Examining the layers of meaning encoded in software and the rhetoric surrounding it, this book visits the intersections between software, morality, and politics. Maher argues that software evangelism (a rhetorical practice that aims to convert software developers and users from one platform to another), like its religious counterpart, must be understood as constructing moral and political values that extend well beyond the boundaries of the development culture. Demonstrating how software evangelisms exert a transformative force on the world, this book highlights the importance of rhetoric in even the most seemingly a-rhetorical of technical endeavors and foregrounds the need for rhetorical literacy in the digital age.

Jennifer Helene Maher is Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA.

1. Encoding and Decoding 2. An Invitation to Freedom 3. Moral Code 4. Fair Regulation 5. Embracing Rhetoric