Program Or Be Programmed

A deep dive into one of this century's most potent questions: do we direct technology, or do we let ourselves be directed by it?

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.

Named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty other books include Survival of the Richest, Team Human, based on his podcast, Present Shock, and Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus. He also made the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. He won the Marshall McLuhan Award, as well as the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. He is director of the MA program in Media Studies at the City University of New York, Queens College.