Media has also contributed to the circulation of stories and legends.Television, for example, helped people to push the boundaries of the tangible and intangible, particularly through themes of fantasy science fiction, the occult, and the unexplained. The relationship between media and spiritualism dates back to the nineteenth century, where the first type of technology used to communicate with the dead was the telegraph. Sconce’s (2000) work haunting and the media, tracks the history of the association of old and new media with paranormal and spiritual phenomena in American culture. The book attempts to unravel some of the mysteries around humans’ fascination with television, science-fiction, and unexplained paranormal activity. Sconce (2000) asks why, after 150 years of electronic communication, people still ascribe to “mystical powers to ultimately very material technologies?” (Sconce, 2000, p.g.6).
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The narratives are presented in a way that almost categorizes each phenomenon as the explained and the unexplainable. Its accounts range from legends of ghosts inhabiting televisions, stories of alien conquest through media, and attempts to contact the dead through telegraphy. Sconce proposes that all media, from telegraph, radio to the television, and computers have a “living presence” that has the potential to connect us with other territories outside the natural human senses. As Sconce notes, “Fantasy narratives and human-interest stories allow us to consider that those realms might include the spirit world and other planets. It is through these more outlandish tales that Sconce helps us see the same governing ideas in more ordinary media” (Sconce, 2000.pg 6). The spectrum that Sconce covers illustrates the fascination that humans have with technology and its connection with unexplained presences. The next section discusses the connections people are making with paranormal phenomena and religion through the mobile phone.
5.3.1 Mobile Phones and the Unknown
The concept of spirit beings from the underworld texting a living being to deliver a warning may seem bizarre, but in other contexts the idea of using the mobile phone as a communicative tool for spiritual connection is not unusual. One example of mobile phones and spirituality comes from the Philippines. In 2001 it was once hailed as the ‘texting capital’ of the world, the Philippines were known to have at least 10 million mobile phones
transmitting 100 million message a day (Roman,2006). By 2001, SMS communication had become part of the Filipino lifestyle, and was part of a strategy to overthrow the government of the time circulating the iconic text message “We Are Generation Txt” (Rheingold 2002, p.g 20) that drew a million supporters of the “People Power II” revolt against President Estrada of the Phillipines (Rheingold 2002,p.g 20).Almost a decade later (2010) there were 65 million mobile phone subscribers in population of 90 million (Pertierra, 2013).
Pertierra’s (2013) research looks at how the internet and mobile phones were changing the communication landscape in the Philippines, “even relationships with the recently dead are being affected by this technology” (Pertierra, 2013, p.g 19). Pertierra’s (2013) analysis of “mobiles and the internet as technologies of
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mediation”(Pertierra, 2013, p.g.27) presents case studies that provide context of how Filipinos are making new friends via the internet and mobile phones, the internet facilitating online marriages and receiving “texts from the grave” (Pertierra, 2013, p.g.32). A passenger ferry carrying 116 passengers caught fire and sunk an hour after leaving the shores of Manila. There were no survivors. An investigation into the incident reports that family members claiming to have received texts messages from their deceased loved ones, sometime after the ship had caught fire and sunk. A hairdresser believes her regular customer sent her two missed calls to advise he would not make his regular appointment (common way to communicate). When the hairdresser was advised her client died the day before, she believed he was letting her know what had happened to him from the grave. Although Pertierra (2013) did not delve into this case study, it was used to illustrate the way that Filipinos’ are thinking of new technologies and the way in which it mediates transnational relationships and access to ‘worlds’ beyond the local.
Religion plays a significant social role in the Philippines, and it has the largest Catholic population in Asia (Roman, 2006). In 2002, the Catholic Church began to adopt the SMS phenomenon to send spiritual messages to their parishioners. Religious messages are sent on prominent religious celebrations such as Easter, Christmas, and Mother’s and Father’s day. Subscribers state they are not always sure who sends these messages, as not all are from their church. Some people believe the messages are sent from their mobile provider. Other messages
received are chain letters or prayer requests in exchange for miracles. Another attempt to ‘evangelise’ through the phone was a project sponsored by a multinational firm that provided a “religious chatroom” for subscribers to receive counselling and encouragement; however, this was soon discontinued as some users sought sexual gratification rather than religious education. Visitors began seeking romantic and sexual partners through the service rather than moral teachings. As a result, other services emerged where messages were sent without any interaction with the subscriber (Roman, 2006)
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Such ‘push technology’ only allows the receiver to receive the message, and although in some cases they are able to respond, they can only do so directly to the mobile provider and usually for marketing purposes. Push
technology is widely used as a marketing tactic by many companies. It is not unusual to receive a non-reply
message from a mobile provider, bank, or gym to advertise or inform them of their services. The key factor in these scenarios is that these messages are sent through a business, a person, or a service. In cases where recipients believe a message was sent from the underworld, their interpretation is tied up with local cultural beliefs. The association of mobile phones with the paranormal is by no means limited to “developing” contexts. In 2001, one newspaper headline in the United Kingdom claimed, ‘Cell Phones Scare Away British Ghosts”. The article states that a tourist destination known for ‘regular’ ghost sightings had seen a decline in paranormal visitors since mobile phones were introduced (Goode, 2001). It reported that a researcher from the Society for Psychical Research claimed that the use of cell phones increases the “electric noise generated by cell phones drowns out other unusual electronic activity,” namely ghost sightings (Goode 2001.Pg 4) The case of ghosts in the United Kingdom varies significantly from the Samoan case. In the former, it is believed that mobile phones disrupt the ability of ghosts to manifest, but in Samoa, it is believed that the spirit beings the existed before humans and retain the powers to manipulate circumstances to push their agenda, even to the point of warning humans against using technology in certain ways. Samoans’ account of paranormal activity or encounters with the aitu are perceived by some as part of Samoan history and by others as superstition. What other occurrences have Samoans experienced with the aitu, and how does the mobile phone impact the average Samoan’s relationship with the va tapuia? In the following section I present vignettes of my participant’s encounters with the aitu, mobile phones, including random appearances of aitu in images taken with mobile phones.
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5.4 Urban Legends from the Field