Believing in Bits: Digital Media and the Supernatural

by Simone Natale (Editor), D.W. Pasulka (Editor)

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 internetâs 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.

Genres: Philosophy, Sociology

265 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 2, 2019

Reviews

[melancholinary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Super looking forward to read this book, however, a bit disappointed with the outcome. There is an unbalanced mix of essays and articles in this book that failed to keep my attention. I think the different approach of investigating 'digital media' from religious scholar and media scholar is baffling and disconnected. However, Marenko's essay on Simondon and techno-shamanism is great as well as the Afterword conversation.

[Neal Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

With an edited academic book like this, some variation in quality and interest is to be expected. The chapters which made this book worthwhile for me are on practices that I had no idea existed, in particular electronic voice phenomena (EVP), i.e looking for supernatural voices in found recordings, and tulpas, i.e. immaterial companions which are willed into existence.

One of the chapters most explicitly on religion is on the Disciples of the New Dawn, an online church which keeps resurfacing after multiple bans, and which is, most likely, a parody by people who like to provoke reactions by criticizing, for example, women who have caesarean sections. The authors present this as an example of Poe's law, which says that satiric or sarcastic intent, no matter how broad, will always be missed or ignored by at least some readers. Although this also applies to books, e.g. Catcher in the Rye and American Psycho, I agree that it's more potent for electronic media. The authors refer us to the initials of the supposed leader of the DOTND, one Father Patrick Oliver Embry. And they discuss how far a "fake" religion can become "real" via people who take its precepts seriously.

Elsewhere, some curious practices, e.g. deflecting the power of unpleasant posts by tagging them with #safetykitty, are padded out to chapter length, and some topics have to be stretched to make a religious connection, e.g. an overview of UFO enthusiasm in Brazil. But these are outweighed by the original and insightful chapters.

[Annegrethenriette · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

I really like how niche some of the essays were. While I appreciate how much ground this collection offers, unfortunately that almost automatically means the essays will be at least a bit superficial and that was unfortunately the case here.