Darin Barney, Gabriella Coleman, Christine Ross, Jonathan Sterne, and Tamar Tembeck (Eds.), The Participatory Condition in the Digital Age

Abstract

“Participation” is a highly contested yet increasingly used buzzword across many spheres of academia. How this term is problematized, however, differs between disciplines. The Participatory Condition in the Digital Agepulls some of these differing definitions together in 15 transdisciplinary essays that investigate the relationships between participation and politics, openness, surveillance, and aisthesis. In particular, the edited collection does a great job of distinguishing between the rhetoric of participation with actual participation, and the text highlights how the diffusion and prevalence of digital media has contributed to the “muddying” of this term.