Technology’s cultural effects are mediated by late capitalism not deterministically

Evidence

To point to the potency of such a force in shaping culture as a total way of life is not necessarily to lapse, however, into a simple­ minded technological determinism of the ‘television causes post­ modernism’ variety. For television is itself a product of late capitalism and, as such, has to be seen in the context of the promotion of a culture of consumerism. This directs our attention to the production of needs and wants, the mobilization of desire and fantasy, of the politics of distraction as part and parcel of the push to sustain sufficient buoyancy of demand in consumer markets to keep capitalist production profitable. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 410

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The causal architecture here — refusing technological determinism while grounding media effects in capital’s need for demand buoyancy — is the core of Harvey’s explanatory framework.
• XREF: Mirrors the reader’s earlier silence/communication-theory material where media technology shapes cognition, but here reversed: capital shapes the medium. — connects to: Technological and social progress produces psychological regression and instinctual fixation.; Technology’s unification of all arts will expose the identity behind industrial culture; Competition among capitals and commodified labor drive rapid technological development — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 163 (+28 more)

Broader Connections

• In late capitalism the economic base generates its cultural superstructures directly #contradicts (0.90) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 32
• Immediacy theory mirrors rather than analyzes the cultural trends of late capitalism #contradicts (0.85) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 249
• Immediacy across culture is overdetermined by economic conditions, not endogenous to theory #contradicts (0.85) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 257
• Immediacy as cultural style derives from space-time compression in capitalism. #qualifies (0.80) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 60
• Postmodernism cannot be understood apart from late capitalism’s economic structure #qualifies (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 374
• Capitalist circulation velocity drives cultural immediacy as an aesthetic style #qualifies (0.80) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 50
• Economic-reductionist cultural theory stays trapped at an epochal level of abstraction #complicates (0.80)
• Communication technology shapes culture through interests, symbols, and community #expands (0.75) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 622