Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace

Douglas Rushkoff

Reference

Flamingo

Media Virus

Ballantine Books. New York

'Something has gone terribly wrong. We are deep in the thrall of a system that no one really likes, no one remembers asking for, yet no one can escape. It just is. And the minute it seems as if we can put our finger on what's happening to us or how it came to be this way, the insight disappears, drowned out by the more immediately pressing demands by everyone and everything on our attention. What did they just say? My phone is vibrating'. In "Life Inc" Douglas Rushkoff offers a timely, provocative and urgent look at the origins and nature of the modern corporate system, a world in which everything can be commodified, a closed system that conquers not through exclusion but total inclusion. Under current conditions market forces have achieved a nightmarish triumph - everything, including dissidence, is assimilated. "Life Inc" tells the story of how we got here and, more importantly, how this value system now perpetuates itself. Rushkoff reveals the process through which media conglomerates conceive and assimilate everything from teen icons to online communities, and replace anything resembling civic engagement with yet another consumer choice. His goal is nothing less than to give us the view from outside of the hermetically sealed shopping mall in which we spend our lives.

Life Inc: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back

Business & Money

Random House]

In 1994's Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace, Douglas Rushkoff extolled the democratic promise of the then-emergent Internet, but the once optimistic author has grown a bit disillusioned with what the Net--and the rest of the world--has become. His exuberantly written, disturbing Coercion may induce paranoia in readers as it illuminates the countless ways marketing has insinuated itself not just into every aspect of Western culture but into our individual lives. Rushkoff opens with a series of pronouncements: "They say human beings use only ten percent of their brains.... They say Prozac alleviates depression." But "who, exactly, are 'they,'" he asks, and "why do we listen to them?" 
Marketing continues to grow more aggressive, and Rushkoff tracks the increasingly coercive techniques it employs to ingrain its message in the minds of consumers, as well as the results: toddlers can recognize the golden arches of McDonald's, young rebels get tattooed with the Nike swoosh, and news stories are increasingly taken verbatim from company press releases. "Corporations and consumers are in a coercive arms race," argues Rushkoff. "Every effort we make to regain authority over our actions is met by an even greater effort to usurp it." As he surveys the visual, aural, and scented shopping environment and interviews salesmen, public relations men, telemarketers, admen, and consumers, Rushkoff--who admits to being one of "them" in his occasional capacity as paid corporate consultant--concludes that "they" are just "us" and that the only way the process of coercion can be reversed is to refuse to comply. "Without us," he assures, "they don't exist." --Kera Bolonik

Coercion : The Persuasion Professionals and Why We Listen to What They Say

Self-Help

Little,Brown & Co

The Ecstasy Club

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Sceptre

Jamie Cohen is new on Wall Street. Technology stock are trading at record highs. The insights Jamie learnt as a hacker make him indispensable. As the mania for on-line share dealing turns New York citizens into rabid traders, Jamie resolves to break the cycle of greed using desperate measures.

Bull

Hodder&Stoughton

Coercion: The Professional Persuaders and Why We Listen

Time Warner Paperbacks*

From the imagination of best-selling author Douglas Rushkoff, one of the most icono-clastic and acclaimed minds of our era, comes a graphic novel series that exposes the "real" Bible as it was actually written, and reveals how its mythic tales are repeated today. 
Young Alan Stern may have created life -- inside his laptop. Now, he's about to discover the terrible consequences of playing God.

Testament Vol. 2: West of Eden (Testament)

Comics & Graphic Novels

Graphic Novels

Vertigo

The debate over whether the Net 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 ten chapters, composed of ten “commands” accompanied by original illustrations from comic artist Leland Purvis, Rushkoff provides cyber enthusiasts and technophobes alike with the guidelines to navigate this new universe. In this spirited, accessible poetics of new media, Rushkoff picks up where Marshall McLuhan left off, helping readers come to recognize programming as the new literacy of the digital age––and as a template through which to see beyond social conventions and power structures that have vexed us for centuries. This is a friendly little book with a big and actionable message.

Program or Be Programmed

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

BetterListen

Screenagers: Lessons In Chaos From Digital Kids (Hampton Press Communication)

Computers & Technology

Computer Science

Hampton Press

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Books by Douglas Rushkoff