Influence is an interesting argument. A big factor is how different age groups get their information and what they do with it. This paper is quite interesting -
https://www.researchgate.net/publica...ion_as_leveler
Unsurprisingly, it shows that social media is a large influencer with the young while traditional print and TV media has a greater impact in older groups. There is a definite 'push'
vs.'pull' effect here. Good social media advertising will be well targeted tote receiver and the parties who are good at this will have some success. In this case, information is 'pushed' to the receiver. In print media, we tend to buy papers which reflect us and our values and so to an extent confirms what we think already - the recipient 'pulls' the information.
This works to the extent where groups of people with certain political alignments are almost defined by the media they consume such as centre left 'Guardianistas'.
So, are the young more easily influenced than the old? By influenced, I mean more likely to change their mind on who to vote for. Probably yes but the question is why? I can think of a few reasons;
- Using a broader church of media reduces confirmation bias
- Use of the resources such as the internet allows a deeper level of fact checking
- Interaction with a broader demographic (see this forum as a good example)
- Political advertising can be targeted or 'pushed' to the audience