Play and Playability as Key Concepts in New Media Studies

What is new about the new media? This question has been asked by many researchers in the field of new media studies, but has not yet been answered in a satisfactory way. Concepts such as interactivity, hypertextuality and virtuality, to name just a few, have been used to try to distinguish between new and old media. But these concepts remain rooted in the logic of old media. Attempts to account for the logic by which new media operate are still rare, and the few accounts that do account for this unique modus operandi tend to either condemn new media as gateways to a world in which reality cannot be differentiated from simulation, or laud them as agents of a social transformation that will bring about an electronic utopia.