ABSTRACT
In the Introduction to Digital Existence, the author frames the existential terrains of connectivity through three key areas within the philosophy of existence: ontology (which is about existentiella conditions), ethics (which is about existential experiences) and transcendence (which is about existential strivings). Introducing existential media studies through these three vantage points for our digital age, the introduction also explains how this approach can both renew media studies itself, beyond its traditional comfort zones, and how it may offer new instalments to the rich debates on media and religion, and digital religion in particular. In the introduction the author furthermore outlines the scope of the book and thereby offers a fresh way of framing a variety of contemporary phenomena existentially. These range from cybernetics to feminist hackers, from Edward Snowden to the Ashley Madison hack, from trolling to the digital dead, from digital rituals to cybernetic animism – and these are also examined by the contributors representing various disciplines and fields. The introduction also discusses how these contributions represent aspects of what the existential can mean today.
