A number of emerging technologies including virtual reality, simulation rides, video conferencing, home theater, and high definition television are designed to provide media users with an illusion that a mediated experience is not mediated, a perception defined here as presence. Traditional media such as the telephone, radio, television, film, and many others offer a lesser degree of presence as well. This article examines the key concept of presence. It begins by noting practical and theoretical reasons for studying this concept. Six conceptualizations of presence found in a diverse set of literatures are identified and a detailed explication of the concept that incorporates these conceptualizations is presented. Existing research and speculation about the factors that encourage or discourage a sense of presence in media users as well as the physiological and psychological effects of presence are then outlined. Finally, suggestions concerning future systematic research about presence are presented.

Film and a number of emerging entertainment technologies offer media consumers an illusion of nonmediation known as presence.To investigate the possibility that television can evoke presence, 65 undergraduate students were shown brief examples of rapid point-ofview movement from commercially available videotapes on a television with either a small screen (12 inches [30.5 cm], measured diagonally) or a large screen (46 inches [116.8 cm]). Participants' responses were measured via a questionnaire and a computer-based recording of arousal (electrodermal activity). Viewers of both televisions reported an enjoyablesense of physical movement, excitement, involvement, and a sense of participation. Furthermore, as predicted, participants who watched the large screen television thought the movement in the scenes was faster, experienced a greater sense of physical movement, enjoyed the movement to a greater extent, found the viewing experience more exciting, and were more physiologically aroused. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed. "I next try to ski. . . . There is only snow and danger, all on an enormous screen that gives the feel of three dimensions and reality. I race off, gathering speed by the second. I have no idea how to stop. I'm shaking with nervousness. It doesn't seem like a game. I hit a tree, I go under the slalom, I roll head over heals. There is a terrible sound each time I crash, and the whole machine shudders. I feel like crying." -Martin, 1996, p. C1 (review of XS New York virtual reality arcade) "It's hard to beat the thrills of "Grand Canyon: The Hidden Secrets," the IMAX film that rides the Colorado River rapids slicing through nature's most majestic chasm. . . . So effective are the film's you are there perspectives that you wipe away imagined white-water from your brow when you're not holding on to your armrest for dear life." -Rickey, 1994, p. W5 "[The film "Twister"] brings screen fiction unnervingly close to virtual reality. -Ryan, 1996, p. W3T hese and other comments suggest that media users today want, and get, more than just intriguing characters and thought-provoking stories. They get visceral responses, thrills, a feeling of physical movement, a sense of danger -something very much like the experience of skiing down a snowy mountain or whitewater rafting through a canyon. Throughout most of human history this kind of media experience, one that seems to be not mediated, was unavailable, even unimaginable. But recently virtual reality, simulation rides, advanced film formats, video conferencing, and other emerging technologies have been created expressly to provide users with this illusion of nonmediation. These technologies are in their infancy, but already we can see their potential -scholars and researchers are exploring the characteristics of the form and content of these new media, and the characteristics of media users, that contribute to this illusion, identified formally as a sense of "presence."In the late 1990s sophisticated virtual reality systems and other new med...

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