ABSTRACT
The goal of this book is to highlight the growth and importance of the concept of telepresence in everyday media use. Telepresence (or presence) is commonly defi ned as the “perceptual illusion of nonmediation” (Lombard & Ditton, 1997). The extent to which media users feel “in” a media environment or “with” mediated others has signifi cant implications. Since various researchers introduced telepresence to the discipline of Communication, most notably Frank Biocca and Matthew Lombard (e.g., Biocca & Delaney, 1995; Lombard & Ditton, 1997; Biocca, 1997), attention to the concept has grown tremendously. Researchers investigating telepresence now herald from diverse disciplines (e.g., communication, psychology, computer science, philosophy, etc.), resulting in a large and diverse body of scholarly work. In 2007, Lombard and Jones identifi ed more than 1,400 articles that addressed the concept. Even more impressive, the vast majority of this work came out in only the last 12 years.
