Douglas Rushkoff

Douglas Rushkoff is an American media theorist, author, professor and podcaster. Born in New York City, he studied at Princeton University and completed a directing degree at the California Institute of the Arts. In the early 1990s he became active in cyberpunk and cyberdelic circles. His first book, Free Rides, appeared in 1991. Cyberia, published in 1994, was often called the first book on cyberculture. His book Media Virus introduced the idea of viral media, and he is credited with coining media virus, digital native and social currency. Across fourteen books he has examined media, technology and culture. For Frontline he made documentaries including Merchants of Cool (2001), The Persuaders (2004) and Generation Like (2014). The Media Ecology Association gave him the Marshall McLuhan Award in 2002 for Coercion and the first Neil Postman Award in 2004. He was host of WFMU's The Media Squat between 2008 and 2009 and created the Team Human podcast.