Publications
Chosen filters:
Chosen filters:
Everything Is Connected. Relocating Spiritual Power from Nature to Society KU Leuven
It is a mainstay that spiritual seekers—from New Age thinkers, neopagans, esoteric cults, or people referring to themselves as “spiritual, not religious”—imagine nature as a mysterious, spiritual, and meaningful force to counter alienating and disenchanting modernity. In this chapter, I argue that this spiritual imagination about “mysterious incalculable forces” is not necessarily projected on nature, but, perhaps increasingly, on complex modern ...
Picturing Opaque Power: How Conspiracy Theorists Construct Oppositional Videos on YouTube KU Leuven
Conspiracy theories were once perceived as delusions of individuals on the fringes of society, but have become commonplace in mainstream culture. Today, they are produced, consumed, and circulated in various online media environments. From memes on 4chan, QAnon influencers on Instagram, to flat earth or antivaxx videos on YouTube, modern-day conspiracy culture embodies compelling mediated images and narratives that are composed of various ...
Pressure to Play: Social Pressure in Online Multiplayer Games KU Leuven
Videogames cause public concerns about excessive gaming and the neglect of social relationships and obligations. This paper develops an empirically grounded, sociological explanation to understand excessive gaming. Theorizing that online multiplayer games encourage social capital acquisition, it is studied if, how and why social control is exerted over individual players. Based on in-depth interviews with 21 players three forms of social ...
Digital Religion KU Leuven
Post-Human Encounters: Humanizing the Technological Other in Videogames KU Leuven
Whether we are talking about Alexa, chat bots or a videogame character, technological artefacts are increasingly being developed to mimic different aspects of being human. However, research on people’s experience with such technologies and the cultural imaginations of what makes them human remains underdeveloped. Guided by a reexamination of the sociocultural concept of the Other, this article empirically studies how and why players humanise ...