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Believing in bits: Digital media and the supernatural

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posted on 2019-10-15, 13:45 authored by Simone NataleSimone Natale, Diana Pasulka
Today religion and spirituality infuse digital and technological environments. These in turn produce new forms of religious and spiritual belief. As technologies that compute numbers, digital media apparently epitomize everything that is considered scientific and rational. Yet people experience the effects of digital devices and algorithms in their everyday lives through the lenses of magic and the supernatural. Algorithms are said to have the capacity to "read minds" and predict the future; Artificial Intelligence is seen as an opportunity to overcome death and achieve immortality through singularity; and avatars and robots are accorded a dignity that traditional religions restrict to humans. The essays in Believing in Bits advance 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 mind reading and spirit communications with digital technologies? Does the dignity accorded to the human and natural worlds within traditional religions translate to gadgets, avatars, or robots? How does the internet's help blur the boundaries between what is considered fiction and fact? The essays collected in this volume address these and similar questions, challenging and redefining established understandings of digital media and culture by employing the notions of belief, religion, and the supernatural.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies

Pages

256

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Rights holder

© Oxford University Press

Publication date

2019-10-09

Copyright date

2020

Notes

This is an edited book by Simone Natale and Diana Pasulka. The Introduction to this book is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/2134/36022.

ISBN

9780190949990; 9780190949983

Language

  • en

Editor(s)

Simone Natale; Diana Pasulka

Depositor

Dr Simone Natale. Deposit date: 15 October 2019

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