What can Harry Potter tell us about the political views of the millennial generation? According to professor of Political Science Anthony Gierzynski, a lot. In his new book Harry Potter and the Millennials, Gierzynski investigates the role of entertainment media on the political views and values of the millennial generation, focusing in particular on the popular Harry Potter book series by J.K. Rowling.The Millennial generation, also known as ?Generation Y? or ?Echo Boomers?, refers to those people born between 1980 and 2000. ?[Harry Potter] hit them at such a formative time in terms of [the millennials?] political views that theoretically, one would expect that it had a big impact on their views,? Gierzynski said.From his Politics in the Media class, he got the idea of looking not only at news media effects, but also media effects, linking entertainment media to people?s views about politics, he said.Gierzynski set up a research science seminar in which he and his students developed projects to test the link between entertainment media and people?s views about politics, he said, including distributing surveys to university classrooms nationwide.Gierzynski and his team tried to identify the politically relevant lessons in Harry Potter, which appear in the book?s first chapter. ?It became evident that throughout the series, there were repeated themes and lessons like acceptance of people no matter how different they are, unless they prove themselves to be bad or evil,? he said.?It?s interesting– it?s not overly political, because it?s not about the ?real world?– but accepting even goblins, house-elves, and extending to them rights, freedoms and dignities that you would to anybody– that lesson repeated over and over again.?Gierzynski didn?t start out thinking to research Harry Potter specifically, he said. ?One semester, [we realized] how popular the Harry Potter series is, and how unlikely it is that everyone who became immersed in the series had any sort of political reason [to do so],? Gierzynski said. Political science major and former student of Gierzynski?s Andrew Bowen said he agrees with his professor?s ideas.?[Political socialization] is the process that we all go through when we are young and it shapes our own political views to a hardened form that we carry through the rest of our lives,? Bowen said. ?Things such as your parents? jobs your family?s economic background, the friends you had and their own views? the books you read the movies you watched; all these things had a tremendous impact on us that we don?t realize.?But research into the effects of media revealed that media didn?t have the overwhelming effect that people thought it did, he said, referencing ?The War of the Worlds? radio program, a fake news broadcast about a supposed ?alien invasion?, which reportedly caused widespread panic when it aired in 1938.?It did not actually create the mass hysteria that popular opinion believed it did,? Gaierzynski said. ?It only affected certain people in certain ways.?In any case, Gierzynski argued that the Harry Potter series hit millennials at the formative years when they didn?t have the attitudes for self-selection.Although there are some scholarly pieces on the effects of TV shows (such as ?The Day After?, a series about the day after a nuclear attack, and another mini-series from the ?80s), they focused explicitly on the political effects, which was not Gierzynski?s focus, he said.?So the question is, if they?re not getting information from there, where are they getting information about issues that they are asked to voice opinions about, or when they go to vote?? Gierzynski said.Gierzynski emphasized the importance of understanding where our views and values come from.?I tried to teach my students in my American Politics class to understand that their values aren?t necessarily superior to their fellow students? values,? he said.?If we get to that point of accepting where we come from and that we?re not all politically rational creatures, then maybe our discourse could change a little bit. Right now our discourse is just in really sad shape.???