Embodied Media: The Theoretical Lineage and New Framework of “Sports as Communication”

This research advocates a paradigm shift in sports communication toward "media ontology," viewing sports as a reality-constructing bodily practice. By integrating perspectives from phenomenological sociology, social constructionism, and mediology, this study traces the genealogy of the body in the history of communication thought through four stages: absence, perception, construction, and extension. It establishes the dialectical evolution of “the body as media” within communication studies and expands its implications across symbolic, power-related, technological, civilizational, and Eastern philosophical dimensions. Treating sports as a condensed field of lived experience, the study examines how bodily typification, symbolization, and socialization contribute to the construction of sports reality. It further explores the emergence of the “intelligent body” in the digital era and investigates how algorithms mediate embodied existence in sports. Ultimately, at a meta-theoretical level, this work re-articulates the relationship among communication, sports, and media, substantiates the core thesis of “sports as communication,” and proposes a new research paradigm—body-as-media studies. This provides a philosophical grounding for understanding the ontological significance of sports as media and their transformation in the digital era.