This book re-evaluates the way we examine todays digital media environment. By looking at how popular culture uses different digital technologies, Digital Fandom bolsters contemporary media theory by introducing new methods of analysis. Using the exemplars of alternate reality gaming and fan studies, this book takes into account a particular philosophy of playfulness in todays media in order to establish a new media studies. Digital Fandom augments traditional studies of popular media fandom with descriptions of the contemporary fan in a converged media environment. The book shows how changes in the study of fandom can be applied in a larger scale to the study of new media in general, and formulates new conceptions of traditional media theories.