Developing Enactive Political Gameplay in Transworld, Transmedia Genius Loci

In this article we examine in some detail how contemporary digital interactive social media like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and interactive 3D fictional possible worlds3 like Second Life, Twinity and There, are stimulating new forms of remediated prosumer practices that can be seen as enabling the at-a-distance co-construction of more participatory political identities, by facilitating the cooper-i-tive creation, remixing, remaking and sharing of various kinds of digital user-generated content. We look more closely at what we mean when speaking of user-generated content in this specific context, and how such content is created, shared and recycled for use in political communication. We start by defining the term participatory political identities, used here to refer to personal and collective forms of identity that are remediated and constructed through enactive engagement of individuals and groups in personal, interpersonal and collective forms of political practice that aim to engage with, and influence using specially designed communicative strategies, the opinions, beliefs and actions of a multitude of co-present and non co-present others. These political practices may, for example, consist of commenting on or responding in negative, positive or neutral ways to "local" political discourses and message created and shared with us by co- present or non co-present others we may already know, in order to promote shared political ends. Subsequently, we may solicit other appraisals of these discourses and messages – together with our own comments or responses to these – from other non co-present political players we come into contact with in the more "global" sphere of remediated political communication facilitated by social media and fictional possible worlds like those mentioned above. Our focus here, then, is primarily on new forms of political practice that are instantiated through fruition of transworld, transmedia places and spaces and their genius loci – which are often conceived of, rightly or wrongly, as playful, or ludic in character.We suggest that our perception of these transworld transmedia places and spaces as ludic may be based on one of their more interesting characteristics: the fact they offer us access to particular types of enactive experience that blend – often in quite novel, engaging and entertaining ways – fragments of both our own, and non co-present others' experiences and memories of culturally constituted past, present and future narrative possible worlds.