About the Project

What is a “Millennial Activist”?

To put it simply, a millennial activist is someone who is:

a) an activist

b) a member of the millennial generation (Generation Y; those born between 1980 and 1992), defined by their digital connectivity

and thus:

c) integrates computer savvy into their service, civic participation, and activism.

Or in the words of someone who has been focusing on this topic for longer than I have, social entrepreneur and writer Allison Fine, "Young people, ages 15-29, who practice a nascent model of civic participation that combines immersion in social causes, idealism, digital fluency."

What is “Millennials Changing America”?

Millennials Changing America is a research tour that seeks to paint a portrait of millennial activism as it exists today by traveling throughout the United States talking with millennials of all backgrounds, ideals, upbringing, and political persuasions.

With the help of more than a few handfuls of friends along the way, and by posting audio, video, observations of, and interviews with millennial activists throughout the United States, we intend to explain our motives, share best practices, and tell our story from the road.

The Millennials Changing America project is being developed and carried out by activist and writer Alex Steed.

About Alex Steed

"At 25, I am an old man among the millennials. I can recall a time prior to internet proliferation. Nevertheless, I identify them even as I remember reading a copy of the Weekly Reader when I was in the 5th grade where it suggested that "The Information Super Highway" was going to change how everything was done.

Activist and Writer, Alex Steed "I am a freelance journalist and activist based out of Boston, Massachusetts and Portland, Maine. I have worked with various social platforms over the past couple of years, including Change.org and The Point. At present, I am a featured contributor at NetSquared.

"Since my teens, I have used writing to explore social change movements and youth engagement at a global level. I have directed or worked with youth media projects including Blunt Youth Radio, Just Naive Enough, Angioplasty Media, and Hip Hop Without Borders."

More information about Alex is available at his website, www.alexsteed.com.

The Tour

With the content collected and created along the way, Millennials Changing America aims to:

Inspire young, budding global citizens with the stories, techniques, and testimonials of millennial activists far and wide.
Share with as large an audience as possible the empowering potential of interactive communication technologies.
Highlight new and existing ways that young people are using the Internet to come together both on and offline.
Shift reportage of activity within the millennial realm away from non-millennials.
Observe what Internet activism and civic participation looks like beyond the well-covered campaigns of Rep. Ron Paul and Sen. Barack Obama.
Pump some constructive and positive stories into the info-sphere.
Dispel disproportionately reported stories about the dangers of Internet usage (without undermining efforts to ensure intelligent and cautionary usage).

Over the course of October, November, and December of 2008, the tour, which is nothing more glamorous than recording equipment, a used car, myself and the occasional co-pilot, will move from city to city with the intention of talking with as many millennial activists as we can. In order to meet as many people as possible, to highlight ways to bridge on and offline interaction, and to keep our budget low, nearly all accommodations are set up through CouchSurfing.org — one of the greatest websites online. Thanks to the generosity of hundreds of organizations, bloggers, activists, and others who forwarded information about the tour, hundreds of people have responded and will be connected with over the course of the adventure.

Follow-Up

Since the point of Millennials Changing America is to spread the discussion about millennial activism, all of the information, observation, commentary and footage generated by the tour will be posted in as many locations as will have us. All content is decentralized, published off-site, and indexed on this site.