Believing in Bits: Digital Media and the Supernatural

by Simone Natale (Editor), Diana Pasulka (Editor)

Overview

Believing in Bits advances the idea that religious beliefs and practices have become inextricably linked to the functioning of digital media. How did we come to associate things such as mindreading and spirit communications with the functioning of digital technologies? How does the internet's capacity to facilitate the proliferation of beliefs blur the boundaries between what is considered fiction and fact? Addressing these and similar questions, the volume challenges and redefines established understandings of digital media and culture by employing the notions of belief, religion, and the supernatural.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190949990
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/01/2019
Pages:	264
Sales rank:	923,122
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Simone Natale is a Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies at Loughborough University, UK.

Diana Walsh Pasulka is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors vii

Introduction Simone Natale O. W. Pasulka 1

Part I Archaeologies of the Digital Supernatural

1 Amazon Can Read Your Mind: A Media Archaeology of the Algorithmic Imaginary Simone Natale 19

2 Information Theory of the Soul: Spiritualism, Technology, and Science Fiction Anthony Enns 37

3 The Mediumship of the Digital: Sound Recording, Supernatural Inquiry, and the Digital Afterlife of Phonography Simone Dotto 55

Part II Believing in Digital Worlds

4 I Play, Therefore I Believe: Religio and Faith in Digital Games Vincenzo Idone Cassone Mattia Thibault 73

5 Repost or Die: Ritual Magic and User-Generated Deities on Instagram Rose Rowson 91

6 Instant Karma and Internet Karma: Karmic Memes and Morality on Social Media Beverley McGuire 107

7 Disciples of the New Digital Religions: Or, How to Make Your "Fake" Religion Real Ken Chitwood 125

Part III Entre Nous: Spiritual Relationships Between Technology and Humans

8 Where Soul Meets Technology: Catholic Visionaries and the Stanford Research Institute as Precedents for Human-Machine Interfaces and Social Telepathy Apps N. W. Pasulka David Metcalfe 149

9 Plurality Through Imagination: The Emergence of Online Tulpa Communities in the Making of New Identities Christopher Laursen 163

10 UFOs, Ufologists, and Digital Media in Brazil Rafael Antunes Almeida 181

11 Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Religion: Recent Developments and Their Significance Joshua I. Mann 195

12 Algorithm Magic: Gilbert Simondon and Techno-Animism Betti Marenko 213

Afterword: Religious and Digital Imaginaries in Parallel Lines Carole M. Cusack Massimo Leone Jeffrey Sconce 229

Index 239

Editorial Reviews

"It unquestionably achieves the goal to awakening the reader to a relevant and engaging academic discussion about how belief and practice take shape in the encounter digital media." — Melissa E. Maples, Religious Studies Review

"Believing in Bits: Digital Media and the Supernatural recognises the co-constitutive nature of belief and technology and provides compelling and smart cross-disciplinary moments demonstrating such entanglements." — Alexia Derbas, Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture

"Believing in Bits ... unquestionably achieves the goal to awakening the reader to a relevant and engaging academic discussion about how belief and practice take shape in the encounter digital media." — Melissa E. Maples, Uppsala University, Religious Studies Reviews

"Human beings and their technological creations, including and especially their modern digital technologies, reflect, express, and intensify their fundamental strangeness. Scholars have long known that the history of religions is intimately related to the history of technology, from the ancient practices of agriculture, writing, the domestication of the horse, and the forging of iron, to the more recent invention of the printing press and the telegraph and telephone. This book takes that key insight into the present and near future, to the cell phone in your pocket, the computer game on your screen, and the VR system strapped around your skull. This book takes that key insight into the human-techno cyborg that is you." — Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions

"Believing in Bits is a guide to why media technologies are magical: they create beliefs, manipulate thoughts, make us see things. After reading this wonderful collection of essays, you realize why the most natural thing about media is that they are supernatural. This book is full of media archaeological joys and insightful contemporary readings." — Jussi Parikka, Professor of Technological Culture & Aesthetics, University of Southampton

From the Publisher