Zach Vantrieste BTMM 4446 3/25/10

Zach VanTrieste – BTMM 4446 – 3/25/10

READING SUMMARY: Telepresence and Entertainment

Hartmann, T., Klimmt, C., & Vorderer, P. (2009). Presence and media enjoyment. In C. Bracken

& P. Skalski (Editors), Immersed in Media: Telepresence in Everyday Life. New York:

Routledge.

As technology improves, mediated environments are becoming incredibly commonplace and more realistic than ever before. It was fascinating to read a book chapter that talked about how these mediated realities are linked to entertainment. The chapter examined the question of how presence is established in a mediated reality and how this presence correlates with entertainment and emotion. The authors examine many areas of presence which they believe make people more inclined to embrace mediated realities and how these areas of presence affect one’s level of entertainment.

The chapter talks about a phenomenon called “Spatial Presence,” meaning that a user has a feeling of “being there” within the mediated world. Basically “Spatial Presence” means that an individual has the perception that they are actually a part of the media world they are engaging in. For example, it would be like someone watching the film Avatar feeling as if they were actually in the world of Pandora from the film. Users experiencing “Spatial Presence” will adjust their actions according to the mediated world surrounding them; their reactions are based upon what they are experiencing with the media. The chapter also talks about what is called “Social

Presence,” or a sense of togetherness with those other people engaging in the mediated environment even though these people may not be physically present. “Social Presence” is something that occurs when one feels attached to others engaging in the media experience and feels that they have a mutual mediated condition. People involved in this mediated experience can be real people using a given media technology to achieve a mediated condition or fictional people within the mediated environment that one feels connected to.

The chapter further discussed sensations of presence labeled involvement, transportation, and flow. Basically involvement is an individual’s mental and emotional response to the mediated world surrounding them. Transportation is described as a person’s feeling as if they are being absorbed in a story and these transported individuals can see the plot or story of the media unfolding as they engage with it. Transported users can be people playing a video game and becoming entranced with the game play and content to a point in which they feel as if they are within the story and can see it taking place before their eyes. Flow is characterized by having media content that isn’t too difficult or too easy for an individual to engage with, having a balance of difficult and easy content that allows people to interact with the medium with greater involvement. If the mediated environment is too hard to interact with people will become frustrated and lose interest and at the same time if it’s too easy it won’t present enough of a challenge to keep interest either.

The authors develop possible factors underlying the correlation between presence and entertainment. Among the factors that the authors determine influence one’s mediated experience are automatic natural perceptions, attention allocation and interest, escapism, suspension of disbelief, and arousal. An automatic natural perception is the idea that a mediated environment needs to feel natural for an individual to invest in the experience fully. Attention allocation is a theory that interest leads to presence because one wants to engage in new and risky dangerous endeavors when in a mediated world. As a result of these new and dangerous situations the mediated environment gets stronger because people are interested in the outcome and the situation, making the feeling of presence stronger. Escapism is the belief that mediated environments are suited for entertainment because people use them to escape from their own troubles and engage in new and exciting things. Since individuals are escaping from their own seemingly dull lives and entering a fantasy world the idea of presence emerges. It is because these individuals are involved with the media that makes this presence exist. Suspension of disbelief is the theory that people will experience presence only when they abandon their suspicion of the mediated world around them. One can’t experience presence unless they try to embrace the environment they are immersed in. If you look critically at design flaws and other things the feeling of presence will be limited. Arousal is another link between entertainment and presence. The more one is entertained and excited by the mediated environment around them the more likely they are to have a feeling of presence. The authors argue that “users in a high state of arousal may tend to forget about the mediated nature of their experience more easily” (p. 148).

Correlations between entertainment and presence definitely exist. However, as the authors mention, many of the tests to measure presence and the entertainment users are experiencing are very primitive, making it hard to make any concrete conclusions. It was very interesting to read about how the authors classified different aspects of presence and how they can affect a media experience.