FRONTLINE: digital_nation: life on the virtual frontier

Last night I caught a great episode of FRONTLINE with a focus on "digital_nation: life on the virtual frontier." From the program's website and its summary introduction:

Within a single generation, digital media and the World Wide Web have transformed virtually every aspect of modern culture, from the way we learn and work to the ways in which we socialize and even conduct war. But is the technology moving faster than we can adapt to it? And is our 24/7 wired world causing us to lose as much as we've gained?

In Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier, FRONTLINE presents an in-depth exploration of what it means to be human in a 21st-century digital world. Continuing a line of investigation she began with the 2008 FRONTLINE report Growing Up Online, award-winning producer Rachel Dretzin embarks on a journey to understand the implications of living in a world consumed by technology and the impact that this constant connectivity may have on future generations. "I'm amazed at the things my kids are able to do online, but I'm also a little bit panicked when I realize that no one seems to know where all this technology is taking us, or its long-term effects," says Dretzin.

The FRONTLINE website for this episode includes a wealth of information, and the episode can be watched there online as well.

Halos and Avatars Available for Pre-Order

The book Halos and Avatars: Playing Video Games with God (Westminster John Knox Press), edited by Craig Detweiler of Pepperdine University, will be available for shipping in January, and pre-orders can be placed now through distributors like Amazon.com. The editor's introduction can be read here. The product description is as follows:

Craig Detweiler’s collection of up-to-the-minute essays on video games’ religious themes is for gamers, parents, pastors, media scholars, and theologians—virtually anyone who has dared to consider the ramifications of modern society’s obsession with video games. And there is a wealth of material to explore. From a feminist reading of the Left Behind video game to an examination of bioethics and theology in controversial games such as BioShock, this book takes on an exploding genre in popular culture. Detweiler’s well-researched work features interviews with the creators of some of today’s most popular games, who discuss their creative process and some of the deeper issues they seek to address. Essayists run the gamut from ESPN’s Matt Kitchen to Fuller Seminary’s Daniel Hodge.

Introduction: Halos and Avatars by Craig Detweiler

Section 1: Playing Games with God
1. From Tekken to Kill Bill: The Future of Narrative Storytelling? by Chris Hansen
2. Ultima IV: Stimulating the Religious Quest by Mark Hayse
3. The Play Is the Thing: Interactivity from Bible Fights to Passions of the Christ by Rachel Wagner
4. Islamogaming: The Transformation of Home Video Consoles (and Us) by Kutter Callaway

Section 2: Halos
6. Myst and Halo: A Conversation with Rand Miller and Marty O'Donnell by Lisa Swain
7. Madden Rules: Sports and the Future of Competitive Video Games by Matthew Kitchen
8. Poets, Posers, and Guitar Heroes: Virtual Art for a Virtual Age by Andrew McAlpine
9. BioShock to the System: Smart Choices in Video Games by Kevin Newgren

Section 3: Avatars
10. 'Til Disconnection Do We Part: The Initiation and Wedding Rite in Second Life by Jason Shim
11. Role Playing: Toward a Theology for Gamers by Dan White Hodge
12. Cybersociality: Connecting Fun to the Play of God by John W. Morehead

Conclusion: Born to Play by Craig Detweiler

Appendix: Beyond "Turn that Thing Off!" Elevating the Gaming Conversation between Parents & Kids by Kara Powell and Brad M. Griffin

"Detweiler and company add gaming to the growing field of religion and media studies. This groundbreakingbook includes spirituality, ethics, and theology in an analytic toolkit designed for parents and players as well as scholars and seekers.”
—Diane Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion at the USC Annenberg School for Communication

“Every parent, every gamer, every pastor needs to get Craig Detweiler’s superb collection of essays ASAP. Your ability to connect to a digital culture depends on it.”
—Leonard Sweet, Professor of Evangelism at Drew Theological School in Madison, New Jersey; and Visiting Distinguished Professor at George Fox University in Portland, Oregon

“Detweiler moves beyond the tired debate of whether video games are good or evil, probing a deeper, more interesting question: Where is God in the world of games?”
—David Thomas, author of “Video Game Reviews,” distributed by King Features Syndicate. He teaches critical video game theory at the University of Colorado, Denver

“As humanity becomes increasingly enmeshed with the interactive and the digital, we will need our spirit guides. Read this book to develop a balanced and informed sense of the way that the Spirit and the Game are starting to interact.”
—Edward Castronova, Associate Professor and Director of the Synthetic Worlds Initiative at Indiana University, and cofounder of www.terranova.blogs.com

Halos and Avatars: Possible Cover Design: Update

Update: This book will be available on January 25, 2010 and can be pre-ordered here.

Earlier this year I wrote a chapter for the book Halos and Avatars (Westminster John Knox Press, forthcoming) that touches on video games and digital cultures. The cover is being designed right now. Here's a possibility. What do folks think?

Christian Research Journal: cyberspace and the assault on reality

As I scanned the magazine titles at Barnes & Noble yesterday the cover picture and title from Christian Research Journal 31, no. 6 (2009) caught my eye, with "cyberspace and the assault on reality." This cover feature points toward an article by C. Wayne Mayhall, the journal's associate editor, titled "What Price Cyber space?" I have been researching and reflecting on the cultural, social, and theological implications of digital or cyber identity and cultures for a while now, and was pleased to see a Christian publication exploring this arena as well.

As I read the article I appreciated that Mayhall and the publisher recognized the significance of cyberspace in culture, and that its subject matter was worthy of interaction from a Christian perspective. However, in my view, while the article is better than many Christian treatments of both the Internet and other aspects of popular culture, it still tends towards the critical, even somewhat alarmist end of the spectrum, rather than a more positive and balanced stance of critical engagement. The following aspects of the publication's discussion of cyberspace would seem to bear this out.

First, the cover image and title convey a message of threat and attack, perhaps even supernatural and evil in its source. The image of the creature on the cover will likely invoke the symbolism of the satanic and demonic, rather than a monstrous creature from any number of fantasy games available on the Internet. In addition, the cover title positions the subject matter as an attack to be defended against and postures Christianity as once again under attack and largely or wholly at odds with yet another aspect of popular culture.

Second, the article is correct in drawing attention to concerns about problematic aspects of cyberspace that have resulted in some individuals (explored within the article and in a sidebar on Internet addiction), but the broader context is not presented that contrasts these unfortunate episodes with the vast majority of Internet users who do not demonstrate such problems. We should also keep in mind, as anthropologist and Second Life ethnographer Tom Boellstorf has written, "scholars of cybersociality [have] long cautioned against analogizing biological dependency to virtual contexts." In his research he "did not find the notion of addiction etically useful; it did not transparently diagnose an existent psychological disorder" (Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human [Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008], 176).

Third, in keeping with the cover imagery and title, the main thrust of the article focuses on critique by asking whether Christians should understand virtual reality as a form of "viral reality," that is, as "a toxin or poison." Mayhall answers this question in the affirmative and states that if abused, "VR can be an assault to all that makes our world have meaning." He then explores this assault through the acronym of "P-R-I-C-E" which stands for assault on place, assault on reality, assault on identity, and assault on community, and then concludes his article with a call for a return to essentialism.

In response a few thoughts come to mind. While I appreciate that Mayhall prefaces his concerns with the inclusion of "if," if abuses occur within cyberspace we might expect difficulties in certain areas, the author does explore the positive aspects in each of these areas where new experiments in play, creativity, identity, and creativity are taking place. It would have also been helpful to remember that new forms of technology and artistic expression have always impacted human conceptions of self and community. Cyberspace is but the latest expression of this, which also includes the ability to create extremely realistic and immersive environments, thus intensifying the experiences associated with these new conceptions. Finally, Mayhall seems to envision a far greater divergence between actual world concepts of place, reality, identity, and community than seems warranted by those expressed by video game players and digital culture participants in academic research on this topic.

Mayhall's article makes for an interesting contrast with my chapter, "God, Video Games and Digital Cultures: Theological Reflections on the imago Dei and Cybersociality," for the proposed volume Halos and Avatars to be edited by Craig Detweiler of the Brehm Center. My discussion draws upon the inductive theological method of Peter Berger in his book A Rumor of Angels that is informed by anthropology as well as sociology, and which results in a search for "signals of transcendence," by which he meant those "phenomena that are to be found within the domain of our ‘natural’ reality but that appear to point beyond that reality.” In my chapter I present the thesis that aspects of the cybersociality experienced in video games and digital cultures represent signals of transcendence that can be understood as an expression of human beings in their reflection of the divine image. The biblical concept of the imago Dei (humanity created in God’s image) is expressed through our activities as homo cyber (the virtual human), including homo ludens (humans at play), homo fantasia (the fantasizing and imaginative human), and homo faber (the human as maker, in this discussion the maker of cultures).

My theological reflection in these areas will be dialogical and reflexive as I bring theology and popular culture into dialogue and consider not only what theology may “say” to digital technologies, but also what these technologies may “say” back to the church. Such a dialogical and reflexive posture is crucial, because as Gordon Lynch reminds us,

"Judging popular culture on the basis of our own preformed religious and cultural assumptions, without allowing the possibility for these to be challenged or changed in some way by our study of popular culture, will not help us become better cultural critics or more thoughtful theologians." (Understanding Theology and Popular Culture)

I encourage those interested in theological reflection on cyberspace to add Mayhall's views to the mix of perspectives on the issue while also being open to a broader and more positive assessments of this phenomenon.

Dreaming Cyborg Dreams: Virtual Identity and Religious Experience

Religion Dispatches has an interesting story that touches on my research interests in synthetic worlds or cybersociality. The story is by Rachel Wagner and it is titled "Dreaming Cyborg Dreams: Virtual Identity and Religious Experience." Wagner introduces her story with the following:

"In this essay, I look at four types of immersive new media that address the issue of religious identity: Waco Resurrection, a religiously-inspired first-person shooter, Noah’s Ark, a religious online reality show; Roma Victor, a massively-multiplayer online role-playing game, and religious experiences in the online world of Second Life.

"In each of these examples, the level of immersion in online identity plays a very powerful role in shaping the authenticity of religious experience, as channeled through those digital representations of self that virtual natives call their avatars.

Wagner's article provides an interesting glimpse into the concept of virtual identity and how this connects to a sense of religious identity as experienced in synthetic worlds.

HALOS AND AVATARS: Playing Games with God Conference

I have been asked to submit a chapter for consideration for a forthcoming book through Baker Academic that deals with video games and digital cultures. Those who have their submissions accepted will meet in southern California early next year to discuss and present them at the HALOS AND AVATARS conference. The Brehm Center website describes this event:

Been swept up in a Halo marathon? Run from the law in Grand Theft Auto? Floated through Second Life as a furry avatar? Where is God amidst these imaginative activities?

From Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games like World of Warcraft to Social Networking sites like Facebook, virtual selves and digital communities are on the rise. Electronic entertainment (like videogames) has surpassed movies in both profit and influence. Yet, little research has covered the sacred aspects of videogames and digital cultures. The field is literally wide open. Leading thinkers and game designers will converge in Los Angeles for the next Reel Spirituality conference on February 28, 2009.

What sacred symbols are found within the games or universe you’re exploring?

Can religious rites be extended into virtual worlds?

What does real ministry look like amidst digital cultures?

Bring your avatar and your questions to Reel Spirituality 2009.

Reel Spirituality Conference and 15th Annual City of Angels Film Festival

Watch January 1, 2009 for the date: slated for late February or early March. The Reel Spirituality Conference will focus on electronic video games from formats like Playstations and Wii to phenomenon like Halo, Grand Theft Auto, and Second Life.

The City of the Angels Film Festival celebrates the best new, spiritually charged films.

Click here to register for HALOS AND AVATARS.