An Embodied Approach to the Study of Media Forms: Introducing a Social Scientific Component to Medium Theory

This article develops a social scientific approach for the empirical testing of media as environment form effects. The theoretical origins of this work merges McLuhan’s thoughts on micro-level media form influence and recent advances in the study of embodied cognition. A social scientific assessment of medium theory is provided, followed by an overview of an embodied approach to the study of media forms. The major concepts of the theory are defined, and the processes by which the physical environments created by media help to shape form-based cognitive schemata are detailed. Eight axioms are presented that form a basis for an embodied approach to the study of media forms, and an outline is provided for how media scholars can begin a more systematic empirical examination of media as environment form effects at the individual level of analysis.