TY - BOOK T1 - Invisible Users Y1 - 2012 A1 - Jenna Burrell KW - Africa KW - digital technologies KW - Ghana KW - Ghanaian KW - internet KW - network technologies KW - religious practice KW - spiritual KW - users KW - Youth AB - An account of how young people in Ghana’s capital city adopt and adapt digital technology in the margins of the global economy. Among other subjects: Religious practice and belief were a frequent point of reference for Ghanaian Internet users when they spoke about their social relationships, aspirations, and their use of technologies including the Internet. The way they talked about this belief was marked by a sense of the presence of spiritual forces (good and evil). PB - The MIT Press UR - http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780262301459 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Come to a Correct Understanding of Buddhism: a case study on spiritualising technology, religious authority, and the boundaries of orthodoxy and identity in a Buddhist Web forum JF - New Media and Society Y1 - 2011 A1 - Busch, L. KW - Authority KW - Buddhism KW - spiritual KW - technology AB - This study examines the Buddhist message forum, E-sangha, to analyze how this forum’s founder and moderators ‘spiritualized the Internet’ (Campbell, 2005a, 2005b) using contemporary narratives of the global Buddhist community, and in doing so, provided these actors with the authority to determine the boundaries of Buddhist orthodoxy and identity and validate their control of the medium through social and technical means. Through a structural and textual analysis of E-sangha’s Web space, this study demonstrates how Web producers and forum moderators use religious community narratives to frame Web environments as sacred community spaces (spaces made suitable for religious activities), which inherently allows those in control of the site the authority to set the boundaries of religious orthodoxy and identity and hence, who can take part in the community. VL - 13 UR - http://nms.sagepub.com/content/13/1/58.abstract IS - 1 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Problematizing the Human-Technology Relationship through Techno-Spiritual Myths Presented in The Machine, Transcendence and Her JF - Journal of Religion & Film Y1 - 2016 A1 - Campbell, H KW - spiritual KW - technology AB - This article explores three common techno-spiritual myths presented in three recent science fiction films, highlighting how the perceived spiritual nature of technology sets-out an inherently problematic relationship between humanity and technology. In The Machine, Transcendence and Her, human-created computers offer salvation from human limitations. Yet these creations eventually overpower their creators and threaten humanity as a whole. Each film is underwritten by a techno-spiritual myths including: “technology as divine transcendence” (where technology is shown to endow humans with divine qualities, “technological mysticism” (framing technology practice as a form of religion/spirituality) and “techgnosis” (where technology itself is presented as a God). Each myth highlights how the human relationship to technology is often framed in spiritual terms, not only in cinema, but in popular culture in general. I argue these myths inform the storylines of these films, and spotlight common concerns about the outcome of human engagement with new technologies. By identifying these myths and discussing how they inform these films, a techno-spirituality grounded in distinctive posthuman narratives about the future of humanity is revealed. VL - 20 UR - https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol20/iss1/21/ IS - 1 ER - TY - CHAP T1 - The Internet as Social-Spiritual Space T2 - Netting citizens: Exploring citizenship in the Internet age Y1 - 2004 A1 - Heidi Campbell KW - internet KW - Social KW - spiritual JF - Netting citizens: Exploring citizenship in the Internet age PB - St. Andrew’s Press CY - Edinburgh UR - http://clydeserver.com/bairdtrust/pdfs/2004/chapter09opt.pdf ER - TY - CHAP T1 - There is no Spoon? The Matrix, Ideology, and The Spiritual logic of Late Capital T2 - Teaching Religion and Film Y1 - 2009 A1 - Grieve, Gregory KW - Ideology KW - religion KW - spiritual JF - Teaching Religion and Film PB - Oxford University Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - CHAP T1 - Forward: practice, autonomy and authority in the digitally religious and digitally spiritual T2 - Digital Religion, Social Media and Culture: Perspectives, Practices and Rituals Y1 - 2012 A1 - Hoover, S KW - Digital Religion KW - spiritual AB - This anthology - the first of its kind in eight years - collects some of the best and most current research and reflection on the complex interactions between religion and computer-mediated communication (CMC). The contributions cohere around the central question: how will core religious understandings of identity, community and authority shape and be (re)shaped by the communicative possibilities of Web 2.0? The authors gathered here address these questions in three distinct ways: through contemporary empirical research on how diverse traditions across the globe seek to take up the technologies and affordances of contemporary CMC; through investigations that place these contemporary developments in larger historical and theological contexts; and through careful reflection on the theoretical dimensions of research on religion and CMC. In their introductory and concluding essays, the editors uncover and articulate the larger intersections and patterns suggested by individual chapters, including trajectories for future research. JF - Digital Religion, Social Media and Culture: Perspectives, Practices and Rituals PB - Peter Lang CY - New York UR - https://books.google.com/books/about/Digital_Religion_Social_Media_and_Cultur.html?id=I7GqtgAACAAJ ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Catholic, protestant and holistic spiritual appropriations of the internet JF - Information, Communication & Society Y1 - 2011 A1 - Noomen, I A1 - Aupers, S A1 - Houtman, D KW - Catholic KW - internet KW - Protestant KW - religion KW - spiritual AB - This article relies on in-depth qualitative interviews with 21 web designers, active in the fields of Catholicism, Protestantism and holistic spirituality in the Netherlands, to study religious appropriations of the Internet. The authors found that these different religious groups embraced the medium of the Internet motivated by a common desire to make oneself heard in the cacophony of voices that has resulted from processes of secularization and religious change. In doing so, Catholic web designers struggle with the dilemma of either following Roman orthodoxy or creating room for dialogue and diversity, whereas their Protestant counterparts feel forced to either let a thousand flowers bloom or surrender to a highly compromised image of their faith. Holistic spirituality, finally, struggles with neither of these problems and appropriates the Internet as its virtually natural habitat for sharing and connecting. The authors conclude that, consistent with theories about cultured technology and spiritualizing of the Internet, offline religious heritages matter a lot when religions seek to appropriate the Internet through web design. These appropriations tend not to be smooth transpositions of coherent and conflict-free offline religious heritages to online environments, however, but conflict-ridden processes stirring long-standing struggles over authority and identity. VL - 14 UR - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2011.597415 IS - 8 ER -