ABSTRACT
Mass communication scholars have always faced questions regarding the impact of media on audience members. New, increasingly interactive media can simulate reality or create the experience of presence in a media or virtual environment. Presence can serve as a dependent variable when researchers ask which characteristics of a medium predict feelings of presence. Presence can also serve as an independent variable leading to various media effects. Scholars, however, have not agreed on a single definition for “presence.” Several writers propose that there are two main types of presence: personal, or the extent to which one senses being actually located in a physical environment, and social, or the sense of feeling with others (see Lee, 2004, for a review).
