%0 Book %D 2003 %T Japanese Cybercultures %A Nanette Gottlieb %A Mark McLelland %K culture %K cyber %K internet %K Japan %X Japan is rightly regarded as one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, yet the development and deployment of Internet technology in Japan has taken a different trajectory compared with Western nations. This is the first book to look at the specific dynamics of Japanese Internet use. It examines the crucial questions: * how the Japanese are using the Internet: from the prevalence of access via portable devices, to the fashion culture of mobile phones * how Japan's "cute culture" has colonized cyberspace * the role of the Internet in different musical subcultures * how different men's and women's groups have embraced technology to highlight problems of harassment and bullying * the social, cultural and political impacts of the Internet on Japanese society * how marginalized groups in Japanese society - gay men, those living with AIDS, members of new religious groups and Japan's hereditary sub-caste, the Burakumin - are challenging the mainstream by using the Internet. Examined from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, using a broad range of case-studies, this is an exciting and genuinely cutting-edge book which breaks new ground in Japanese studies and will be of value to anyone interested in Japanese culture, the Internet and cyberculture. %I Routledge %C London & New York %G English %U http://books.google.com/books/about/Japanese_cybercultures.html?id=2McTNWGncZ0C %0 Book %D 2013 %T Deus in Machina:Religion, Technology, and the Things in Betwee %A Jeremy Stolow %K Buddhist %K Christian %K Egypt %K Haitian %K Islamic %K Japan %K medieval %K religion and technology %K religious studies %K Spiritualist movement %K Vodou %X The essays in this volume explore how two domains of human experience and action--religion and technology--are implicated in each other. Contrary to commonsense understandings of both religion (as an "otherworldly" orientation) and technology (as the name for tools, techniques, and expert knowledges oriented to "this" world), the contributors to this volume challenge the grounds on which this division has been erected in the first place. What sorts of things come to light when one allows religion and technology to mingle freely? In an effort to answer that question, Deus in Machina embarks upon an interdisciplinary voyage across diverse traditions and contexts where religion and technology meet: from the design of clocks in medieval Christian Europe, to the healing power of prayer in premodern Buddhist Japan, to 19th-century Spiritualist devices for communicating with the dead, to Islamic debates about kidney dialysis in contemporary Egypt, to the work of disability activists using documentary film to reimagine Jewish kinship, to the representation of Haitian Vodou on the Internet, among other case studies. Combining rich historical and ethnographic detail with extended theoretical reflection, Deus in Machina outlines new directions for the study of religion and/as technology that will resonate across the human sciences, including religious studies, science and technology studies, communication studies, history, anthropology, and philosophy. %I Fordham University Press %C New York %G eng %U http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780823250240 %0 Journal Article %J Sociological Focus %D 2013 %T Internet Accessibility of the Mizuko Kuyo (Water-Child Ritual) in Modern Japan: A Case Study in Weberian Rationality %A Mieko Yamadaa %A Anson Shupea %K Buddhist %K children %K infants %K Japan %K memorial service %K mizuko kuyo %K New Religious %K religion %K Ritual %K Shinto %K Spirituality %K websites %X The mizuko kuyo is a Japanese (Buddhist, Shinto, New Religious, other) memorial service for infants or young children who have died through some misfortune, including disease, miscarriage, and, increasingly, elective abortion. Indeed, abortion is the predominant form of contraception for many Japanese families. Here we consider, in Weberian terms of the rationalization of institutions, how Internet accessibility and its created virtual reality of the mizuko kuyo has driven its popularity along the dimensions of privatization, bureaucratization, and commodification in decisions to perform the ritual by Internet. We utilize a sample of Tokyo mizuko kuyo Web sites and the contexts of their advertisements and available services for mizuko kuyo, including fee structures and other advertising “lures,” to analyze this merging of traditional and modern technological paths of spirituality along Weberian theoretical lines. %B Sociological Focus %V 46 %G eng %U http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00380237.2013.796833#.Ul1LyVCsim5 %N 3 %& 229