Review of Give Me That Online Religion by Brenda E. Brasher

The book I am reviewing is Give Me That Online Religion by Brenda E. Brasher. The book was published in 2001 by Jossey-Bass. The book discusses online religion in terms of how our interaction with an online religion via the computer gives us a drastically different religious experience. It also discusses society’s dependency on computers, and why we are drawn to it. In addition the book describes how the internet serves as a global community, and how it links the whole world together. Being that the book was published in 2001, it’s fairly accurate in it’s observations about cyberspace and religion, since the internet was very popular during this time on a large scale.

Brasher does believe that online religion is a legitimate source for religious experiences. However she doesn’t persuade the reader to be part of online religion or religion offline. The book has more of an objective overview of the world of online religion. Brasher’s goal for the book discussed in the first chapter is to introduce online religion, and certain interpretive methods to help make sense of the phenomenon. She contends, “online religion is a crucial contemporary cultural outlet for our meaning heritage from the past,” as well as, “online religion ensures that humanity’s religious acumen is kept alive and positions that heritage to maximize its relevance for future generations.” (Brasher, 6) Her central thesis is:

“Religious expression in cyberspace should be a protected and supported use of the virtual domain-is the logical extension of two interrelated foundations, proreligion contentions. The first is that religious people and their traditions make a valuable, necessary contribution to civil society, while acknowledging that this is not always the case and that no one tradition does so perfectly at all times.” and “online religion is crucial to and positive for the future of religion.” (Brasher, 11)

Brenda E. Brasher has been involved with online religion for over a decade. She earned a master’s degree in divinity from Christian Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in religion from the University of Southern California. She is now an assistant professor of religion and philosophy at Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio. She also spends much of each year in the Middle East studying its clashing of international religious piety and conflict. She has published many books and her first book Godly Women: Fundamentalism and Female Power was named outstanding Academic Book of 1998 by Choice (Brasher, 197).

In the first chapter entitled “A Revolution in the Making: Spiritual Wonder Goes Online”, Brasher gives an overview of online religion. She first compares online and offline religion using the example of a Hindu temple. Offline worship in a Hindu temple incorporates sounds, smells, tastes, and sights, among other things, that allow the worshipper to connect to the sacred in a more visceral, organic manner. Brasher contends that using a computer to worship in a Hindu temple is drastically different. She describes a virtual temple where an image of a white faced Shiva comes up on the welcome menu. On this site you can download the aum, a mystical vedic utterance, that you can chant in your own home, as well as a Quicktime movie of Shiva images. Brasher contends, “Imaginative absorption into the numinous may occasionally be sparked by its provocative multimediated construction. Yet its ability to stimulate physical absorption into the numinous is highly limited.” (Brasher, 4) This point is one of the main issues people have with online religion. Many people feel that having more of a physical absorption during worship gets them closer to whatever they are worshipping. While on the computer there is more of an imaginative absorption.

Brasher defines cyberspace as monolithic and diverse. The monolithic aspects come from the technology and protocols associated with computers. She also contends that cyberspace has material diversity from the hardware and psychological diversity from the amount of different people who use it. She also contends that cyberspace creates global interactive relations that form a community that could include the whole world. Religion comes into the mix of cyberspace in that new religions take from old religions and incorporate new ideas into them like cyberspace, while traditional religions look to stabilize their traditions with new contemporary debates. She uses the example of Martin Luther using the printing press to create Protestantism and equates it to new religions using cyberspace.

The second chapter entitled “The Ultimate Diaspora: Religion in the Perpetual Present of Cyberspace” discusses online religion’s influence on human spirituality. Brasher contends that cyberspace offers the ideal public space for a people without history. Various religions can bring their texts online and immortalize them.

Brasher then goes into describing some jargon she uses in the book. Internet she describes as a “world spanning conglomeration of interconnected computer networks,” and cyber-religion as “the presence of religious organizations and religious activities in this semi-imaginary place.” (Brasher, 29) Brasher also adds that cyber-religion has facilitated the emergence of new electronically inspired religious practices and ideas such as, online global prayer chains, e-prayer wheels, and online multiuser religious rituals. Brasher also describes that many religious websites incorporate humor into their site, because they are not governed by same rules as a church or temple, etc.

The third chapter entitled, “A Taste of Forever: Cyberspace as Sacred Time” discusses how cyberspace has changed our concept of time. Brasher discusses how cyber-time is different from people’s normal perceptions of time. It’s possible to log on to cyberspace from anywhere, anytime, and it can make the world seem “orderly, neat, intelligible.” (Brasher 48) Brasher contends that cyberspace is “sacred time” in that it allows those who encounter it to enter alternative time experiences. She uses the example of a prayer room in an airport and relates it to online religion, in that they are both a haven that offer a change from a hectic environment because they are both independent of time.

Brasher then equates cyberspace’s idea of perpetual existence to the religious idea of eternity. She argues that people try to understand new ideas and technologies by relating them to things they already understand. In this case religious folk try to understand cyberspace through religion’s idea of eternity, since the information on the web is virtually eternally. Brasher also argues that our obsession with cyberspace stems from this idea as well. However cyberspace does not always provide for this “utopian” eternal experience. There are delay times, downed pages, and hardware and software limits among many other problems. Brasher then paraphrases cyber-author Wendy M. Pfeiffer and says that, “cyberspace is less a place than a when achieved by technology. Where we are, who we are with, and what is going on between us constitute our experience of time, and cyberspace provides them all.” (Brasher, 56)

Towards the end of the chapter Brasher discusses “Uploading as Eternal Life.” This phenomenon would allow one to upload their consciousness to the net so that they would exist for eternity. This could be accomplished by an arduous amount of questions that would be asked to the participant over a long period of time to create a database of information, so it could encompass as much as the person’s consciousness as possible (Brasher, 64).

The next chapter entitled “Cyber-Seekers: Stories of Virtual Pilgrimage” discusses online religion’s impact on communities.  Brasher contends at the very start of the chapter that people who have no tie to a religious group are the pioneers of online religion. They are the ones paving the way for the development of online religion. Brasher contends that the people who inhabit online religious websites are those who find it to meet a their spiritual needs. These are the vast majority of the people involved in online religion. Brasher believes that these are the people who will determine where online religion goes, instead of the ones already involved in the religion and the designers of websites that people are visiting.

In the next part of the chapter Brasher follows three findings of religion via the internet. She discusses Ashley’s participation in a Jewish Cyber-Seder, David’s visit to an online Benedictine Monastery in the New Mexican Desert, and Julia’s use of the internet for her neo pagan practices. I want to focus on Ashley’s participation in the Cyber-Seder. Each of these “pilgrimages” according to Brasher helped the participants connect with “old religion” through new methods.

At the age of 25 Ashley met and began dating Michael. Ashley was Christian and Michael was Jewish. About a year into their dating, a discussion about marriage came up and Michael said he would convert to Christianity for Ashley if she wanted, but Ashley didn’t want to force him. Ashley being an internet surfer, looked up information about Judaism. After many links, she found a Cyber-Seder link that was happening in a few weeks time. Ashley marked the date and when the time came she logged on and participated. The Cyber-Seder allowed participants to view the service that happened in New York City at Lincoln Center. The ceremony incorporated poetry by Allen Ginsberg, violin music by Laurie Anderson, a reading by Lou Reed, and a shofar and clarinet duet, along with the reading of the biblical and Talmudic passages. The online section of the ceremony allowed for participants to log on and chat with other members online, as well as those at the service as well, and even the ceremony leader himself. The chat room was a place of great humor. The ceremony allowed Ashley to learn about Michael’s religion. Six months after the ceremony Ashley decided to convert to Judaism.

Through Ashley’s example Brasher wants to convey the message of and old religion using new mediums to disseminate information to newcomers as well as make the transition into the 21^st century. Brasher believes that traditional religions can use CMC as a buffer and a device for information. Many look to cyberspace as a place for spiritual exploration and development, and the Cyber-Seder accomplished both.

Chapter five entitled, “Cyber-Virtue and Cyber-Vice” discusses online religion in relation to good and evil. The big question is how to define good and evil in the online world. Brasher goes on to discuss virtual etiquette when it comes to chat rooms. She outlines four useful rules to keep in mind: write in lowercase letters unless you want your message to read as a shout, keep posts short, use emoticons to convey emotion like for when you want to smile, and use acronyms like BTW (“by the way”) or lol (“laughing out loud”). Yet she states that these guidelines fell short and didn’t address all aspects of online etiquette. However Brasher states that child pornography for example is an outright example of virtual vice. Yet in other situations it’s difficult to determine exactly what is sin online. Brasher uses the example of sexual conversations between consenting adults online in a chat room. If one of the chatters is married does “virtual sex” constitute as adultery? Brasher states, “Cyberspace requires the evolution of virtual ethics, with it’s own expectations, boundaries, and sanctions.” (Brasher, 100)

Brasher then goes on to discuss four different ethical outlooks online that stem from online religion. The first are virtual utopians, who view cyberspace in its ideal form. They view cyberspace as a rich site for innovative moral practice. Virtual utopians look to convince others that cyberspace is the ultimate environment.

Next are the virtual anarchists. These people understand cyberspace as a place where societal and communal norms do not apply. They refuse to submit to organized rule. This group incorporates hackers. However, some virtual anarchists are benevolent “creative misfits” and others are malevolently inclined and want cyberspace to function as a law free zone where illicit activities go unpunished.

The third outlook is the virtual tourists. These people go into cyberspace like “amateur mountaineers climbing Mount Everest as a quest for adventure.” Virtual tourists try to seek great experience online but get into moral dilemmas that they are ill equipped to handle.

Last are the virtually oblivious. These people regularly venture online, yet they do not treat cyberspace a reliable source for “moral practice.” They do not grasp the idea that cyberspace is altering their moral values.

The next chapter is titled, “Virtual Shrines and the Cult of Celebrity” which discusses how cyberspace lessens the gap between religion and pop culture, and possibly making them one in itself. In this chapter Brasher discusses celebrity worship websites that may reflect a new religious movement. Brasher contends that three types of celebrity worship sites dominate the net. The first is a memorial site, which seeks to preserve the life and memory of a celebrity, and act as a virtual pilgrimage to the worshippers. The next is an altar site, which idolizes the celebrity in a cultic devotion setting. The last is a community, which serves to organize the celebrity’s fans.

For the memorial site, Brasher uses the example of a Lady Diana memorial site. The memorial sites for Lady Diana followed her life from becoming a princess, through her philanthropic work, to her marital problems, and up until her tragic car accident. According to Brasher there were over 800,000 memorial websites dedicated to Lady Diana after her death. At these websites you can go and view pictures of Lady Diana, sometimes leave a message about how much she meant to you, and in some cases chat as well. Brasher contends, “The virtual pilgrimages that Diana’s fans make to her mourning sites are an important aspect the sites’ ritualistic value.” (Brasher 127)

Brasher then discusses a celebrity altar dedicated to Keanu Reeves. The followers who call themselves the Dudes of the Keanic Circle, believe that Reeves is essentially their God. Their site opens with a teenage Reeves surrounded by light while light organ music plays in the background that is similar to music played during a Christian church service. The Dudes get their information from Reeves movies by observing key scenes that they believe discuss his teachings such as in the film Brotherhood of Justice where a woman character asks about Reeves’ character, “We’ve been together for almost two years. I just don’t understand Him anymore.” The character Victor replies, “Maybe He’s not who you think He is. Maybe He’s not who He thinks He is.” Notice the capitalization of the h in he’s referring to Reeves himself.

The example of celebrity community Brasher uses is that of Star Trek communities. Star Trek fans use the television show to base huge virtual communities off of. In these communities they can go discuss the show, lobby for it’s return to the air, and organize conferences to discuss Star Trek. One example of a large Star Trek organization is the Boston Star Trek Club of America or BSTA. They offer a webpage, list of activities the group is engaged in, a semimonthly newsletter, a monthly calendar of upcoming events, a membership kit among other things. This is similar to a religion in itself. For example Catholicism has the same type of structure. In churches when you join they have a list of activities, a newsletter, and a calendar of upcoming events and holy days.

Chapter seven entitled, “Existential Doubt, or Does a Cyborg Have a Soul?” discusses how cyberspace influences human understanding of themselves. Brasher discusses that since humans use computers so much, that we are becoming part of the computer in a sense and becoming cyborgs because of our self-reliance on them. She contends, “the computer has transformed our dominant patterns of human play, work love, birth, sickness, and death so much that cyborg is a metaphor we live by.” (Brasher 141) Brasher argues online religion is so popular because it embraces “cyborg aspects of the self” such as that online religion “privileges the imagination and senses, the ideas and relationships evoked by computer mediated communication.” (Ibid) Later in the chapter Brasher argues that the reason we are being transformed into cyborgs is because we are imaginative real creatures, which have become that way from our interaction with computers.

The final chapter entitled, “Virtual Prophets, Instant Global Access, and the Apocalypse” discusses online religion’s perceptions of the end of time and the online religious fanatics who promote the apocalypse. Apocalypticists, or so called doomsday prophets, as Brasher puts it, have taken to the internet with the intent of informing those of their doomsday prophecies. However Brasher contends that Apocalyptic prophets only become significant in society only if people hear their message, which is why cyberspace is the perfect arena for these prophets. In this chapter Brasher discusses the online apocalyptic movements of Marshall Applewhite of Heaven’s Gate, Marian Visionary Veronica Lueken, and evangelical end-times prophet Jack Van Impe.

Heaven’s Gate was the most interesting Apocalypse movement out of the three she discussed. Heaven’s Gate was an unaffiliated religious group who was based in a small mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California supporting themselves through a web design company called Higher Source. The leaders, Marshall H. Applewhite and Bonnie Lu Trusdale Nettles, called themselves Bo and Peep, “the two,” “Him and Her,” and “Do and Ti.” They traveled the U.S. for years recruiting members for their movement. They claimed to be from another level of reality (Kingdom of Heaven, the Next Level, or the Evolutionary Level Above Human (TELAH)). They claimed that they came to Earth from a spaceship in the 1970s, and that Do (Applewhite) was Jesus, and Peep (Nettles) was his father. With the appearance of the Hale-Bopp comet they stated that the world was about to be recycled, and that they needed to leave this planet to assume their other forms. The followers they acquired believed them. On March 25, 1997 thirty-nine members of the group were found dead in the mansion. It was determined that the members had committed suicide in a three-day death session. Groups laid down on bunk beds and ate poison laced food, tied plastic bags over their heads and died (Brasher 166-170).

During the last few years of Heaven’s Gate their website teemed with videos from Do describing the Earth’s demise, and discussing how they can overcome the end of the world. Brasher claims that online, fundamentalist groups like Heaven’s Gate distinguish themselves from other religious groups by using the apocalypse as a starting point for their faith.

Brasher ends the book with a look into the future of online religion. She believes that each generation must define their own ideas of the divine in relation to their time for it to have meaning and substance. She contends that online religion counters the commodification of everything, which government will not do. Brasher contends that we have the power to shape online religion but that our habits of interaction with each other online must continue to change for that to still hold true.

I like Brasher’s ideas in this book. However, she is very repetitive in her approach. She must have outlined online religion for at least three chapters, and gave the same information over and over, just relating it to different things. The book does warrant online religion however and gives it legitimacy. While she doesn’t advocate people moving towards online religion, she hints that it is just as legitimate as offline religion. I also enjoyed the chapter about how to determine what is vice and virtue on the internet. This debate goes into that of politics not just religion. The book is very dense but all of the information provided was extremely relevant to the discussion. The author makes good use of her sources as well. I didn’t understand her argument when she discussed humans becoming cyborgs. When I think of cyborgs I think of humans with parts in them that are of machine. I recently read an article about cyborgs in which a Doctor was coming up with brain stimulators that would help people who lost limbs better use prosthetic limbs. However the book did give me great insights into the vast world of online religion, and the different types of personas online.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Before reading this book I had already agreed with online religion, even though I don’t practice any form of religion myself. This book furthered my belief in online religion. As Brasher contends we are the ones who will shape the future of online religion. I also believe that online religion will shape religion offline in the future. People shouldn’t immediately dismiss online religion just because it is on the cutting edge of things. If anything online religion is trying to make traditional religions more accessible to newcomers.

Midterm

The arguments surrounding religion have perplexed scholars, religious officials, philosophers, and the common folk for thousands of years. Those claiming to have the only path to God(s) have refuted each other through time with the creation of different religions, and beliefs. Emile Durkheim defines religion as:

When a certain number of sacred things sustain relation of co-ordination or subordination with each other in such a way as to form a system having a certain unity, but which is not comprised within any other system of the same sort, the totality of these beliefs and their corresponding rites constitutes a religion. (Durkheim 190)

From this we can see where the lines can become blurred. Is it possible for one religion to have the same beliefs as another and still be constituted as a religion? Can they have similar rituals, ways of worship, stories, and so forth?

The answer is yes, and they do. Virtually all religions have the same groundwork. Something is being worshipped as a means to transcend space and time. In most cases the religion has some sort of totem, or something that has sacred attributes, which is some kind of symbol or artifact important to the community within the religion (Ibid). One totem for example is the cross in Christianity. It is a symbol of how Christ the savior died. Religion is a way of persuasion for the community within it, and for those outside of the community. This persuasive expression of faith, in particular ritual, is religious in principle, and serves as an interactivity tool.

Yet, can’t video games do the same thing? Videogames promote interactivity through procedural rhetoric (ritual) and storytelling in the game, as religion does. Procedural rhetoric is the use of persuasive process (Bogost 28). In the example of videogames this relates to the actual act of playing the game; pressing the buttons, to control the character(s) on the screen and acting as if you control them. This is ritualistic in a sense in that you are achieving an out of body experience (which happens with ritual as well), achieving a sense of community with other gamers, and transcending time and space, by playing in a place that has no relation to our actual time or the place you are playing in. Markku Eskelinen describes computer games saying:

….you can operate your character, if there is one in the first place, perhaps also discuss with other characters or voices; and the characters can be dynamic and developing (not only in an interpretative sense), such as by changing themselves with level points and power-ups. (Eskelinen 37)

The changing in a game is the same thing that participants go through within a ritual. These “level points”, and “power-ups” are the spiritual messages that a participant feels throughout their body, mind, and soul during a ritual.

According to Jonathan Z. Smith, “Ritual is a way of performing things as they ought to be, a way of doing in which all things can be controlled” (Smith 473). Ritual in effect is a shaping of the world in which things that are ordinary in the real world, through ritual become sacred, and worshipped. Ian Bogost states that video games are not meant to be replicas of the world, but a world in which certain parts are modeled to serve the game (Bogost 46). They are both modeled to serve the purpose of the message. Robbie E. Davis-Floyd offers characteristics of ritual in order to better understand it. For the purposes of this essay I will only include the most pertinent characteristics.

One of the major characteristics is symbolism. A symbol is an object, or idea, that has sacred value and meaning to a culture (Davis-Floyd 149). Rituals do not just happen. They have a meaning behind them due to these symbols, which facilitate certain beliefs within the group itself. The ritual serves to put these beliefs into the participants (Ibid).

Another characteristic is repetition and redundancy. The ritual will not be as effective if it is not repeated over and over. The ritual serves to provide a message to its participants in various forms (Davis-Floyd 150). Therefore, the repetition of these processes is a form of procedural rhetoric. The ritual is a persuasive process in itself, which is procedural rhetoric. The participants play a part in the process of the ritual, and receive information (rhetoric) about the beliefs, part of the community. This repetition is a key factor in videogames as well. One will become better at the videogame through repetition. There is a need for repetition if one hopes to master all aspects of the videogame.

There is also a simplistic quality that is important to ritual according to Davis-Floyd. Since most people often have different levels of intelligence the ritual must be simplified to, “reduce all participants to the same simpler level of cognitive functioning” (Davis-Floyd 151). Floyd uses the example of the military. Upon arrival to basic training the recruit’s head is shaved making him unrecognizable to even himself, his clothes are taken away, and he’s given a uniform to take away his sense of individuality. The military breaks down his cognitive structure by making him dig countless holes or do push-ups. Finally the recruit is forced to sleep with his rifle so that the military becomes his mind, body and soul. Davis-Floyd coins this process as symbolic inversion, confusing an individual by doing the opposite of the normal (Ibid).

Davis-Floyd also gives the example of cognitive stabilization. Ritual stabilizes participants who are under stress by giving them something to grasp onto and believe in. Davis-Floyd contends that, “to perform a ritual in the face of chaos is to restore order to the world” (Davis-Floyd 152). It’s understandable that participants would view a ritual as calming and almost therapeutic because the ritual is a persuasive expression of their beliefs, and they can actually participate in it.

In relation to games Eric Zimmerman talks about interactivity with relation to narratives (a big part of ritual), in that ritual usually has some narrative form; sometimes the form is more rigid while other times it’s more of a free form. Zimmerman contends, “…perhaps all narratives can be interactive, but they can be interactive in different ways” (Zimmerman 158).

There is an evident relation here to games as well. While games deal with play and the player’s experience, there is sometimes a straightforward narrative to the game that cannot be changed like Mario Bros. Other times like in the popular game, Mass Effect players can choose their own story, by picking different responses that change the narrative of the game, which gives the game excellent replay value. However, can we really say that we are creating our own narrative in this respect? Ultimately you realize that your response choices are programmed into the game. After playing the game through many times you will have chosen all of the possibilities to change the narrative. Yet, not all games are narratives according to Henry Jenkins:

Not all games tell stories. Games may be an abstract, expressive and experiential form, closer to music or modern dance than to cinema. Some ballets (The Nutcracker for example) tell stories, but storytelling isn’t an intrinsic or defining feature of dance. Similarly, many of my own favorite games – Tetris, Blix, Snood – are simple graphic games that do not lend themselves very well to narrative exposition. (Jenkins 119)

While I agree in a sense with this analysis, I feel that all games have the ability to have a narrative. The narrative may not be programmed into the game itself, yet it is human nature to fill in the blanks and to figure out the whole picture. With the Tetris example one can make up their own narrative to the game. I propose that the player can make up the narrative in that they can rationalize what they are doing by putting it to some type of story. While not intended by the game designers, it gives the player a way to make the game more interesting for them. The player can make up a back-story to the game.

Davis-Floyd’s last pertinent point about ritual is how it effects social change. He states, “…with all of its insistence on continuity and order, can be an important factor not only in individual transformation but also in social change. New belief systems are most effectively spread through new rituals designed to enact and transmit” (Ibid 156). Reinforcing Davis-Floyd’s point, Theodore Jennings contends that while ritual teaches one how to participate in a ritual space, it also teaches you how to behave outside of the ritual space in the real world (Jennings 329). Rituals look to help the participants in a spiritual sense, and spirituality does not just stay within the ritual itself; it’s part of who you are, you take it with you where you go, whether you are spiritual or not. Ritual once again relates to games with this point. Bogost contends that serious games (games that depict reality), “…strive to alter or affect player opinions outside of the game, not merely cause him to continue playing” (Bogost 47).

Another relation between games and stories I’d like to discuss is how they both distance themselves from the world; however they do in some cases deal with the real world. Janet Murray compares the two, “Stories and games are . . . both distanced from the real world, although they often include activities that are done ‘for real’ in other domains” (Murray 3). Yet, as I stated before, stories and games do in some cases deal with the real world. Take the Medal of Honor game series for example. The whole series is based on the historical events in World War II. You play as a soldier for various Allied forces trying to take down the Axis powers.

Communitas proposed by Victor W. Turner relates to the community within ritual; however it can also be related to games as well. Turner defines communitas in two ways. The first deals with the differentiation between people within a hierarchical setting in terms of men being “more” or “less” than each other within a community. The second defines society during the liminal period, which is a time, “between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial” (Turner 512). This is a time when everyone is equal. Turner defines the second part of communitas as, “…is of society as an unstructured or rudimentarily structured and relatively undifferentiated comitatus, community, or even communion of equal individuals who submit together, to the general authority of the ritual elders” (Turner 513).

In relation to games the communitas emerges at two points if we take Turner’s definition literally. The first one emerges after players have played the game already and some are better than the others. The ones who are better have an advantage over the players who aren’t as good as the other players. This can lead to a sort of mutiny within the group of players, for the players who aren’t as good, to overthrow the more skilled players in some way and take their role.

The second definition emerges when players play the game for the first time and are learning it. The player has seemingly no idea what they are supposed to do within the game, and therefore must be taught somehow. In a lot games there are tutorials that you must go through before you can begin the actual game, so that you know how to play. In this sense, all players are equal parts of the community, no one is better than any other player. They must learn from some sort of “ritual master”. In cases like the popular game Assassin’s Creed, you go through a tutorial where another computer teaches you how to control the character within the game. The other computer teaching you how to play is your ritual master. This ritual of learning the game is something that each player must go through which binds them as a community, just like rituals in life bind together the participants in the ritual. The members of the ritual learn the ritual from some sort of master where they are all in liminal space in that they are all equals within the ritual. It doesn’t matter if you are the President of the United States while participating in the ritual, you have the same status as a street sweeper.

With technology developing as rapidly as it has been, it will be interesting to see the new types of games that we will be studying 50 years from now. I believe the similarities between religion ritual and virtual reality, will be self evident for all time. It’s not possible to take the procedurality and community out of games and ritual, nor is it possible to take ritual out of religion. There will always be a type of ritual within our daily lives as well. People become drawn to games and religion because I believe that people like ritual. They like to be part of a community, and like ascending to something beyond themselves through ritual and games whether it’s connection with a higher power or just plain old stress relief. Ritual has its roots in religion, and games have its roots within ritual. Religion is a game in itself. Religious institutions are no less a game than Tetris. They are all trying to give people ways to put the blocks of life together to reach something beyond themselves.

Works Cited

Bogost, Ian. Persuasive Games. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007. Print

Davis-Floyd, Robbie E. 1994. “The Rituals of Hospital Birth in America.” Conformity            and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, 8^th ed., 323-40. Edited by James            P. Spradle and David W. McCurdy. New York: HarperCollins.

Durkheim, Emile. 1915. “Definition of Religious Phenomena and of Religion.” The            Elementary Forms of the Religious Life: A Study in Religious Sociology, 36-45,            47. Translated by Joseph Ward Swain. London: Allen & Unwin.

Eskelinen, Markku Eskelinen. “Towards Computer Game Studies.” First Person New            Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat            Harrigan. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004. 36-42. Print

Jenkins, Henry. “Game Design as Narrative Architecture.” First Person New Media as            Story, Performance, and Game. Ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan.            Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004. 118-20. Print

Jennings, Theodore W., Jr. 1982. “On Ritual Knowledge.” Journal of Religion 62(2):111-            27.

Murray, Janet. “From Game-Story to Cyberdrama.” First Person New Media as Story,            Performance, and Game. Ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan. Cambridge:            The MIT Press, 2004. 2-4. Print

Smith, Jonathan Z. 1982. “The Bare Facts of Ritual.” Imagining Religion: From Babylon            to Jonestown, 53-65, 143-45. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Turner, Victor W. 1969. “Liminality and Communitas.” The Ritual Process: Structure            and Anti-Structure, 94-97, 106-13, 125-29. Chicago: Aldine.

Zimmeran, Eric. “Narrative Interactivity, Play and Games.” First Person New Media as            Story, Performance, and Game. Ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan.            Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004. 156-59. Print

Review of Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication In Cybersociety edited by Steven G. Jones

A book that was at the forefront of the description of internet social life and it’s consequences was Virtual Culture: Identity & Communication In Cybersociety edited by Steven G. Jones. It was published by SAGE Publications Ltd. in London in 1997. This book explores the structure of community within the context of the internet, and the effects online social life has on it’s participants. The book is outdated in that it was published in 1997 and it deals with the internet, with which countless advancements have been made in the past years. However, in 1997 with the internet being mainly text based and revolving around interaction more than the individual, this book has extreme relevance to the time.

At the time Jones put this book together, he was the Professor and Chair of the Faculty of Communications at the University of Tulsa. Published in 1995, his book Cybersociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community earned him critical acclaim. He has made presentations to scholarly and business groups about the Internet and its’ power to bring about social change, and the Internet’s social and commercial uses.

The book begins with a short introduction in which Jones describes how this book is different from his other book CyberSociety. Jones firmly separates the books and states:

Whereas Cybersociety concentrated on the nature of online communities and social formation, Virtual Culture converges on the nature of social and civic life online, and asks (fairly begs) the question: what is it about life offline that makes us so intent on living online? (Jones, viv)

The first chapter is entitled, “The Internet and its Social Landscape”, which was written by Jones himself. Jones looks to prove how the internet is providing a revolution. He also looks to explore how computer-mediated communication (CMC) facilitates “the loss of personality that often accompanies the meditation of communication via computer”, and the time the internet takes to master, which in turn decreases our “face-to-face” interaction with others (Jones, 7).

He frequently references Howard Rheingold, media critic, on a frequent basis as other contributors do, and postulates an idea based on his ideas. Jones believes that there are dual potentialities of the internet. First, he believes the internet can create community “as we had once known it”, which would create the “great good old place” that we had once known. He also contends that the internet can get us together without expending much effort because, “it would overcome space and time for us” (Jones 9).

The overcoming time and space idea, is Jones’ main point. He believes that the internet is free of the constraints of space and time because it allows us to engage with others, but it doesn’t depend on geographic location or time; the community can be constructed from communication and interaction within the group, instead of a set of preconceived values about the places where participants come from (Jones 10). Jones quotes Licklider and Taylor from their 1968 article:

life will be happier for the on-line individual because the people with whom one interacts most strongly will be selected more by commonality of interests and goals than by accidents of proximity…communication will be more effective and productive, and therefore more enjoyable. (Licklider, 31)

The next chapter is, “The Individual within the Collective: Virtual Ideology and the Realization of Collective Principles” by Jan Fernback a doctoral candidate at the Center for Mass Media Research, School of Journalism, and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado. This chapter looks to explore the individual and the collective in the online world. Fernback believes that since, “social life has become so large in scale that we cannot function as a ‘public’ in any real sense, only in a symbolic, rhetorical sense” (Jones, 37). However she believes that cyberspace has become the new arena for participation in public life. Fernback contends that open-minded space is the breeding ground for mutual respect, political solidarity, and civil discourse.

However, Fernback then goes on question what exactly collectivity is. She questions if it indeed is, “a group of like minded individuals” (Jones 40). Fernback believes that community in cyberspace emphasizes a community based around similar interests which will hopefully lead to social bonding within the community and a “communal” spirit. Yet, Fernback admits that virtual communities are missing the sense of individuality that can operate within the community. This is due to Dewey’s principal that, “the individual’s full potential cannot be realized without the context of the community to guide it” (Jones 42). In other words the individual does not realize how valuable he is until viewed in context with the community itself.

The third chapter is entitled, “Virtual Commonality: Looking for India on the Internet,” written by Ananda Mitra, assistant professor of Communication at Wake Forest University. This chapter deals with a UseNet group on soc.culture.indian aka sci. Yet at the beginning of the chapter Mitra offers insight from a commentator on communities of the web, which really looks to disprove the notion that a community is a group of people with a similar interest.

A community is more than a bunch of people distributed in all 24 time zones, sitting in their dens and pounding away on keyboards about the latest news in alt.music.indigo-girls. That’s not a community; it’s a fan club. Newsgroups, mailings lists, chat rooms-call them what you will- the Internet’s virtual communities are not communities in almost any sense of the word. A community is people who have greater things in common than a fascination with a narrowly defined topic. (Snyder, 1996)

Mitra then turns to observing the UseNet group previously mentioned. The posts generally suggest that while many of the members are not from India, the posts are from a nationalist standpoint as if the posters were in India. Mitra then shifts to crossposting in that people from various communities are crossposting between boards, in which generally hateful remarks result.

Chapter four entitled, “Structural Relations, Electronic Media, and social Change: The Public Electronic Network and the Homeless” deals with the PEN or the Public Electronic Network. The chapter was written by Joseph Schmitz, a professor of Communications at the University of Tulsa, and a forerunner of PEN. PEN had six main objectives: “to provide electronic access to public information; to aid delivery of city services; to enhance communication among residents; to enhance Santa Monica’s sense of community through electronic conferences among residents; to diffuse knowledge of, and access to, the new communication technology; to facilitate an equitable distribution of communication resources to have the ‘have nots’” (Jones, 81). While Schmitz was at the forefront of this network, he points out that there was a separation between the conversations within the text.

Note how the PEN text features elites conversing directly with the homeless about issues important to both. While these entries are atypical because they do not include much of the mundane “chat” common to many PEN entries of this time, they do reflect the tone and content of the early Homeless conference. (Jones 90)

The next chapter by Nessim Watson, “Why We Argue About Virtual Community: A Case Study of the Phish.Net Fan Community”, deals with the interactions on the Phish.Net community. Watson is an adjunct professor in the Communications Department at Westfield State College. Early in the chapter Watson defines exactly what community is from the Random House Dictionary of the English Language.

1. a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural  and historical heritage…3…group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists.

Watson disagrees with the common notion that a community is firmly based on frequency of visitation. Instead he believes in community more in the sense of dedication and belief in the community.  (Jones 105)

Chapter six by David F. Shaw, a doctoral candidate at the Center for Mass Media Research, School of Journalism, and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado deals with the gay community online. The chapter entitled “Gay Men and Computer Communication: A Discourse of Sex and Identity in Cyberspace”, deals a lot with Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Shaw used this to interview many gay men on the web. He believes by doing this he established their trust because he was part of the community in a sense because he was actively participating in it (Jones 134). However IRC is void of all physicality. There is no body language, no figure to view while you chat, no change in tone of voice, and no facial expression. However, through IRC users exchanges pictures of each other over the web. Shaw then goes on to relate a “gaysex” channel part of the IRC, in which he relates it to finding a gay bar. In this channel gay men can come and send images to one another, gossip, give stories of sexual bravado etc. Heterosexual men sometimes even lurk on the channel then “gaybash” the members, which makes it even more real for the gay members (Jones, 137).

The next chapter is by three authors, Margaret L. McLaughlin, Professor of Communication at the University of Southern California, and her two students, Kerry K. Osborne, and Nicole B. Ellison. The chapter is entitled “Virtual Community in a Telepresence Environment”, and it deals mainly with the different social interactions and relationships between members on a website. The team discovers that, “there seems to be a prevailing sentiment that new technologies require us to invent novel strategies for organizing social relations” (Jones, 147). According to the team, new strategies include new expressive forms of communication like emoticons, graphic accents, etc. The team describes that in online communities there is a need for a set of rules and boundaries, as well as a system for behavior monitoring. They explore the Tele-Garden in which you can maintain a garden through the use of a robot. According to the team, it was created to provide a test for a new generation of low-cost “point and click” devices for control of a robotic apparatus over wide area networks (Jones, 149).

Dawn Dietrich is the author of the next chapter, and is an assistant professor of English at Western Washington University. The chapter, “(Re)-Fashioning the Techno-Erotic Woman: Gender and Textuality in the Cybercultural Matrix”. The chapter mainly focuses on the vague point of gender differences within various postmodern technologies. She uses an exaggerated metaphor from Allucquere Rosanne Stone (1991) who offered a feminist interpretation of gendered technologies “by deconstructing the act of penetrating the screen, an act which she attributes to the heterosexual male user who empowers himself by incorporating the surfaces of cyberspace into himself” (Jones, 170).

The next chapter is by Susan Zickmund, an assistant professor of Speech Communications at Augustana College. Zickmund claims that while there are sites designed around right radicalism, there are those who populate the site just to provide hatred toward its cause. She also goes on to discuss hate websites such as alt.skinhead, sometimes come from outside the culture. She believes with this, that an “Ideological Dialectic” is established.

“Punishing the Persona: Correctional Strategies for the Virtual Offender”, by Richard C. MacKinnon, doctoral student at the ACTLAB at the University of Texas, MacKinnon looks for the consequences for your actions while on the internet. MacKinnon views actions and their consequences in this way,

1. Evaluating suspect actions in their local context.
2. Preserving the local context by the proper direction of punishment
3. Establishing a rage of punishments appropriate to the local context and reflective of the relative seriousness of the crime. (Jones, 208)

MacKinnon goes on to describe the various acts of crimes committed by Kevin Mitnick, Mr Bungle, and Jake Baker, on the internet.

The last chapter by Harris Breslow, a Professor in the Mass Communications Programme at York University, is entitled “Civil Society, Political Economy, and the Internet”. He believes that the internet can be corporately commercialized just like television can influence what you eat. Breslow states, “In this respect the Internet is a disputed site it is contested by, on the one hand, commercial and political forces that wish to define the Net in much the same way as television was construed…” Each aspect of our lives can influence the internet, just as the internet can in turn influence us (Jones, 237).

While this book is extremely outdated in the context of the internet, it provided us with some theoretical principles that in some ways governed the way people use the internet. Its arguments about the legitimacy of a “virtual” community, are battles still being fought today. In reference to our class, it seems that a general idea of the book was that these online communities serve to in some ways worship a totem, which in this case is the community itself. Another aspect that relates to our class is the consistent idea of interacting on an online community as a sort of human interaction with the virtual world, and in some ways a ritual. The ritual with online communities is the act of laying one’s hands on a keyboard and typing on the message board or email (Jones 28). The idea of the group being more important than the individual is also another worldly idea, however I want to make the case for religion. Jones contends:

No longer do we, as members of the group belong to the community, rather the community belongs to us. Our sense of identity is not only derived from our identification with the group, it is derived from our understanding of the group identity. (Jones 16)

This is the same principle as religion. While someone’s religion belongs to them, without the individual that is part of that religion, the religion would have less gravity. Building on this quote, with religion it is the general understanding that one cannot truly understand themselves, without understanding the religion as a whole.

Virtual culture has drastically changed over the years and has held to some of the predictions that were made in the past about it. Yet, I somehow don’t believe that back in 1997, predictions were made that the internet would be as vast as it is today. During that time, users were amazed at the fact of being able to send each other .gifs of .jpgs at extremely slow speeds. Now users of the internet can stream movies while participating in an online community while doing work, among the millions of other possibilities. This book while outdated provided great insight into the way that the internet was thought of and studied in 1997. It also served as a blueprint in a way for what was to come. However, due to it being outdated, it was boring at times, due to the fact that I knew exactly what they were talking about. Another note about the author is that, Jones seemed to reference himself many times in the book. In his own essay he referenced back to his previous books, and in almost every other essay in the book. While this didn’t detract from the meaning of the book, it was as if Jones wanted to be center of attention even though he only edited the book.

Works Cited

Jones, Steven G. Virtual Culture: Identity & Communication In Cybersociety. 1st ed. London: SAGE Ltd., 1997. Print.

Licklider, J.C.R., & Taylor, R.W. (1968, April). “The computer as a communication            device”. Science & Technology, 21-31.

Snyder, J. (1996). “Get real”. Internet World, 7(2), 92-94.

Final Paper

From day to day, people go through the motions, and do their major and menial tasks to get them through the day. Then the next day they start over, maybe doing something that is different but for the most part the same day. Yet, are the seemingly “meaningless” actions they do really meaningless? The repeated physical actions that people do each day influence them without them realizing it. You ever wonder why when someone goes to church, or temple they know almost inherently how to conduct themselves in an appropriate fashion. Sociologists and anthropologists alike have found that, “social behaviors are often learned without conscious intellectual understanding” (Penny 74). This can be applied to ritual and virtual reality. In videogames, participants unconsciously learn the game. They aren’t memorizing everything the game displays, it’s more of a passive absorption. In ritual this is the same thing. The repetitiveness of ritual helps participants learn how to behave within that ritual. Participants in ritual and virtual reality adopt certain identities to help them act accordingly within those respectful situations.

In video games a gamer may adopt many different identities to suit the game they are playing. Yet, the constant debate is whether gamers can draw the line between the identity they have while playing, and the identity they have outside of the game. The main focus on this debate is violent videogames. Many say that violent videogames influence the players without them knowing, and change them so much that they become more violent outside of the videogame.

Yet, videogames can be a cathartic experience for some people. Participants get to play out their violent urges through the game Rene Girard states:

Violence is frequently called irrational. It has its reasons, however, and can marshal some rather convincing ones when the need arises. Yet these reasons cannot be taken seriously, no matter how valid they may appear. Violence itself will discard them if the initial object remains persistently out of reach and continues to provoke hostility. When unappeased violence seeks and always finds a surrogate victim. (Girard 241)

If we apply this theory to videogames, then violence will find a way to come out in participants who play violent videogames. The “violent” identity they adopt while playing the videogame can become their identity while not playing the game.

The formality of ritual also adds to this adoption of identity. The formality that is present during ritual and games is not present in the outside world. The formality of the ritual comes from “liturgical orders” (Rappaport 428). These “liturgical orders” include fixed sequences of words and acts. However while these events are so formal, what does that do for the ritual? Are participants not just concentrated on the rules, and “correctness of act, recitation and chant,” therefore, “Their primary concern, if not obsession is with rules” (Staal 484). Staal believes that ritual is meaningless, and that participants don’t really concentrate on the sacredness of the actions and recitations that they are doing. Instead the participants need to realize that essentially ritual is only an activity that has no goal, or meaning (Ibid 487).

Events are not sacred just because the presence of something that is deemed sacred. For example, right now as I write this paper, I am sitting in a study lounge and behind me three girls are sitting at a table, lighting a menorah and saying prayers. The ritual happening in this room is not particularly sacred to me just because the presence of a sacred object, the menorah, or even the utterances of prayer. In the words of Arnold Van Gennep, “Characteristically, the presence of the sacred (and the performances of appropriate rites) is variable. Sacredness as an attribute is not absolute; it is brought into play by the nature of particular situations.” (Van Gennep 530)

The identity that participants adopt within the confines of video games is inherently affected by formality as well. Video games have a narrative as rituals whether it is meaningful or not. There are games with a very loose narrative such as Pac-Man, where the object is to avoid the ghosts chasing after Pac-Man and eat as many white dots in the maze that you can. On the other hand there are games in which the narrative governs the game like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, or the controversial Super Columbine Massacre RPG. In games and film alike we “willingly suspend our disbelief” and become absorbed within the game itself and the protagonist’s struggle. We “give over our choice-making power,” and “passively allow the narrative to lead us where it will,” and eventually “we are taken to places that we might never reach in our actual lives” (Perlin 12-13). With this suspension of disbelief, we are unconsciously letting the narrative and all the other aspects of the game become real life in a sense. We become the protagonist that we are playing. His struggles become ours as we embark on somewhat of a spiritual journey. With the story we allow it to take away our right to make choices or our “agency” (Ibid 14).

We can compare ritual again to violent rituals such as sacrifice. According to Girard all sacrifice has an underlying commonality, which is internal violence. Girard states, “all the dissensions, rivalries, jealousies, and quarrels within the community that the sacrifices are designed to suppress” (Girard 244). Yet, when you take a look at sacrifice, whether it be human or animal, sacrifice is trying to prevent the one thing that it itself contains, violence. The slaughtering of an animal or a human is violent. Sacrificial rituals perpetuate violence among its participants because they in turn are partaking in an act of violence, even though it is said to be sacred. If someone were to murder someone and when the police asked the murderer why they killed the person and they said, “I killed them because I was trying to prevent God/gods from becoming violent and instigating violence within society” the police would think the person was deranged. Yet, a human sacrifice within a ritual context is acceptable?

However, Walter Burkert contends that through the irreversible “act” of sacrifice we are transformed, we reach a new plane (Burkert 64). By seeing sacrifice it is possible that we have a greater appreciation for life, and want to live it the best we possibly can within our community. With this Burkert states that, “a sense of community arises from collective aggression” (Ibid 62). However, the sacrificial ritual must be based on seriousness. While many sacrificial rituals are theatrical they can become so obvious to the other participants of the ritual that it negates the function of the ritual itself. The ritual must be rooted in seriousness because the other participants may, on impulse, want to imitate the violent actions outside of the ritual world, again undermining its function. To parry this, Burkert contends that there must be a, “regression from symbolism to reality,” in order to preserve its meaning and sacredness (Ibid 65).

Violent video games are becoming some of the most popular and controversial types of video games on the market right now. According to the popular gaming website IGN, the first day sales of the new installment in the popular Call of Duty series, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, were an estimated 1.23 million units in the UK, practically doubling the previous record holder Grand Theft Auto IV which sold an estimated 631,000 units (Reilly). People’s lives literally get taken over by playing games such as Modern Warfare 2. I have many friends who have logged thousands of hours playing these popular first person shooters (FPS). Again going along with Ken Perlin’s idea that we in some ways “become” the protagonist, this could be the reason for the popularity of such games. Gamers, “pursue immersion to temporarily escape the stresses of everyday life, or vicariously enjoy the exploits of fictional characters as an antidote to the mundanity of their owns lives” (Douglas 196). Video games and rituals alike look to give the participant a transcendent experience. While video games look to take you out of your “mundane” life and experience something exciting, rituals on the other hand look to connect you with the sacred.

The repetitiveness aspect of video games and ritual also adds to the identity that participants adopt while being a part of each situation. In ritual, repetition is one of the main aspects that is said to get the goal of the ritual across, if there indeed is a goal. The redundancy of repeating different utterances is one way of achieving this goal or message. For example in a Catholic church service, to which I have been to many a time, the priest may pronounce a prayer and at the end of each prayer the congregation may repeat the prayer or a phrase such as, “Lord have mercy,” which emphasizes the priest’s prayer. The redundancy of these utterances or phrases can have a double effect. The negative effect is, “various kinds and patterns of repetitions that occur sometimes bore[ing] us with their seemingly insistently unvarying recurrence,” or the positive effect in that they are “sometimes subtly stimulating in us a sense of creative variation and attentive expectation” (Tambiah 504).

Repetition is part of the procedural rhetoric of video games. Through these repetitive actions you learn the point of the game and gain flow. It’s like the saying, “practice makes perfect” goes. Obviously repetition with anything will make you better at whatever you are doing. The military realized this with the advent of video games. In the mid-90s the U.S. licensed rights to create a Marine Doom based on the popular game Doom in which you fight alien like beings. The game was controversial for its graphic violence, even though it’s nothing compared to the graphicness of violent video games today. The game was similar to the classic Duck Hunt, except the gun is a plastic M-16 and what you are shooting are not ducks, but people (Penny 75-76). If the Marines use videogames in hopes of influencing their soldier’s actions in the real world, it can be said that video games can influence anyone who play them in relation to their actions outside the game. Yet, I’ve played video games like Call of Duty and I’m not going to go out and shoot someone. It depends on the context in which the games are used. The Marines in this case are using them as a professional training tool, even though videogames in general are not designed to train the individuals who play them. If I were to pick up a weapon I am pretty confident I couldn’t use that weapon in a proficient manner just from simulating shooting a weapon in a videogame. Yet Simon Penny contends:

So, in the spirit of “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” we are drawn to the conclusion that what separates the first person shooter from the high-end battle simulator is the location of one in an adolescent bedroom and the other in a military base. And having accepted that simulators are effective environments for training, we must accept that so too are the desktop shooter games. The question is: what exactly is the user being trained to do? (Penny 76)

This is exactly the problem people have with violent videogames. With all of these theories taken into account people opposed to violent videogames believe that playing these games will influence the players to commit violent crimes because they have been essentially “trained” to use weapons, different evasive tactics, learned ways to devise a plan that will be successful, and learned to be merciless when killing. However, the line must be drawn somewhere. I don’t believe Columbine happened because Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold played violent video games. They obviously had issues that were deeper than videogames. The game made about the Columbine School Shooting, Super Columbine Massacre RPG! developed by Danny Ledonne portrays the school shooting. Ledonne didn’t develop it to offend people or advocate violent video games. According to Ledonne he wanted to make something that showed the side of the shooters and how much of an atrocity what they did was. He wanted the player to become the killers in a sense to see exactly what they were going through when they were shooting their fellow students. Obviously Ledonne got a lot of hateful criticism for making this game as seen in the documentary Playing Columbine. Yet, Ledonne was asking the player to adopt an identity that facilitated his goal for the game, not telling kids to go out and shoot up their schools.

Having one’s own identity is important in life. Participants in videogames and rituals can adopt an endless amount of identities which in violent videogames’ case we hope they leave the identity with the game; unless of course you are the a Marine playing Marine Doom. Ritual and videogames are inseparable because of their immense commonalities. Everything about one can be related to the other. In the end, the identities adopted during rituals and videogames are interchangeable. The influence of ritual and videogames on life outside of these constructs is evident. However, it is up to the individual to determine if they let those identities influence them.

Works Cited

Burkert, Walter. 1983. “The Function and Transformation of Ritual Killing,” in Homo            Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, 35-48.            Translated by Peter Bing. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Douglas, J. Yellowlees and Hargadon, Andrew. “The Pleasures of Immersion and            Interaction: Schemas, Scripts, and the Fifth Business.” First Person New Media            as Story, Performance, and Game. Ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan.            Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004. 196. Print

Girard, Rene. 1977. “Sacrifice,” from Violence and the Sacred, 1-15,17-33. Translated by            Patrick Gregory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Penny, Simon. “Representation, Enaction, and the Ethics of Simulation.” First Person            New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat            Harrigan. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004. 74-76. Print

Perlin, Ken. “Can There Be a Form Between a Game and a Story?” First Person New            Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat            Harrigan. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004. 12-14. Print

Rappaport, Roy A. 1979, “The Obvious Aspects of Ritual,” from Ecology, Meaning and            Religion, 175-180, 188-195, 197-200, 208-214, 216-221. Berkeley, CA: North            Atlantic.

Reilly, Jim. “First Day Modern Warfare 2 Sales To Top 7 Million?.” IGN XBOX360. 11            November 2009. IGN XBOX360, Web. 16 Dec 2009.            <http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/104/1044456p1.html>.

Staal, Frits. 1979. “The Meaninglessness of Ritual,” Numen 26(1): 2-22.

Tambiah, Stanley J. 1981. “A Performative Approach to Ritual,” Proceedings of the            British Academy, 1979 65:116-142.

van Gennep, Arnold. 1960 (1909). The Rites of Passage, 10-13,15-25. Edited by Monika            B Vizedom and Gabrielle Caffee. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Wrapping up RRVR

I thoroughly enjoyed this class. I have always been fascinated with religion and the playful and funny aspects of it, and this class has definitely served that fascination. At first I didn’t know what to expect with this class. Through the title I thought we were going to be discussing religions in virtual reality that use rituals. I was right in a sense if you take a look at Online Religion and their use of virtual reality to create rituals and services. Yet, the class encompassed so much more. The information about identities really made me take a good look at the way people act in certain situations not just ritual and games. However, through observing identity in ritual and games I feel I better understand my own identity and how I change from situation to situation. I also thoroughly enjoyed the discussions about SCMRPG! This is such a tough topic to grapple with and discuss but I can really relate to Danny Ledonne’s reasons for making the game. I obviously don’t believe he did it to offend people or put the tragedy on some sort of pedestal for people to extol. Yet, I also see the other side of the story for people being offended by it. Many people don’t care about the artistic expression of a game of that sort if they were in some way affected by the tragedy. The real life applications of the theories we discussed were truly amazing to me such as procedural rhetoric. This can be related to everything that we do. The procedurality of our actions does have a meaning and an end game if you will. I know now that when I pick up a video game controller or go to a Church service I will take a good look at the way the situation functions to persuade me in some way.

Thank you for a great semester Rachel.

Happy Holidays,

Mark

Summary of “So Long, Dalai Lama: Google Adapts to China” by Joseph Kahn

This article titled, “So Long, Dalai Lama: Google Adapts to China” in the New York Times, Joseph Kahn, discusses the censorship of China and its relation to the new Google.com subsidy Google.cn. This site is specifically a Google site for citizens of China because it omits results that the Chinese government does not want its people to see. For example when searching for the Dalai Lama on Google.cn, out the 161 images that come up only a few are truly the Dalai Lama, and they are not even of him in present times. The photos are when the Dalai Lama was a young man meeting with senior Chinese officials before 1959 when China’s People’s Liberation Army invaded Tibet and the Dalai Lama fled the country.

Kahn goes on to discuss that many companies have come under fire for helping the Chinese government “police the web.” Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco were among the companies that were involved with China and the web. Yet, according to Kahn, Google had cooperated the most willingly. Google works close with Chinese officials to make sure that results on Google.cn are approved by the government. The main international search engine, Google.com still works in China, yet inefficiently because China has it’s own firewall that does not let people access things that are deemed unacceptable.

However many feel that Google has betrayed its motto, “Don’t be evil.” The new Google.cn even hides what it is censoring. In other words you don’t know even know the topic of what is being censored. On one hand I feel that their should be freedom of the press everywhere because things that are being censored sometimes are useful information. However, if Google wants to work in China it has to respect the Chinese government and their wishes.

Summary of “The Sacred and the Profane” by Wagner James Au

The article, “The Sacred and the Profane” deals with the popular game Second Life that we have discussed a lot in class. The article was written by a blogger who blogs a lot about Second Life named Wagner James Au. In the article Au interviews a fellow second lifer named Rafin Grimm, the main question of the interview, “Why he disassembled his Roman Catholic cathedral?” Rafin wanted to make a Church based on Catholic beliefs where Grimm states, “I try to be good and o good things.” Grimm stated that the reason he tore his Church down was because it was causing a lot more problems than good, as well as the fact that no one seemed to use the Church.

As Au pries more into the questions, Grimm stated that a lot of people were supportive of the idea of a church but not the church itself. Through the whole interview two fellow second lifers are in Grimm’s apartment where a woman named wench Phaeton and a man in leather chaps are doing “innuendo drenched” activity. Grimm stated that he found himself in a position in which he had to defend his faith to others, and that he didn’t feel qualified. Grimm found that most of the people in Second Life were atheist and therefore thought Grimm was trying to make a statement about faith with the Church.

Wench and her leather chaps man named Angel start discussing M-rated activities during the interview but added that they didn’t do anything in the Church because they respect Grimm’s beliefs. Au asks Grimm about wench and he tells Au that they are his friends and that he doesn’t judge them just like people shouldn’t judge him with his Church.  When asked if he thinks atheists are attracted to Second Life Grimm said no but, “I just think it is becoming more and more the belief of society.” Grimm says that a lot of young people tend to stray from religion. He also suggests that people come to Second Life to get out “sin” or promiscuous sex urges, because in the game you can do pretty much anything you want. In the end Au states that Grimm hopes to do things in the future that involve his faith.

Summary of Ruth Gledhill’s, “Manchester Cathedral says Sony apology not enough and issues new digital rules”

Ruth Gledhill’s July 2007 article, “Manchester Cathedral says Sony apology not enough and issues new digital rules” discusses how the game Resistance: Fall of Man offended the Manchester Cathedral by using the Cathedral’s interior for this “violent” video game. Gledhill begins by informing the reader that due to Sony offending Manchester Cathedral, the Cathedral is calling for a set of “sacred digital guidelines” that will prevent videogames from offending religious buildings. She also states that Sony issued an apology to the clergy and congregation of Manchester Cathedral. They vowed to never use the Cathedral in another game. Although the apology was deserved and accepted, the Cathedral believed that the apology wasn’t enough, and called for the withdrawal of the video game Resistance: Fall of Man. The clergy also requested a donation from Sony to their work with gun crime and young people.

According to Gledhill the whole issue stems from Sony not receiving permission to use Manchester Cathedral’s nave for a gun battle in the game. Manchester Cathedral was appalled by the use of the interior for obvious reasons, but also because one of the Cathedral’s missions is to support the struggle against gun crime. Gledhill states that the Cathedral holds a service for relatives and friends of victims of gun crime.

According to Dean of Manchester, the Very Rev Rogers Govender, the Cathedral Chapter has drawn up “Sacred Digital Guidelines” which are believed to be the first of it’s kind, to prevent the desecration of religious buildings. Dean Govender explains that since his congregation is Christian they look down on all forms of violence, and urge game makers to make non-violent video games. Govender wants all game manufacturers to sign on to the new guidelines to prevent future desecration of religious buildings. The President of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, David Reeves, stated that while Sony apologizes for offending those in the Christian community, it was never their intention to offend anyone with the videogame.

Gledhill ends the article with the Digital Guidelines code of Conduct:

Digital Guidelines code of conduct

1. Respect our sacred spaces as places of prayer, worship, peace, learning and heritage.

2. Do not assume that sacred space interiors are copyright free.

3. Get permission from the faith leaders who are responsible for the building interiors you want to clone.

4. Support the work of those engaged in resisting the culture of gun crime and those involved in promoting the work of conflict resolution.

 

Summary of, “Downloads and upgrades: The Cyborg Future” by Phillipa Taylor

Phillipa Taylor discusses where the advancements in the human cyborg world are taking us. She starts out giving the reader a picture of a world where robotics is a huge part of the world (ie doors opening and lights turning on when going into a room, operating a wheelchair with neural signals).

She goes on to discuss Professor Kevin Warwick from Reading University who has been experimenting and pioneering devices of the “cyborg” nature since 1998. He experiments on himself with his devices to see how electronic stimulation of the human brain can alter behavior. He implanted a tiny electronic implant in his arm to experiment on himself. He hopes to work with patients who have lost limbs and help them gain control of artificial limbs through neural signals. In other words help them gain control through thinking about what they are trying to do. Warwick works closely with the National Spinal Injuries Center to help people with spinal injuries. According to Warwick thousands of patients in the U.K. with Parkinson’s are already benefitting from implants.

Taylor goes on to discuss Warwick’s aim with his research which he presented at the Center for Bioethics and Public Policy’s conference, “Brave New Britain: New Technologies and the Future of Human Nature” in November 2005. He has two plans with his research. First, is to advance the treatment technologies, and the technology that is used for therapeutic use more specifically those with disabilities like spinal injuries.  His second plan is to improve technology that is used to enhance or “upgrade” humans.

Taylor then discusses Warwick’s ideas about computers and the networking capabilities. Taylor poses the questions, “Is it possible to link the brain and computer?”, and “If it is, what does it mean if my brain is linked to your brain?” According to Warwick we do have the technology to link our brains. However Warwick poses the eerie question that if we are all linked together then “I” sort of becomes “We” and does that mean “I” am still human. He also asks how “human” we would be if we were linked to computers. We would almost be machines.

Taylor asks the question that with Warwick’s research in mind should he be aloud to continue? She concedes that it is bringing benefits to different types of therapy. Warwick believes that in eight to ten years we will see brain implants and “direct communication by thought.” Taylor offers some insight in the last part of the article. She believes that a line must be drawn when human nature comes under threat from this technology (human nature meaning the things that make us human biologically, psychosocially). Taylor contends that the lines between humane technological interventions and inhumane must be determined.

“Article Summary of Cyber Communion Finding God in the Little Box” by Ally Ostrowski; by Mark Glaser

The debate over online worship and it’s legitimacy is an extremely polarized topic. Ally Ostrowski’s article “Cyber Communion: Finding God in the Little Box” serves to observe the online worship community of Church of Fools, through a study conducted by the Pew Foundation. The Church of Fools is an online interactive Christian Church. It was formed in UK in May 2004, and has grown to over 8,000 members. The survey was conducted with a specific focus on the ritual act of communion in the online context, and it’s legitimacy.

Ostrowski’s concern in the article is with communion. She postulates that if communion must be undertaken in the presence of others in a communal setting, can it be held in an online forum as well. On the Church of Fools website members can log on and go into a virtual church, and sit with others, just like a real church. Ostrowski contends that online worship seeks to blend the lines between physical and metaphysical parts of life.

She goes on to give a statistic of the Pew Foundation’s findings. According to the study, 67% of people search for information about their religion online. 10% participate in an online chat room and only 4% participate in an online religious service. With this Ostrowski states that there is a separation between those who are curious about their religion, and those who actually want to participate in it online. According to Christopher Helland in his article  “Online-Religion / Religion-Online and Virtual Communitas” which Ostrowski uses in her article, there is a divide also between religion online, and online religion. Religion online, are sites that provide information about religion. Online religion refers to practice of a religion online.

Ostrowski then moves onto the study itself. An ethnographic approach was used to conduct the survey. This approach was used because it had experience in developing native terms from the population. The approach also deals with exploring the perspective of the participant, as well as the fact that religion has a very well defined structure. Several questions were asked in the survey to determine the relationships the participants displayed with religious communities offline, to see if they believed that communion was necessary in religious practices. Another question was their reason for the visit to the Church of Fools website. Many participants stated that they visited the site because they had heard about the Church in reputable online sources like CNN, New York Times, ABC, as well as being curious for online worship.

Ostrowski then goes on to the results. Many of the participants acknowledged the drawbacks of having no contact with other members, but said there was still a strong bond between the members of the community. Other’s condemned the Church’s replication of the “real” church in that they put all the bad parts of real life church like the congregation not being able to shape the service, in that you can only listen. Other participants stated that they could not attend church in real life often due to physical disability. Many believe that it’s a portable sacred space to those who want to go to church, however they can’t make it there. Another thing that participants liked about the church is that you can stay as long as you want.

Ostrowski then discusses the relationships between the members, and their relationship to the question at hand. Many felt a strong bond with other members in that they contacted them via e mail or post card outside of the Church. Half of the participants wanted to take part in an online communion while the other half didn’t. Many participants believed that since God is everywhere, why shouldn’t he be online. Those opposed to the online communion believed that in order to receive communion you must actually receive the physical bread and wine.

Ostrowski ends the article stating that since the internet has become an endless land of possibilities, that communion in an online Religious forum should be one of those possibilities. She also states that the survey suggests that there is no correlation between friendships and relationships with those on online communities being less strong than offline ones.