Participation has become the key issue in popular, economic, and academic notions of New Media. The conference seeks to examine and unravel the debates of the “Participation Age”, rejecting a mere appraisal of the impact of contemporary media on participation. Instead of perpetuating euphoric visions of social “all-inclusion”, web democracy and collaboration as well as pessimistic views of exclusion, top-down hierarchy and the “digital divide”, we aim to reclaim collectivity as an effect of technological, historical and political conditions and practices.