Avengers 2: Cultural Determinism

Technological determinism according to Winston is that the diverse forms of technology become the basis of society in which social change and development are shaped by technology. The consequences of technology have a powerful impact on the society that individuals and social interactions develop as technology accelerates. Cultural determinism, on the other hands, is the idea that technology has transformed out of sociocultural contexts such as social, economic, and cultural forces. In other words, rather than a technology’s own trajectory, every aspect of social processes have developed technology.

One of the visible deterministic examples is the ABC news criticizing how a new advertisement campaign for DirecTV is a sexist while it is demeaning

working class women. In the first half of each advertisement, there are three half naked bikini super models posing suggestively next to the text “I have DirecTV” whereas the second half presents those three same models in an unattractive and old-fashioned way who simply own a cable instead. With a beautiful beach background, three ladies with tanned and glamorous body infer that having a DirecTV is somewhat advanced and superior. On the other hand, three jobs of women (a cat lady, a mom-jeans mom, and a lunch lady) having a cable TV are represented as unappealing and put down. At the last part of their advertisement, there is a text saying, “Don't be like that other Hannah, Chrissy, and Nina (names of three models), Get rid of cable and upgrade to DirecTV.” Although those three shown jobs are extremely important and valuable, DirecTV has downgraded such roles of women and represented almost naked body a justification of a woman’s life.
Such discourse clearly has more technologically deterministic aspects although it may have some of cultural determinism, because a new form of a satellite TV is making an assumption that whoever has a cable instead of a DirecTV, is not following the trend and needs to be upgraded themselves into better conditions. This informs how DirecTV is establishing the social hierarchy in which women are certainly underrated and demeaned in a way. Rather than a technology changing according to sociocultural contexts, DirecTV itself influences the society. In this ad, by downgrading working class women, especially housewives, this new form of technology creates an impression that an advanced technology only can make people’s lives healthier and entertaining.
DirecTV’s advertisement is an example of the law of supervening social necessity. According to Brian Winston, he argues that the law of supervening is the ‘accelerators pushing the development of media and other technology’ (Winston, 83). In this particular case, the supervening social necessities that elicited the new form of television involve the importance of a smart phone and individualism. Whereas a television has a weakness being not portable, the emergence of smart phone where you have a full access in any areas started to push the TV industry behind. Due to such social necessities, a satellite TV was developed which allows you to watch TV outside your home with any devices and at anytime you want. In contrast, a cable is slower in streaming live videos and lower in its picture qualities, which has less access when you are outside. Today in which people spend more solitary moments with their smart phone, DirecTV has developed its software to be more useful for mobile users. Since there are an increasing number of people who watch diverse TV programs and shows via their phone or computer instead of television itself, DirecTV started to gear towards the need of being able to stream their channels with any devices in faster speed.
In Spigel’s reading, he mentions about the issue of domestic exploitation, which simply takes housework as voluntary and unimportant (Spigel, 20). In the ads, two women out of three who have ‘unattractive’ appearances and jobs are shown as housewives, and another woman also has a feminine stereotyped job, a lunch lady. As house related tasks were disregarded and underrated in the past, such perception towards these women has not changed. Not only this, as Spigel argues, three super models in a DirecTV version are merely used as ‘sex tools’ to sell their products, which again, DirecTV is reproducing the same gender stereotypes that used to have in the past. Comparing women’s half-naked body to a successful life is visibly exploiting women’s body.

2. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qZV8GvEBZc)
In Seiter’s article, she quotes Bourdieu’s three forms of capital which are economic, social, and cultural. Economic capital can be converted into material wealth, and it is often achieved through other capitals. If an economic capital increases, there is a great possibility that cultural and social capitals are also likely to go up. Cultural capital is needed for developing oneself such as knowledge, languages, or totality of one’s learning. This is often gained through economic capital and it helps you to have a higher status in society. The last capital mentioned in Seiter’s article is a social capital, which is less institutionalized relationship of social connection. Since this is not naturally acquired, you need to spend time and make new networks for the future. None of these capitals is superior or inferior; yet, they are all deeply intertwined and work together in the society.
One of the biggest nationwide online school, K-12, is a great example intergrating these three capitals. This online school program has a great educational curriculum helping students to have an access to study on their own with the assistance of professional teachers through internet. Varying from kindergartens to 12th grade, K-12 offers individualized education with high-tech educational programs and students get to have a personal advisor who could help students with their academic concerns and other personal matters too. Although they get a slightly different kind of education, there are lots of benefits in doing so economically, culturally, and socially.
Whereas general students pay for their tuition, textbooks, and extracurricular programs, homeschooling students enjoy their education for free. By having a free education, K-12 students do not need any economic capital at this point. There are a lot of students who choose online school due to their family’s low income to support their tuition or any school related expenses. As Seiter mentions, an economic capital sometimes becomes the basis of a social and cultural capitals, which is not the case for K-12. Such students with the lack of capital can still get the same or even better education for free with K-12’s own specialized homeschooling system.
Next, K-12 can offer special social capitals to students. There are diverse kinds of students who are taking this program such as struggling students, disabilities, or general students who prefer studying at home with individualized education. Through social capital provided by K-12, students are able to gain tight connections with teachers, advisors and even with their parents. Since K-12 offers one-on-one teaching via phone calls, video chats, and emails, students can build a special bonding with their teachers whereas it is unlikely to have one in school. Teachers’ delivering encouragement, support, and acknowledgement to their students would help them to recognize K-12’s status and value. Also, students who were bullied by other classmates at their previous school would not undergo through such heartbreaking moments in which students could possibly lose some crucial social capitals (Seiter, 30).
Lastly, the most visible and important cultural capitals provided by K-12 are independence and students’ master level of computer skills. Rather than studying with other classmates, homeschooling students get to work on their own except working with teachers. From understanding materials to studying for quizzes and exams, students learn by themselves and imagine with their own ideas, requiring them to be independent. While it is difficult to learn being independent at regular school, K-12 certainly calls for such trait in order to be successful with their curriculum. Moreover, since all their courses and homework are done through a computer, homeschooling students tend to have greater computing skills than regular students. Although there are lots of schools that use computers in learning, K-12’s online courses are much more specialized and advanced. Spending a decent amount of time in using high level of computer skills everyday, such cultural capital cannot be gained by public school’s education.
The mix of economic, social, and cultural capitals legitimates class inequalities in this example. In general, based on Seiter’s reading, it says ‘a lack of economic capital reinforces the lack of higher status cultural capital’ (Seiter, 38). There is unlikely a chance that students would get enough cultural and social capitals if they lack of economic capitals which becomes the basis of other two. The richer the person is, the better the capitals are. Therefore, homeschooling students who get free online education might experience inequalities in the future since they lack of economic capitals whereas rich kids have enough access to other capitals. This discourse is undeniable in today’s society, and what is truly needed is that current institutions and technology have to work together in order to eradicate such class distinction between rich and poor students.

3. Knight and Day (Movie)
Hesmondhalgh’s concept of neoliberalism is an economic liberalism where an unregulated ‘free market’ is suggested with less government intervention and less regulations to maximize the profits of the larger corporations (Hesmondhalgh, 87). He then argues that the decline in productivity and the profits related to Long Downturn led to the emergence of neoliberalism. Specifically, the Long Downturn, a political-economic change happened during when lots of ‘advanced’ capitalist countries had been going through stable economy (Hesmondhalgh, 85). Yet, during around 1970s, the advanced capitalist economics significantly fell in every field, but specially in manufacturing, maintaining until 1990s. While the economy was bad, an increasing power of working-class union bothered the “balance of capital and labor” when the working class union started to fight for the increase of their wages (Hesmondhalgh, 85). In addition, America’s over-capacity of production in manufacturing had brought in international crisis that led to an increase in inflation and even a rise in unemployment. Since neoliberalism disagreed with the idea of the labor movements and asked for minimized state intervention, aforementioned contexts encouraged neoliberal economy that filled people’s need through free market.
The audiovisual product of the cultural industries of today that could easily explain three trends in the cultural industries is the movie called ‘Avengers 2’.

The movie was obviously influenced by neoliberalism, which calls for the concepts of conglomeration, internationalization, and flexible specialization. Filmed in about more than 20 different countries, the Avengers 2 is working with many large and small specialized companies in order to increase its maximum profits. The first trend is conglomeration that has a literal meaning of gathering into a whole, yet, when it comes to the matter of cultural industry, it means a combination of several companies involved in totally different business which goes under one big corporate group, including many subsidiaries. For example, the Marvel Studio, one of the biggest American television and motion picture studio based at the Walt Disney Company mainly presents Avengers 2. Marvel Studio is a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios, meaning Marvel Studio is deeply based on Walt Disney not only in filming, but also in other business. Including other works, Walt Disney Conglomerate is mainly working on the graphic technology, distribution, and also marketing field for this particular movie. Since the Walt Disney Conglomerate is the second largest broadcasting and cable company that also owns television, film production, and theme parks, the movie could get many benefits from

them.
Internationalization means capitalist enterprises try to restore higher profits by investing internationally, and make the most of ‘cheaper labour markets’, as the wages increases in advanced industrial countries (Hesmondhalgh, 92). For such reasons, Avengers 2 is filming in many different countries including South Korea in order to find a new market and pay less labor wages. Not only for the benefits in its production, internationalization is very crucial in the cultural industries since it allows many countries to establish a great mass communication and share benefits together. For example, as Avengers 2 is taken in South Korea, America gets benefits by using cheaper labors and capturing more vibrant view and diverse companies and landmarks of South Korea are also vastly exposed to their movie, getting popularities through a cultural industry.
The outcome of internationalization, flexible specialization is another trend of neoliberalism. Rather than a company producing a hierarchy and monopoly working as a one unit, flexible specialization encourages less centralized and more sub-contracting in production in cultural industries (Hesmondhalgh, 95). By allowing many smaller companies to be involved in the movie, their specialized and innovative works can enhance the maximum efficiency and profits. In this particular movie, Avengers 2’s the most important aspect is the visual effects which creates more real-life and vibrant atmosphere. Instead of Marvel Studio or Walt Disney Company taking the charge of it, many specialized visual effect companies such as Animal Logic, Lola Visual Effects, and Luma Pictures are contributing to the visual aspects of the movie.