Program Or Be Programmed

This compact new edition of a paradigmatic text packs a big and actionable punch. Updated with a new section on the unique challenges posed by AI, Program or Be Programmed presents a spirited, accessible poetics of new media. On these pages (and screens), Rushkoff picks up where Marshall McLuhan left off, helping readers recognize programming as the new literacy of the digital age.The debate over whether the internet is good or bad for us fills the airwaves and the blogosphere. But for all the heat of claim and counter-claim, the argument is essentially beside the point: it’s here; it’s everywhere. The real question is, do we direct technology, or do we let ourselves be directed by it and those who have mastered it? “Choose the former,” writes Rushkoff, “and you gain access to the control panel of civilization. Choose the latter, and it could be the last real choice you get to make.” In eleven “commands,” Rushkoff provides cyberenthusiasts and technophobes alike with the guidelines to navigate this new universe.

“Read this before and after you Tweet, Facebook, email or YouTube.” —Howard Rheingold“Douglas Rushkoff is one of the great thinkers—and writers—of our time.”—Timothy Leary“Rushkoff is damn smart. As someone who understood the digital revolution faster and better than almost anyone, he shows how the internet is a social transformer that should change the way your business culture operates.” —Walter Isaacson

Winner of the first Neil Postman award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity, Douglas Rushkoff has written a dozen best-selling books on media and society, including Cyberia, Media Virus, Coercion (winner of the Marshall McLuhan Award), Get Back in the Box, and Life Inc. He has made the PBS Frontline documentaries Digital Nation, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. A columnist for The Daily Beast and Arthur Magazine, his articles have been regularly published in The New York Times and Discover, among many other publications. His radio commentaries air on NPR and WFMU, his op-eds appear in the New York Times, and he is a familiar face on television, from ABC News to The Colbert Report.