In the introduction to "Software Takes Command" Manovich constructs the argument that over the past several decades a variety of media which at one time occupied their own knowledge domains have increasingly consolidated and, in fact, can be framed via the rubric of "software". This software, which (at least for the time being) simulates the idiosyncrasies of the media from which it was historically derived. The repercussions of this are manifold. Most notably, software is far more fluid and dynamic than previous physical instantiations of media. Likewise, the cultural goals in semiotics of New Media are a moving target for those areas of the humanities who wish to study them.
To this point, Manovich continues, that even though software has become the single gatekeeper to intelligibility and, in fact, frames all new manifestations of old media, there has been a pronounced lack of research into what he terms "software culture" relative to similar domains within the humanities. In other words, any study into software and its effect has been relegated to engineers and coders (who have a decidedly different focus) as opposed to experts in the humanities even though as Manovich claims, "all intellectual work is today software study". Software must be established as its own theoretical category so as to be studied and its effects not rendered invisible.
So what are the ramifications of this? Of course, all software reflects the biases of its programmers. Furthermore, software and its interfaces are co-constitutive. What then does the software and its interfaces say about the information we value? How does it suggest we interpret certain phenomenon? I am reminded here of a former student who used emotion recognizing code for her project. Long story short, the software only worked well for white people. It worked marginally well for her (Hispanic) and almost not at all for her friend (Black). She labored to fix this problem for days never once imagining that the software could be the issue. Its very manifestation and implicit biases had been rendered invisible to her and she was shocked to consider that it might be the culprit.
This phenomena has only been exacerbated by the changing demographic of software creators. In the past decade or so these problems have entered ever more into the mainstream it because of the democratization of these tools. The ability to participate in the cultural manifestation of software is functionally guaranteed today since the barriers of high priced tools and required expertise have been reduced considerably.
Beyond this, Manovich outlines key areas of focus which will frame later arguments by enumerating various ways that culture creation and propagation is modulated through software. Ways which, he admits, are not so clearly delineated anymore since the rise of social media and the pursuant hybridization of these categories. By way of final summation he ends with the assertion that "humanity has added a new dimension on to everything which counts as our culture". Given the nature of our interactions with these dynamically constructed objects all theory which depends upon it manifesting as static in nature is no longer fully applicable. The humanities will have to take on the work of re-framing and developing a new vocabulary for this omnipresent phenomena since it is so new as to render all past methods, at best, incomplete.