Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) technologies have developed rapidly in recent years. In the United Kingdom (UK), an innovation ecosystem is emerging around these technologies, supported by the UKRI Future Flight Challenge (FFC)

The UKRI FFC is a £300m initiative funding development of novel aviation technologies and surrounding infrastructure, as well as a multi-disciplinary programme of social research and public/policy engagement led by University of Birmingham, data from which inform this paper. For more info see (UKRI 2026).

The ‘flying car’ is an archetypal ‘futuristic’ technology. Its presence is popularly understood as a shorthand for locating a representation in the future (TV Tropes n.d.). This symbolic capacity lies in its long history in popular culture, which extends to at least the early 19^th century (e.g. Heath 1829). As with later science fiction stories, 19^th and early 20^th century representations confront contemporary social concerns; from the ceaseless advancement of 19^th century industry and attendant social restructuring, to early 20^th century disquiet with the ‘City’, its people and their habits. Mid-20^th century SF The Jetsons highlights the petty annoyances of American capitalist life, whilst later 20^th century stories such as Blade Runner tackle directly societal inequities and environmental impacts. In its continuing ubiquity the flying car has become a cipher for 21^st century anxieties and the failure to fulfil mid-20^th century promises of lifestyles of abundance and leisure. These anxieties are summed up in the refrain ‘Where is my Flying Car?’ (Voiland and Clinton 2004; Harkness 2017), which appears across diverse discourses, from academic critiques of innovation policy (Hall 2021) and the failures of late-capitalism (Graeber 2023) to the lamentations of ‘tech-bro’ venture capitalist Peter Thiel (Dobravsky 2023). In this way, SF has for much of the past century held a mirror up to contemporary societies, providing outlet and reflective space for hopes, fears, preoccupations and concerns (Grunwald et al. 2023).

Science fiction has for much of the past century held a mirror up to contemporary societies, providing outlet and reflective space for hopes, fears, preoccupations and concerns.

Science fiction representations of the flying car and similar technologies – the autonomous, intelligent ‘Drones’ of the Culture novels (Banks 2008) which hover and float using ‘fields’ – have other impacts. A ‘media effects’ framework shows popular cultural and media representations shape how media audiences understand themselves and the world around them (McQuail 2010; Valkenburg et al. 2016). Whether through ‘cultivation’ via repeated messaging (Gerbner et al. 1986) or ‘symbolic annihilation’ (Tuchman 2000) through absence of representation, media shapes attitudes via ‘quantity’ of exposure. Repeated representation can ‘cultivate’ a sense of the importance of an issue, whilst the absence of representation – its ‘symbolic annihilation’ – can lead to audiences viewing the issue as less significant. Qualities of representations also shape responses via ‘framing’; the visual, linguistic and auditory metaphors that make novel topics familiar and corral audience sense-making into predefined pathways (Holliman 2004; Nisbet 2009).

Where research has considered the influence of popular culture and media on technoscience and society, this has often centered on ‘publics’ i.e. those without direct experience within innovation (Einsiedel 2014; Bucchi and Trench 2016). Innovators, including in AAM, though having direct personal experience of innovation, are also exposed to popular culture and media which will shape their perceptions and attitudes. This insight can inform work on ‘imaginaries’; innovation communities’ conceptualizations of technoscience development, society, and their relationship now and in future (Fujimura 2003; Welsh and Wynne 2013; Verschraegen and Vandermoere 2017), and compliment recent work exploring their development and influence in the AAM sector (Woznica 2022). Imaginaries guide innovation: Here, I seek to unveil the links between popular culture and imaginaries which exist within AAM innovation, whilst aligning with technology assessment (TA) and its normative aim to embed academic findings within policy and industry to achieve beneficial sociotechnical outcomes (Grunwald 2024). By detailing sociocultural influences shaping emerging AAM technologies this article will inform innovators’ reflections on their innovations, and help innovators and those in the broader innovation ecosystem (e.g. funders, regulators, policymakers) consider whether innovation pathways align with societal visions for the beneficial implementation of AAM.

Fieldwork, from August 2023 to August 2024, included semi-structured interviews held face-to-face and online via teleconferencing software (Zoom). ‘Purposive sampling’ (Robinson 2014) within the emerging UK AAM ecosystem, including amongst organizations linked to the FFC, was undertaken. The ecosystem is diverse in organizational size and technological focus, so sampling was not ‘representative’, but a range of organizations were targeted to include a breadth of perspectives. 22 interviews were conducted, from 36–77 minutes in length, average length 55 minutes. Reflecting industry demographics, the majority (17) of interviewees were male, with (5) female interviewees.

Individuals in a range of roles influencing innovation including executives, engineers, project and product managers were interviewed. Feedback between media landscape, innovation decision-making and external communications was of interest, and so interviews were also conducted with those in marketing, communications and public relations roles.

Five ‘quasi-ethnographic’ site visits (Murtagh 2007) were conducted, including to urban office buildings and suburban/rural industrial units, at organizations of different size and focus. Site visits gave insight into the environments and ‘material cultures’ (Tilley 2001) where innovation occurs, stimulated interview questioning and contextualized data. These visits had an ‘ethnographical stance’ (Murtagh 2007) rather than indicating a full ethnographic approach (Hammersley and Atkinson 2019) which was not practicable given project time/resource constraints and the variety of potential field sites.

Engagement with science fiction in the UK AAM ecosystem is diverse, but two key uses emerged: ‘Science fiction as resource’ and ‘Science fiction as tool’. Actors in the ecosystem use SF in different ways, with it drawn upon (resource) or deployed (tool) at different phases of innovation by those with varying seniority in organizations where SF meets various ends.

Mehnert et al. (2025, p. 2) argue that viewing science fiction as a “seismograph for social hopes and fears” can help “understand how meaning [is] ascribed to emerging technologies and thus enrich the discussion on hermeneutic methods of technology assessment”. The media effects approach used here reveals how UK future flight innovators AAM imaginaries are inflected by SF futures, and how science fiction acts as both a resource to inspire and a tool to shape responses to emerging AAM technologies.

As resource, SF inspires technical and solution-oriented questions, rather than normative consideration of the desirability of technoscientific futures. Where critical questions are raised, responses are innovation-focused – the ‘right’ innovation will avert future science fiction dystopias. Using science fiction as a resource, innovators work to realize a technoscientific present in dialogue with representations of the future. Innovators ascribe meanings onto SF, as template for sociotechnical reality to be achieved or avoided through innovation, meanings which are then inscribed in their technologies.

Innovators consider publics vital to AAM success and deploy science fiction to shape public response. As tool, SF sensitizes adjacent publics – regulators, investors, journalists – to the promise of AAM. However, innovators are torn on how SF serves to realize these technologies in public. For some, SF smooths the transition from fiction to technological (arte)fact e.g. when defusing dominant media frames linking AAM to military usages. Others caution that SF’s unreality risks coloring interpretations of the possibility of AAM’s emergence. Recent research into public attitudes is relevant here; eVTOLs can indeed be read through a ‘science fiction’ framing (Mason-Wilkes and Elsdon-Baker 2025) and compared to drones are considered generally less likely to emerge (Elsdon-Baker et al. 2025; Cotton et al. 2024). However, whether this is causal or correlational needs further exploration, whilst ongoing research by the author suggests that publics’ ‘science fiction’ readings of AAM are not always negative, and media interpretations are shaped by complex attitudinal and demographic factors. Nevertheless, by influencing design and impacting communication, SF plays a vital role in the development and solidification of AAM. If science fiction is a societal ’seismograph’, in the context of UK advanced air mobility, it not only registers movements but produces quakes in the sociotechnical terrain.

This has multiple implications as AAM technologies emerge. This paper should help innovators reflect on how SF is approached in future. Moving beyond a ‘torment nexus’ mindset to science fiction’s normative elements may help innovators attune to the social anxieties their technologies elicit. Awareness can stimulate efforts to account for anxieties earlier in innovation, and reinforce the value of engaging publics throughout innovation to sense-check innovation pathways, aligning this article with TA (Grunwald 2024). Developing this mindset in the AAM ecosystem will take effort from innovators and collaborators such as social science/humanities scholars, whose strengths lie in highlighting issues and building critical faculties. Collaborative relationships (as developed under the FFC) can act as foundation for embedding these insights to develop socially responsive AAM.