20. Playing with power : Casual politicking as a new frame for political analysis

The chapter examines the entanglement of play and politics through digital media. By analyzing the Obama 2008 and Trump 2016 presidential campaigns, it proposes a new term for examining political engagement, namely ‘casual politicking.’ Building on mediatization theories, the chapter takes the affordances of causal video games as a template to analyze the actions performed by citizens, politicians, and organizations attempting to alter behaviors. The resulting characteristics of the political process are presented through four key aspects: the role of ICT platforms with intuitive interfaces, the prevalence of issue-centered rather than ideological action, a perpetual political engagement undeterred by failure, and socially focused networks orientated towards fun. When applied to the two campaigns, surprising similarities can be seen, despite the different messages and personalities of the candidates.