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Defining Presence

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Immersed in Media

Abstract

The concept of presence has become the focus of an increasing amount of attention in both academic and public forums, but scholars have developed divergent and overlapping definitions of the concept, which threatens to inhibit our progress in understanding presence phenomena. In this chapter we present a framework for untangling the conceptualizations and promote a standardized terminology for discussing and defining presence. A brief consideration of the benefits and dangers of the endeavor is followed by an overview of the origins and evolution of presence terminology, presentation of the definitional framework, and recommendations for its use.

We define presence as the feeling of being located in a perceptible external world around the self.

Waterworth et al. (2015)

Presence is the experience of being engaged by the representations of a virtual world.

Jacobson (2002)

Presence [is defined formally as t]he perceptual illusion of nonmediation.

Lombard and Ditton (1997)

Presence is tantamount to successfully supported action in the environment.

Zahorik and Jenison (1998)

The sense of presence considered here is… a numinous [i.e., supernatural, sacred, holy] sense of otherness.

Cheyne (2001)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Media and Communication, School of Media and Communication, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Matthew Lombard

  2. Department of Communication/Division of Liberal Arts, County College of Morris, Randolph, New Jersey, USA

    Matthew T. Jones

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  1. Matthew Lombard
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Temple University, School of Media & Communication, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    Matthew Lombard

  2. Syracuse University, Newhouse School of Public Communications, New York, USA

    Frank Biocca

  3. Goldsmiths, University of London, Department of Psychology, London, United Kingdom

    Jonathan Freeman

  4. Eindhoven University of Technology, School of Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Wijnand IJsselsteijn

  5. Temple University, School of Media & Communication, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    Rachel J. Schaevitz

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Lombard, M., Jones, M.T. (2015). Defining Presence. In: Lombard, M., Biocca, F., Freeman, J., IJsselsteijn, W., Schaevitz, R. (eds) Immersed in Media. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10190-3_2

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