Article:

The affective niches of media

This article explores the potential value of affective niche theory for understanding how media-induced emotions, especially those related to the cinema, extend beyond the body of the human organism and are thus to varying degrees scaffolded by environmental factors. A central thesis is that cinema creates ‘affective niches’ based on ‘sensory isolates’ that enable the experience of, for example, horror or extreme violence without having to actually fear for our lives. This article explores ways in which affective niche theory allows for the theorising of mediated affectivity as situated in the intermediary space between organism and environment.