Objective: Audience studies are currently caught in a paradigmatic divide between the interpretive approach of communication studies (focused on self-reported meaning) and the classical cognitive-behavioral approach (confined to objective laboratory processing). This fragmentation is rooted in the philosophical assumption of the “sandwich model” of the mind, which isolates cognition from the body and environment, trapping the audience in a “representational bottleneck.” Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of embodiment and the “4E Cognition” paradigm (Embodied, Embedded, Extended, and Enactive), this study aims to overcome this methodological dualism.

Method: This research employed an integrative and critical review design, governed by a dual inductive-deductive logic. Using purposive sampling, 85 key documents from the fields of audience studies, cognitive neuroscience, and philosophy of mind (2000–2025) were selected and analyzed through reflexive qualitative content analysis.

Findings: By integrating the “ABC Framework” and a “modified Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model,” the findings culminated in a tripartite methodological architecture that unifies phenomenological data (conscious meaning), behavioral data (observable actions), and physiological/neural data (unconscious processing) through a “triangulation” strategy within ecologically valid settings.

Conclusion: This framework redefines the audience not as an isolated brain, but as an integrated “brain-body-media” system, advancing audience studies from merely “describing effects” toward “understanding the mechanisms of dynamic coupling” between humans and media.