Each of this dissertation's three parts discusses media use at a different level of structure and process. Together, the parts articulate a new theory of user-media interaction. Part I emphasizes the importance of a dynamics-oriented approach to emergence, showing how semi-stable arrangements of matter and energy can interact in ways that make higher-level processes possible. It builds accounts of the functioning of bodies and minds "from the bottom up," or from physical materials upward to mental phenomena, and of media technologies "from the top down." In so doing, it synthesizes and draws contrasts between numerous contemporary theories of the mind and theories of media.

Part II discusses bodily interaction with media technologies, engaging with a lineage of thought that extends from pragmatic philosophy through contemporary embodied and extended theories of consciousness and cognition. It asserts the relevance of John Dewey's aesthetic philosophy to contemporary media theory and shows how extended cognition provides a valuable tool for understanding user-media interactions. It identifies in early film theory---particularly in the work of Hugo Munsterberg---cinema-specific accounts of perception that anticipate what later came to be called extended cognition.

Parts II and III illustrate how media are capable of participating in phenomena such as perception, cognition, and memory. Through discussion of films such as What Time is it There? (Tsai Ming-liang, 2001) and videogames including Don't Look Back (Terry Cavanagh, 2009) and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rockstar Games, 2004), these parts contend that meaning occurs neither in the media text itself nor in the brain of the user, but rather in the interactions between users and media.

This dissertation ultimately asserts that media go beyond shaping or influencing mental activity---rather, they play constitutive roles in it. This claim prompts a reconsideration of the roles that the humanities can play in interdisciplinary research, as well as a call for an increased emphasis on what hermeneutic scholarship offers the study of the mind.