ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the following questions: How did Millennials users engage the 2016 election in a new social media platform? How did Millennial users view their own political agency, particularly as it is mediated by Brigade users, mass media, and older generations? Finally, how did the structure, affordances, and design of Brigade encourage or facilitate political engagement in 2016 election? Despite record-breaking youth voter turnout during the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, media coverage questioned if Millennials would participate in the 2016 election. Scholars question if these mass media narratives are based on empirical observations of Millennials or rather a continuation of cultural discourses that position youth and new adaptations of civic engagement as inferior to older, established models. Negative press coverage of political agency is coupled with the generations adoption of new, digital technologies that challenge and possibly harm the political economics of traditional media journalism. Social movements associated with Millennials are criticized for their origins within digital media.
