Network Theology: Christian Understandings of New Media
Published in Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture 01(1) (January 2012).
Review article considering three recent works of popular Christian theology: Dwight J. Friesen, Thy Kingdom Connected:... more Review article considering three recent works of popular Christian theology: Dwight J. Friesen, Thy Kingdom Connected: What the Church Can Learn from Facebook, the Internet, and Other Networks (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009); Shane Hipps, Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009); and Jesse Rice, The Church of Facebook: How the Hyperconnected Are Redefining Community (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2009).
Visions of Excess: Cyberspace, digital technologies and new cultural politics
by Stephen Webb
Information, Communication & Society, 1:1, 46-69
This paper critically situates contemporary concerns with cyberspace and digital media within a cultural dimension. In... more
This paper critically situates contemporary concerns with cyberspace and digital media within a cultural dimension. In doing this it sets the emerging new communication technologies alongside issues of cultural limits and boundaries.
The paper begins by undertaking ground clearing work about the nature of cyberspace and providing an analytical index of its position in relation to its imaginary or real status. It is argued that cyberspace is destined to attract two competing responses; first for being too true to life; and second for not being true enough. It is argued that these tensions are part of the cyberspatial embodiment of certain significant cultural aesthetics which are subsequently interwoven into the fabric of popular technoculture. This embodiment projects a number of competing claims and characterisations for the potential of digital
media through slogans of cyberspace.
The paper addresses how spatial metaphors, forms of technological enhancement, Utopian aesthetics, technoculture and posthuman philosophy are framed as 'frontier discourse'. The materialism of transhumanist and extroprian politics is examined from a phenomenological standpoint. These frontier projects posit a 'disclosing space' for digital media which offer a radical 'crossing over' from the human to nonhuman computer
mediated environment. By way of phenomenological analysis these new cultural politics are shown to be intimations of the real and an illusion of radical otherness which is chimerical and exemplary of unreflexive 'modes of becoming'.
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Seen by:La fede nella "rete" delle relazioni
published in La Civiltà Cattolica 2010 II 258-271 (1 maggio 2010)
The internet is a part of the daily life of many people. It is part of the “environment” in which they live –... more The internet is a part of the daily life of many people. It is part of the “environment” in which they live – connections, relations, communication and knowledge. The Church is now very active on the internet not merely “to be present”, but for a natural immersion of Christianity in place of the life of human beings. This presence naturally poses a series of questions on an educative and pastoral level. Nevertheless, there are still critical points emerging that regard the same understanding of the faith of the Church. Is it possible to consider the internet theologically?
Verso una «cyberteologia»? L’intelligenza della fede nel tempo della Rete
published in La Civiltà Cattolica 2011 I 15-27
TOWARDS A «CYBERTHEOLOGY»? The intelligence of faith in the era of the Net – The Internet has become part... more TOWARDS A «CYBERTHEOLOGY»? The intelligence of faith in the era of the Net – The Internet has become part of everyday life for many people, and for this reason it increasingly contributes to the construction of a religious identity of the people of our time, affecting their ability to understand reality, and therefore also to understand faith and their way of living it. The Net and the culture of cyberspace pose new challenges to our ability to formulate and listen to a symbolic language that speaks of possibility and of signs of transcendence in our lives. Perhaps the time has arrived to consider the possibility of a cybertheology also understood as the intelligence faith in the era of the Net. It would be the fruit of faith that releases from itself a cognitive boost at a time in which the logic of the Net influences the way we think, learn, communicate and live.
