The body and technology: Discourses shaping consumer experience and marketing communications of technological products and services

Abstract

Frontiers of thought in other disciplines, popular culture, and marketing communications are continually ‘re-visioning’ technology and influencing how consumers think about and experience technology-based products and services. Providing a glimpse into these frontiers, this paper re-introduces the body into theorisations of consumer-technology interaction and reviews interdisciplinary discourses shaping views of the body and technology. The key theoretical discourses of body-machine liminality, control and freedom, embodied interaction, and identity are discussed. These discourses expand conceptualisations of technology beyond a limiting focus on functional benefits, offering new frames and foundations for investigating consumer experience and marketing communications of technology-based offerings.