| The mainstream of communication research is now Ocular-centrism,where vision is generally considered the most noble sense and the other senses are gradually excluded from research.It is only due to the aftermath of the "loss of smell" of Covid-19 that people began to notice the important role of smell in their lives.Communication science has long been dominated by Ocular-centrism,and the study of smell has not yet developed a system.The recent emergence of media ontology in contemporary media theory has led to the expansion of the concept of media,such as technology and the body being included in the category of media.From the perspective of media ontology,the concept of intermediary guidance is emphasized,and media is defined as the guidance structure "through......and......",as the way people access the world.An analysis of this important definition reveals that smell as a means and mode of defining and interacting with the world is a medium,and that this medium acts as an actor in our lives.To borrow from Mc Luhan’s idea that "the content of one medium is another",smell constitutes an olfactory medium in the same way that sound,light and shadow constitute an audiovisual medium.The olfactory medium has five qualities: spatial materiality,availability,invisible embodiment,generation,and extension of time.The human way of being is always connected to the evolution of the medium.The evolution of smell and its involvement in human life has gone through three stages: first,into the privileged and divine religious sphere;second,into the public sphere of reality;and third,into the private sphere of real life.The influence of smell on the way of human existence is reflected in: first,smell reveals the way the world unfolds by purifying the ritual space and connecting individuals;second,smell regulates the generation of public culture,promotes social stratification,and becomes the background of human affairs and culture;third,smell influences our view of time and lifestyle,and conveys the essence of human beings.In the process of extracting the mediating role played by smell from the literature through textual analysis,it can be found that smell as a medium is closely related to our life activities and has a rich connection with human life.Smell as a medium is perceived in lived experience,and it maps out our way of being in its intervention in our daily life.Smell,which is symbiotic with human communication activities and interaction practices,makes the medium no longer an objective object but a phenomenon,expanding the conceptual meaning of the medium.Smell connects the infinite richness of the world of lived experience into a unified whole of diversity,providing a new perspective for our local communication research. |
