# Media theory books

> A reading list on media theory: Manovich, Dreyfus, Lessig, Johnson, de Landa, Reeves & Nass, books shaping how I thought about new media in 2002.

- Page: https://www.elasticspace.com/2002/09/media-theory/
- Author: Timo Arnall (https://www.elasticspace.com/)
- Section: Notes (https://www.elasticspace.com/notes/)
- Published: 2002-09-11
- Updated: 2026-07-04
- Tags: Books, Media, Technology
- Site map for agents: https://www.elasticspace.com/llms.txt

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This is one of a series of reading lists I put together between 2002 and 2004 when I was starting out in interaction and experience design, building out a personal canon from books I was buying, borrowing from libraries, or lending to students. The lists are grouped by topic. This one is media theory: how new media remakes old assumptions, the politics of the networked commons, and the relationships between people, computers and media.

Manovich’s Language of New Media is the canonical starting point. Lessig’s The Future of Ideas is the political counterpart. Reeves & Nass’s The Media Equation is the one that stays with you, a readable empirical argument that we treat machines socially whether we mean to or not. Paul Taylor’s Hackers sits slightly to one side of the others; it’s the best academic treatment of hacker culture I know.

The Amazon links below are what I had at the time, most will be dead now, but the ISBNs will find you a copy.

### The Language of New Media

Lev Manovich.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262133741/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262133741/elasticspace-20)

### On the Internet: Thinking in Action

Hubert Dreyfus.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415228077/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415228077/elasticspace-20)

### The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World

Lawrence Lessig.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375505784/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375505784/elasticspace-20)

### Hackers

Paul Taylor.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415180724/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415180724/elasticspace-20) An extraordinary insight into hacker culture – academically rigorous but very readable and entertaining.

### Affective Computing

Rosalind W. Picard.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262161702/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262161702/elasticspace-20)

### Abstracting Craft

Malcolm McCullough.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/026263189X/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/026263189X/elasticspace-20)

### Being Digital

Nicholas Negroponte.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0340649305/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0340649305/elasticspace-20)

### Interface Culture

Steven Johnson.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465036805/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465036805/elasticspace-20)

### Electronic Culture

Timothy Druckery.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0893816787/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0893816787/elasticspace-20)

### A Thousand Years of Non-Linear History

Manuel de Landa.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0942299329/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0942299329/elasticspace-20)

### War in the Age of Intelligent Machines

Manuel de Landa.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0942299752/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0942299752/elasticspace-20)

### The Media Equation

Bryon Reeves, Clifford Nass.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1575860538/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1575860538/elasticspace-20)

### If/Then Play

Janet Abrams.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/9072007522/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/9072007522/elasticspace-20)