Tag Archives: embodiment

General Media Theory

The Digital Self is NOT Separate From the Physical Self. Here’s Why.

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Media theory often starts with technologies. Cameras, screens, networks, and books are all treated as central agents of mediation, the things that shape perception, distribute information, and structure social lives. Yet, long before any technological medium emerges, humans already inhabit a medium that grounds all experience: the body. The body is not merely a vessel that encounters media; it’s the first site through which the world becomes sensible. Every medium, no matter how advanced or “immaterial”, ultimately depends on embodied perception. To truly understand media, then, we have to begin not with devices but with embodiment itself. 

The distinction between body and embodiment is critical here. The body can be approached as an object, after all, it is a visible, bounded thing with physical characteristics. As it appears from the outside, the body is seemingly stable and fixed. Embodiment, however, refers to the lived experience of having and being a body. The sensations, emotions, memories, and movements that give human existence its texture and flavour. Embodiment is contextual, dynamic, and constantly changing. It is through embodiment that perception becomes meaningful, and that media first takes shape. 

What our digital culture reveals, ironically, is not the disappearance of embodiment but its constant negotiation. Through the 20th and 21st centuries, new technologies promised a kind of disembodiment. With the invention of the internet and its numerous features, we have the possibility of creating entirely new identities, freed from physical constraints and distributed across avatars, usernames, posts, and profiles. Online, people can imagine themselves unburdened by the limits of appearance, ability, or geography. Gender can become a role performed in a textual or visual space, selfhood can multiply into curated personas, and new “people” can be created out of thin air by the click of a few buttons. You can decide at any given moment that the person you want to be online is opposite to who you really are, physically. This ideology of disembodiment suggests to people that digital technologies offer something beyond the physical constraints of the body. 

However, I would argue that in practice these technologies intensify the role of embodiment rather than diminish it. Even in “virtual” environments, our bodies respond in physical ways while we’re experiencing them. We have physical shifts like our postures changing to best adapt in viewing the screens, our eyes adapt to stare at bright screens and pixels for longer periods of time, our heart rates rise and fall as we experience the media in front of us. Like playing a virtual reality game, we have to physically embody the character in the game in order to properly play virtually, and our body reacts to the screen we’re seeing through VR lenses like we are really there. We have emotional responses ranging from anxiety, excitement, desire, envy, joy, sadness, and more registering in the body. Could you recognize and count how many emotions you flip through while you mindlessly scroll through the news, or Instagram, or TikTok? The rhythms of tapping, scrolling, and pausing all become habitual motor patterns that are cemented in your muscle memory, your fingers immediately assuming their positions when holding your phone and starting the pattern all over again every time you pick up the phone. Do you have to think about what to do with your hands when using your phone? Does your pinky finger have a small dent in the side of it, creating the perfect fit for your phone to rest on? Does your heart rate rise when you get a notification? 

The digital self is NOT separate from the physical self.

The digital self depends on and leaves traces on the embodied subject who sustains it. AKA, you. Far from escaping the body, we discover that digital media reconfigures our sense of it. This apparent tension becomes clearer when we examine the question of materiality. A common fear is that digital media detaches meaning from material substance, that the shift from paper to screens, from objects to streams, from physical archives to remote servers and digital files, signals a broader cultural “dematerialization”. While this is true, as an estimated 90% of modern human history would vanish if the internet died, even the most digital forms of media are materially grounded. A streaming platform still requires bodies capable of hearing and seeing, a VR headset must sit on an actual face, and an algorithm only functions by registering your microgestures of attention and habit. The infrastructure of digital media is itself profoundly physical, from data centers to batteries to our sensory organs that absorb and interpret the output. If digital culture appears immaterial, it is only because the material supports have been submerged beneath more seamless interfaces. 

Recognizing the primacy of the body reframes how we can understand media technologies. Each new medium can be viewed as an extension of bodily capacity as writing extends memory, photography extends vision, audio technologies extend hearing, and social platforms extend presence or attention. These extensions do not replace our embodied perception; they amplify, reconfigure, and externalize it. As McLuhan famously argued, “the medium is the message”, but this motto takes on a deeper significance if we acknowledge that the boy is the medium behind all the messages. The ways we hear, touch, see, and move through the world shape the kinds of media we create, and in turn, those media reshape how we imagine our bodies. 

Ultimately, grounding media theory in embodiment reveals that media are not external systems we occasionally interact with. They are environments we inhabit, extensions we live through, and processes that reorganize perception at its root. Before images, words, signals, or data arrive, they must pass through the sensing, remembering, and interpreting body. The body is not simply where mediation happens, it itself is a medium. Our body is dynamic, responsive, and continually shaped by the technologies we encounter every day. If media are ways of structuring experience, the embodiment is the original architecture. It remains the template through which all of the media we absorb must pass, and the anchor that keeps even the most virtual environments tethered to the material conditions of life. Media theories that forget the body risk forgetting the very ground of perception itself. To properly understand the media, we begin where experience begins: Our Bodies.

TLDR:

Media begins and ends with our bodies, because it’s all a big tangled mess that we’re dependent on, and that’s dependent on us. #interlinked #fullcircle #onewithtechnology

Book Review

Digital Black Feminism: Media, Embodiment & Resistance

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Introduction

Catherine Steele’s book, Digital Black Feminism, is an exploration of critical issues surrounding race and media in modern media theory. It was published in October 2021, at the height of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. The book highlights Steele’s expertise as a scholar of race, gender, and media. Steele is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland, where she runs the Black Communication and Technology (BCaT) lab. Her scholarship focuses on how marginalized communities have resisted oppression through digital technologies. Her book came at a crucial time, in a moment in which social media activism was at its peak, renewing attention to racial justice and the politics of technology. 

Steele’s book reframes how scholars understand the intersection between race, media, and politics. It highlights the essential contributions of Black women to the media landscape while acknowledging the lack of recognition of their revolutionary innovations due to their positionality. Steele analyzes Black women’s use of the internet as a tool of recognition, activism, and survival. This work reminds us that the media is never neutral; it’s inherently political, often working to silence already marginalized voices. A central theme is acknowledging how Black women have been fighting against these political systems that surveil and constrain users due to racial and gender bias. Steele argues that Digital Black feminism works to repurpose these systems that have historically marginalized them. She states that Black women have long used media as spaces of community, extending a lineage of traditional Black feminism that predates the internet as a way to remain visible and represented in a world that wants to do the opposite.

This book report examines how Black Digital Feminism works to redefine media theory through connections to representation, politics, embodiment. By drawing on theories introduced by Grant Bollmer’s Materialist Media Theory, Simone Browne’s work Dark Matters: On Surveillance of Blackness, Safiya Noble’s Algorithms of Oppression, and Mark Hansen’s Bodies in Code. This work acts as a bridge to connecting themes raised in Steele’s work and broader media studies theories. As Media Studies students, Steele’s book reminds us to analyze systems of power and oppression. She invites the reader to take a look at who is seen, who is silenced, and how marginalized communities reimagine the world of technology.

Overview of the Book

Steele’s Digital Black Feminism explores how Black feminist thought intersects with digital technology. Steele centers Black women’s voices and highlights how their use of technology is rooted in a long history of resisting oppression. In the first chapter, she discusses how technology shaped Black women’s lives during slavery, touching on oral culture, forced labor, and communication between worlds. Steele argues that Digital Black Feminism is a “political choice that bolsters the claim that feminism practiced without adherence to racial practices is not feminism at all”(18). She warns against analyzing technology through a “colorblind” lens, as that perpetuates more oppression, ignoring the harassment Black women face online. Steele emphasizes the need to recognize Black women’s foundational roles in feminist and civil rights movements, and urges readers to approach Digital Black Feminism with awareness of its historical and political context.

In the next chapter, Steele introduces the “virtual beauty shop” as a metaphor for Black feminism in digital spaces. She describes the virtual beauty shop as a constructed space for Black women. As beauty salons have been safe havens for the Black community, Steele shows how Black women are extending these safe spaces online through conversations about hair care. In the next three chapters, she connects this idea to the work of historic Black feminist icons and argues that social media has become a powerful tool for continuing their legacy. Steele challenges stereotypes that erase Black women from technology, showing how activities like blogging, hair tutorials, and Black Twitter contribute to knowledge, resistance, and academic discourse. She argues that Digital Black Feminism broadens the idea of scholarship, making theory more accessible. This book reframes the media not as a neutral technology but as a political space that is tied to history, empowerment and resistance. 

Media and Representation

Catherine Steele’s arguments in this book bring forward key ideas about media and power, and representations that align with the central themes of our course. Steele reminds the audience of the importance of Black women creators in the digital landscape, highlighting them as voices for their community and figures of representation. This resonates with Grant Bollmer’s discussion in Materialist Media Theory, where he argues that representation is essential to the politics of media, since it works to determine whose voices are heard and whose are erased. He highlights that the silencing of marginalized people is not simply an oversight but a tactic of political erasure. As representation in the media is a symbol of power, lack of visibility works to restrict political action. Steele’s analysis grounds this theory, as the harassment of Black women online, censorship, and algorithmic bias demonstrate how digital platforms function to discipline and silence marginalized users, limiting their participation in public discourse.

However, through Steele’s work, she demonstrates how Black feminists are actively defying these systems of power. The Digital Black Feminist movement emerges as a countermeasure to this silencing, transforming exclusion into a space for community. Through social media, digital storytelling, and activism, Black women are creating a space of affirmation and political critique that challenges the social hierarchies embedded in the media. This movement correlates with Bollmer’s ideas that the politics of representation lies not only in obtaining visibility but having control within these systems in order to change them. Steele reminds us that when Black women organize and create online, they are not simply using media but remaking it, pushing back against the very systems that aim to silence them. 

Media Politics & Surveillance

Steele’s discussions on representation and empowerment directly connect to ideas on media politics and surveillance explored in class and broader media scholarship. In discussions on mass media, it was emphasized that the media is centered around and controlled by institutions of power. Steele’s Digital Black Feminism, alongside theories by Simone Browne and Safiya Noble, exposes how media is inherently political, reproducing racial hierarchies through surveillance and algorithmic bias. Browne’s Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness traces how the system of racialized surveillance is rooted in slavery and colonialism. She argues that racialized surveillance is “a technology of social control where surveillance practices, policies, and performances concern the production of norms pertaining to race and a power to define what is in or out of place” (Browne 77). These practices are reproduced in digital forms through tracking, data collection, and targeted harassment. These systems of power aim to control Black voices by supervising their interactions with the media. 

This is prevalent in Steele’s work as she discusses how targeted harassment and “algorithms of oppression,” a concept introduced by Noble, work to push Black women off digital platforms. Safiya Noble’s Algorithms of Oppression highlights how search engines and digital infrastructures are encoded with racial bias that pushes anti-Black rhetoric. She provides an example of how Google’s photo application automatically “tagged African Americans as “apes” and “animals” (Noble 6). This is just one example of the hundreds of “accidental” algorithmic incidents of racism. These algorithms aim to control and discourage Black users rather than allowing them to speak their truths. Steele extends this analysis by discussing how this surveillance works to hide Black presence, allowing their scholarship to be drowned out by harassment or go unnoticed. It’s important to acknowledge that race impacts a person’s experience on the internet and that colorblind view on media politics does more harm than good. 

Critical Reflection & Possibilities

Steele’s work highlights the blind spots that theorists often overlook when discussing race and technology. It offers more than a case study; it introduces a movement.  Theory is often influenced by embodied experiences. As introduced by Mark Hansen in Bodies in Code, media is an extension of the body that shapes perception and experiences. Hansen suggests that digital media makes the body the site of mediation, closing the distinction between human and technological experience. This reminds us that Digital Black Feminism is more than just a theoretical framework; it’s a lived experience. For Black women, embodiment in digital spaces is not evenly distributed. It’s important we acknowledge that the Black body is both hypervisible and surveilled.

However, after reading Steele’s argument, I was left with questions about Digital Black  Feminism and the limitations of her discussions. As an Afro-Latina media scholar, I noticed that Steele’s argument was largely grounded in a U.S. context. This focus allows her to speak on her positionality and the rich history between the African American slave experience and modern media practices. However, it is also a limitation. It left me wondering about the exploration of African, Caribbean, and Black diasporic lenses. Black Feminist media practices are at play globally, often interacting with colonial legacies and political oppression. A diasporic lens would work to extend ideas of surveillance, representation, and algorithmic bias. With the current state of the political world, I feel like analyzing the power of Digital Black Feminism and media politics in places like Sudan and Congo, which are suffering from extreme oppression and humanitarian crises, would provide another larger, inclusive perspective. Looking at Digital Black Feminism from a global lens would help root her claims as a universal Black experience rather than just through an American context, since it is bigger than just the USA. Given this, I would be interested in further analyzing Grant Bollmer’s ideas on geopolitics and colonial power influencing the media. 

Conclusion

Catherine Steele’s Digital Black Feminism transforms how we understand media, politics, and representation. By connecting digital culture with the long history of Black feminist communication, Steele demonstrates that media is both an agent of control and a tool for resistance. When read alongside Bollmer’s ideas on representation, Browne’s theory of surveillance, Noble’s work on algorithmic bias, and Hansen’s discussions on embodiment, it is evident that the media is deeply political and a lived experience. For Media Studies students, Steele’s book challenges us to reevaluate our ideas on media by making the reality of Black women media users present and visible. It warns us that the media is tied to systems of power that often work to hinder marginalized voices. Steele does suggest that if used with intention, it can work to create a safe haven of community and creativity. Ultimately, Steele’s work insists that the study of Black Digital Feminism should be seen as a study of liberation (as with her example of the virtual beauty salon), showing how marginalized communities can not only survive within the political systems but transform them into a space of joy and resistance. 

Written by: Aminata Chipembere

Works Cited

Bollmer, Grant. Materialist Media Theory: An Introduction. Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. 

Browne, Simone. Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness. Duke University Press, 2015. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11cw89p. Accessed 10 Nov. 2025.

Hansen, M. B. N. Bodies in Code: Interfaces with New Media. Routledge, 2006.

Noble, Safiya Umoja. Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. NYU Press, 2018. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1pwt9w5. Accessed 9 Nov. 2025.
Steele, Catherine Knight. Digital Black Feminism. New York University Press, 2021.

Critical Concept Explication

Negotiating the Body: Between Expression and Control

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Our group presented our analysis and explication through a podcast: https://on.soundcloud.com/mqPJiyJwTVvtSuQgM4

Our perceptions of the human body evolve across time periods and diversify across cultures. As technology advances, artificial intelligence and the ability to have multiple online personas complexify our view of the body as a mode for self-expression. Some even theorize the body will be replaced by “computational or other machinic embodiment”; this could appear as “brain layers” being transferred to “hard drives” in order to streamline knowledge exchange (Wegenstein 27). In these times of “disembodiment”, we must critically examine the importance of the tangible human body as a mode of communication (27). At first, our group was confused by the concept of being detached from the body; this prediction by Wegenstein and several theorists felt dystopian and unrealistic. However, we later realized this is exactly what Wegenstein aims to convey; she hopes to demonstrate the “frightening”, “posthuman’”, and “antihumanist” nature of this prediction (27). 

Connections with other Critical Terms

After watching other groups’ presentations, I found our chapter connected to the presentation on Chapter 12: New Media. The presenters noted that all media is in a sense “new”, as media of all ages has always had moments of “newness”. Although our chapter heavily focuses on defining the body as a medium, I believe the body can also constitute “new media”, as it is always being reinvented due to cultural precedents. Here, Hansen’s emphasis on affect and bodily experience of computation in “New Media”  underwrites Wegenstein’s claim that the body is not post-media but in media. Because of the heavily politicized nature in which bodies have existed through centuries, our chapter also connects to the “Law” chapter which emphasizes how legal codes inscribe and regulate bodies i.e determining which bodies are visible, legitimate, or deviant. Hence, we see the connection that the media produces bodies as aw policies. A striking example of this is cosmetic surgery–a regulated practice (with you can cut what is allowed and malpractice frameworks). Here we see the interplay of law and bodies as mediums of production. 

Podcast Brief

Through this podcast, we explore the discussion of ‘The Body’ chapter through summary, analysis, and drawing connection to our experiences and other media. We seek to answer the following questions: 

  1. If the body is always already mediated, is there such a thing as an “authentic” body at all?
  2. How does the body influence culture and how does culture influence the body?
  3. If the body is our first medium, what is one way you consciously use your body to communicate or express identity?

Our exploration of Wegenstein’s Body highlights how embodiment is never static but continually shaped by technology, culture, and law. Although it initially felt dystopian to explore the idea of disembodiment and machinic embodiment, we now see how it becomes predictive once we recognize it as a provocation to think critically about what makes the body meaningful. By situating the body alongside “new media” and legal frameworks, we see it not only as a vessel of self expression but also as a contested site of regulation, reinvention, and power. 

Podcast link: https://on.soundcloud.com/mqPJiyJwTVvtSuQgM4

Contributors: Stuti Sharma, Dea Yu, Emily Shin, Kimchi Tran

Works Cited

Wegenstein, Bernadette. “Body.” Critical Terms for Media Studies, edited by W.J.T. Mitchell and Mark B.N. Hansen, U of Chicago P, 2010, pp. 19-34.

StrawberryJello. “A Cold but Warm Winter ~Snow World~.”, SoundCloud, no. 8, 2016, https://soundcloud.com/strawberryjello/008-snow-world-yume-nikki-ost.