Play_space : participatory communities and new media game space

Long-held attachments to place are being transformed in the contemporary media context. How might interactive media contribute to our understanding of social change and civic participation? Within the broad field of interactive design and media, Salazar and Waterson examine the emerging, hybrid, speculative and liminal field of "Games for Change". The four different projects they discuss - Blast Theory's I like Frank, the Digital Street Game, The United Nations World Food progam's Food Force, and the Us Mob series from Central Australia - bring into play models such as participatory GIS mapping and database narrativisation. Proposing them as examples from which to rethink the capability of new media used for a consciously focused cultural purpose, they suggest that games and the notion of play have an important future role in understanding social engagement, cultural belonging and senses of place.