Digital Soul

Abstract

The Internet age of media communication has been gradually and subtly changing the way in which we experience ourselves and the world we live in. Broadcasting our lives on the web also involves the everyday exteriorization of emotions onto the technical mediators of the third degree, as Jensen calls them (2006). Expressions of emotional experience is something we see every day on social networks, but they are also becoming an integral part of user content under the media text on web portals. These so-called intellectual technologies are acquiring some of the essential human characteristics such as rationality, memory, calculation, and translation, as well as emotionality and communication (Carr 2014, Turkle 2011).Where do Emotions live when we transfer them into the virtual world and how do they become an integral part of media content? Where does one’s soul live when transferred to one’s virtual self? These are the questions we will try to answer in the first part of this paper. We will analyse the virtual space, its possibilities and limitations. We will discuss the potential of online media to mediate emotional experiences. We will also seek to understand technology and devices as an alternative humanity, when people fail or refuse to act by themselves. We will try to find answers to questions about the consequences of such mediation, referring to the research of other scholars including Siva Vaidhyanathan, Sherry Turkle, Nicholas Carr, and others.In the second part, we will discuss the subtle encroachment of the emotional upon the world of the media. The last part of the paper will present some literary analyses of media intermediation that sporadically appear in works by world-renown writers (Rushdie, Hugo, Mehmedinović, Sábato, Spengler...) and the interaction of their understanding of the media with McLuhan’s view of media intermediation and the extension/mutilation of senses.Mrežno doba medijskog posredovanja postepeno i suptilno mijenja način na koji doživljavamo sebe i svijet u kojem živimo. Emitiranje vlastitih života na mrežama uključuje i svakodnevno eksterioriziranje emocija na tehničke posrednike trećeg stepena kako ih naziva Jensen (prema Bogdanić 2013). Ispoljavanje emocionalnih doživljaja čitamo svakodnevno na društvenim mrežama, ali one postaju i sastavni dio korisničkih sadržaja ispod redovnih medijskih tekstova na web portalima. Ove, takozvane, intelektualne tehnologije, preuzimaju esencijalne ljudske osobine poput racionalnosti, memorije, računanja, prevođenja, ali i osobine poput emocionalnosti i komunikativnosti (Carr 2014, Turkle 2010).Gdje žive emocije kada ih prenesemo u virtuelno i kako postaju sastavni dio medijskih sadržaj? Gdje živi čovjekova duša prenesena u njegov virtuelni self? – pitanja su na koja ćemo tražiti odgovore u prvom dijelu ovoga rada. Analizirat ćemo virtuelni prostor, njegove mogućnosti i ograničenja. Diskutirat ćemo o potencijalu mrežnih medija za posredovanje emocionalnih doživljaja. Tragat ćemo i za razumijevanjem tehnologije i uređaja kao alternativne ljudskosti, onda kada zakaže ili ne želi djelovati čovjek sam. Pokušat ćemo naći odgovore na pitanja o posljedicama takvog posredovanja, referirajući se na istrživanja drugih autora poput Sive Vaidhyanathana, Shery Turkle, Nicholasa Carra i drugih.Posljednji dio rada analizirat će književne analize medijskog posredovanja koje se sporadično pojavljuju u djelima svjetskih pisaca (Ruždi, Igo, Mehmedinović, Sabato, Spengler...) i interakciju njihovog razumijevanja medija s McLuhanovim viđenjem medijskog posredovanja i produžavanja/sakaćenja čula.