ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Friends of the Earth (FoE) activists' engagement with different communications technologies. Interaction through information and communication technologies (ICTs) is often distinguished in the literature from face-to-face interaction by the adjective indirect. The focus on 'face-to-face' interaction is based on the importance given to vision and eye contact. The chapter discusses the practices that make a presence through ICTs, and analyses how presence appears in different situations. It describes how the presence co-generated with ICTs makes it possible not only to maintain but also to develop personal relationships. The chapter explores the processes during face-to-face meetings whereby FoE activists learn to perceive the sense of co-presence through ICTs. It focuses on some situations in which ICTs do not so easily co-generate immediacy. The chapter analyses the notion of face-to-face to explore what creates presence in different situations.
