elsewhere,
cursing the profit gouging bookstore all the way to half.com. When we prompted them,
they did suggest a petition, but no other viable alternatives surfaced in their discussion.
While our hypothetical may not have risen to the scenario introduced in the survey
question – an “issue that you cared about and had a strong opinion on” -- it was telling
that in a small community like a college campus and on an issue with such direct impact,
individual level resolutions were chosen.
Projected Future Political Activity
Coupled with our attempt to familiarize students with collective political action
strategies was the hope that they would feel more comfortable engaging in political
activities after completing COM 399. Hence students were asked to report their
participation on a whole range of activities during the past two years as well as to project
the likelihood of their engaging in these same activities in the future. Table 4 reports
only the projections. In general, many students expect to participate in a wide range of
activities community and political activities. Consistent with other recent surveys of
young people, our findings indicate that COM 399 students intend to concentrate their
efforts on local volunteer activities such as making donations of food or clothing,
working in religious organizations or donating blood. In both the pre and post tests, far
more students claim they anticipate participating in a wide array of apolitical activities.
Convention