I would like to analyze airplane as transportation system and how it affects social groups differently. From our last reading, auto-culture replaced public transportation with private transportation. In addition, technique of assembly line pioneered by Henry Ford, resulting in a deluge of consumer goods, which were bought by those workers with rising wages and soaring profits.
Society has transformed again, and many industries sprouted to serve the new air-culture, named airplane. The emergence of air transportation opened up one-day culture (able to travel anyplace in the world within a day) and allowed people to move much broader and faster. However, it created negative faces also. Airplane, not like subway, made social hierarchy by dividing seats with different classes. People have to pay more to get better food, seat, and services. Rich people became winner again and dominated front spaces of the airplane and put others back of the place. Gender role became another issue from this air-culture under names of pilot and flight attendant. Flight attendant perceived as women’s job and pilots are mostly men. Adapt to Langdon Winner’s theory, airplane can also have politics. Although destinations are always determined, but pilots still have authority over technology that they can manage their plane to get to desired places. For an example, terrorist took over the plane and caused September 11th. Air pollution became another issue by rapid growth of the airline industry. Most modern airplanes run on jet engines that burns fossil fuels and leaves contrails, which is lines of clouds that left behind by airplanes cause air pollution.
In fact, air-culture grants us convenience on travelling, timesaving for business people, and supports many other industries as well (e.g. parcel delivery companies as FedEx). It would be appropriate to observe social changes and cultural differences because it innovates not only the technological aspects but also our cultural...