This volume unravels the debates on the 'Participation Age': Instead of perpetuating visions of social 'all-inclusion' or the 'digital divide', the collection reclaims collectivity as an effect of technological and historical conditions. Thinking of participation both as promise and duty, the contributions analyse the attractions and impositions connected to the socio-technical formation of collectivities. The constraints of participation are addressed by focusing on the mutual shaping of user practices and technological environments. It is hence a relational thinking that allows specifying the manifold interconnections of technology, practices and discourses.

Mathias Denecke is a researcher at the institute of media studies at Ruhr Universität Bochum. His key research areas are media theory, infrastructures, and logistics. Anne Ganzert (PhD) teaches Media Studies at the University of Konstanz. Isabell Otto is professor for media studies at the University of Konstanz, Germany. She works on media of knowledge, media discourses, media and participation, digital media and temporality, social media and communality.