The document discusses playfulness in the 2008 Obama presidential campaign on Facebook. It argues that the campaign employed playful tactics like applications and framing their presence as fun to make their political messaging more viral in a top-down strategy. However, playfulness can also emerge bottom-up from grassroots support when popular political expression takes on playful forms. The document examines how embedded playfulness on the internet and in social interactions on Facebook specifically can blur the lines between true and false, and bring a new form of productive political play and social participation when social dynamics meet online citizenship.

1. PLAYFULNESS AND TRUST IN THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN ON FACEBOOK BRINGING CIVIC ENGAGEMENT INTO PLAY Valentina Rao @ Playful Experiences Seminar, Tampere 2-3/4 2009

3. INSTITUTIONAL POWER WANTS TO PLAY

4. Political communication on Facebook: the Obama campaign