This edited volume collects current research by academics and practitioners on playful citizen participation through digital media technologies.

"A completely innovative aspect is the agenda of analyzing media and citizenship in contemporary culture through the lens of play. Media studies, game studies, and cultural studies will benefit from this, as will political practice." - Mathias Fuchs, principal investigator at the Centre for Digital Cultures at Leuphana University Lüneburg, editor of Rethinking Gamification "What a splendid edited collection, a thoughtful and well-researched anthology that both summarizes the state of the art at the intersection between play and political theories, and presents insights on future lines of research." - Miguel Sicart, professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, author of Play Matters

René Glas, Assistant Professor, Department of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University. Recent publications: Glas, R., “Playing with the gamebook: The Final Hours interactive storybook series as playful paratexts”. Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds (forthcoming); Glas, R. et al. “Literacy at play: An analysis of media literacy games used to foster media literacy competencies.” Frontiers – Special Issue (in press); Glas, R., “Making Mario: Shaping franchise history through paratextual play”. In: Beil, B. et al. (eds.). Paratextualizing Games: Investigations on the Paraphernalia and Peripheries of Play. Bielefield: Bielefield University Press, 2021. pp. 131-161. Sybille Lammes is Full Professor of New Media and Digital Culture at The Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) at Leiden University. She has been a visiting Senior Research Fellow at The University of Manchester, and has worked as a researcher at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the University of Warwick, as well as the media studies departments of Utrecht University and the University of Amsterdam. Her background is in media studies and play studies, which she has always approached from an interdisciplinary angle, including cultural studies, science and technology studies, postcolonial studies, and critical geography. She is co-editor of Playful identities: The ludification of digital media cultures (Amsterdam University Press 2015), Mapping time (Manchester University Press 2018; forthcoming) and The Routledge handbook of interdisciplinary research methods (Routledge 2018; forthcoming). She is an ERC laureate and has been the PI of numerous research projects. Michiel de Lange is Assistant Professor of New Media and Digital Culture in the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. He is co-founder of The Mobile City, a platform for the study of new media and urbanism, and works as a researcher in the field of (mobile) media, urban culture, identity and play. He is a researcher in the NWO Creative Industries funded project The Hackable City, about the ways digital media shape the future of city making. Joost Raessens is Full Professor and Chair of Media Theory at the Faculty of Humanities of Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Imar de Vries is Assistant Professor of New Media and Digital Culture in the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. His work primarily focuses on studying innovation discourses of wireless technologies, social media, and augmented reality. De Vries is a member of the board of Media Lab IMPAKT and affiliated with Media Lab SETUP.