ABSTRACT
In this chapter, to analyze the mutual conditioning of the Kalachakra and digital media technologies, the authors theorize the distinction between digitization and digitalization. A Tibetan Buddhist ceremony, the word Kalachakra means cycles of time, and involves practices of purification, teachings and Tantric empowerment. A critical Buddhist reconditioning of Stig Hjarvard’s theory of the mediatization of religion is significant for two reasons. First, it affords the tools to understand the digitalization of the Dalai Lama’s charisma, and thereby to understand the Tibetan diaspora’s contemporary multimedia, multifaceted, and multi-situational virtual conditions. Second, a Buddhist reconditioning expands Hjarvard’s theory beyond the Procrustean bed of its Protestant normative framework and affords a theory of mediatization for analyzing Asian religions. Usually, digitalization is used to describe the disruption to economies by digital media. Reconditioning Hjarvard’s theory illustrates how scholars’ own religious backgrounds shape research not only by affording particular content and symbolic forms, but also by privileging particular types of theorization.
