ABSTRACT
Groups representing younger Americans will likely file more suits challenging the fairness or equity of government spending patterns. The emergence of the information superhighway and various other high-tech, interactive forms of communication will provide an excellent conduit for the dissemination of this information to all age-groups. More citizens in all age-groups are using the press as an indirect way to contact politicos—via letters to the editor, calling public affairs talk shows, and responding to newspaper, television, or interest group polls. Some generational participatory and policy preference gaps have narrowed as one age-extreme group has changed faster than the other. But in other instances, the differences are more a product of the time in history during which each generation became socialized politically, foreign and defense policy preferences. Generally, opinions on foreign policy fluctuate considerably more than that on domestic policy, primarily reflecting responses to the rapidly changing media coverage of world hot spots.
