The Embodied Meaning of Media Forms

From its inception, most social scientific Persuasion research has dealt with the influence of content on attitude formation and change (e.g., Janis & Feshbach, 1953; Johnson & Eagly, 1989; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Sherif & Hovland, 1961). Indeed, a tendency to privilege content over form is endemic to all areas of the communication sciences (McLuhan, 1964). This chapter seeks to establish a theoretical foundation that allows for a systematic empirical analysis of a particular type of media form effect, one that stems from the inherent physical constraints of media technologies. Once this theoretical groundwork is presented, focus is given to future areas of research in the context of Persuasion.

The definition of form effect used in this chapter stems directly from Meyrowitz (1997). He defined the central question of medium theory, a line of theorizing devoted to form effects, as the following: “How do the particular characteristics of a medium make it physically, psychologically, and socially different from other media and from face-to-face interaction, regardless of the particular messages that are communicated through it?” (p. 61). Thus, a form effect is the result of inherent physical, psychological, and social constraints established by a particular media technology, not the messages that are disseminated via that technology.

The theoretical approach outlined in this chapter is born from a marriage of a physiological Perspective for the study of media form influence outlined by McLuhan (1964) and some of the recent theoretical work on embodied cognition (e.g., Barsalou, 1999; Glenberg, 1997). The focus of this approach is on the unique environments created by various media technologies, with particular attention being paid to how we physically engage with these environments at the sensory level (e.g., use of the ear to engage radio, use of the eye to engage television). This chapter posits that before individuals begin to engage and process the content being [Page 750]provided through media, they must first interact with the environment created by these technologies. It is the unique physical environment created by each form that constrains the possible meanings that can be extracted from media content, and this manner of a media form effect may have an important set of implications for several areas of Persuasion research (e.g., involvement, attitude accessibility, affect).

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The author gives thanks to James Chesebro and Arthur Glenberg for their insightful comments regarding media form influence and embodied cognition, respectively.

Prior Studies of Form

There are several lines of research that have focused on various aspects of form influence. Some of these areas are more closely aligned than others with an embodied approach. However, the approach outlined in this chapter builds on portions of each of the areas summarized in what follows. It is important that each approach be outlined in brief to better establish where an embodied approach to form fits in relative to these more well-established lines of research.

The most widely recognized form-based theoretical construct is medium theory (e.g., Meyrowitz, 1994). However, Meyrowitz (1985) pointed out that most work in medium theory tends to provide more of a Perspective than actual social scientific theory. Indeed, medium theory can best be defined as a metaconcept. This term describes conceptual conglomerates, each of which refers to a domain of phenomena rather than to “a specific set of concepts and their connections” (Pan & McLeod, 1991, p. 141). If communication scientists are going to be able to better understand the role of form, then they are going to have to construct a more well-structured theoretical approach that will allow for an analysis of the underlying processes of the effects described by Meyrowitz and other medium theorists. To achieve an empirically testable theory of the type of form influence described by medium theorists, the first step that needs to be taken is to turn away from the macro-level theorizing that has dominated this study of form (e.g., Eisenstein, 1979; Havelock, 1963, 1982; Ong, 1977, 1982) and return to a micro-level Perspective.1 An embodied approach to form seeks to return to a focus on the individual.

...