Bøker i Digital Culture & Society (COL)-serien

This double issue of Digital Culture & Society addresses the complex thematic field of the dialectics of play and labour. We will take a closer look at the problem of play and work from two overlapping, albeit not mutually exclusive, perspectives: laborious play and playful work.The term laborious play points to practices and processes that turn playful activities into hard work. Laborious play happens whenever playfulness turns into work, and may be observed in such activities such as e-sports, excessive play, »goldfarming«, and Twitch gameplay broadcasting, amongst many others.A complementary phenomenon to that of laborious play is the practice and concept of playful work. The promises of a joyful and rewarding working experience have been promoted as »gamification« while critical voices denounce such attempts as ideology, exploitation or simply »bullshit«.

»Digital Culture & Society« is a refereed, international journal, fostering discussion about the ways in which digital technologies, platforms and applications reconfigure daily lives and practices. It offers a forum for critical analysis and inquiries into digital media theory and provides a publication environment for interdisciplinary research approaches, contemporary theory developments and methodological innovation.This special issue discusses theoretical and artistic investigations on citizen engagement, digital citizenship and grassroots information politics. The articles reflect on the role of the digital citizen from the perspectives of (digital) sociology, science, technology and society (STS), (digital) media studies, cultural studies, political sciences, and philosophy.