Author: Matthew Lombard


  • Call: Health & New Media Research

    Call for Papers: Health & New Media ResearchVolume 10, Issue 2https://www.hnmr.org/newsletter/call_for_papers.html Deadline for submissions: October 31, 2026. Health & New Media Research (HNMR) invites original research manuscripts for publication in Volume 10, Issue 2. HNMR focuses on the role of communication and new media in public and environmental health to advance scholarly discoveries and real-world solutions. HNMR is an open-access, international, biannual peer-reviewed academic journal and is published in June and December by the Health & New Media Research Institute at Hallym University (South Korea). The deadline for manuscript submissions is October 31, 2026. The submission should not have been…

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  • VR can help ease anxiety, claustrophobia during cardiac imaging

    [As described in a news release from the American College of Cardiology, researchers at UCHealth in Colorado Springs, Colorado used the “immersive visual and auditory experiences” produced by virtual reality to “redirect the patients’ attention away from the scanner environment“ as they were undergoing PET and CT scans for cardiac imaging. The study apparently didn’t measure presence itself and has other limitations, but the positive patient responses and impacts of the intervention suggest its value and are consistent with studies of similar VR interventions in other medical contexts. For more information, watch a 2:50 minute video report from Fox21 News…

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  • Call: Where Is the Human? Communication, Connection, and Agency in the Age of AI

    Call for Panelists: “Where Is the Human? Communication, Connection, and Agency in the Age of AI”At ICA 2027, the 77th Annual Conference of the International Communication AssociationJune 3-7, 2027Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdomhttps://www.icahdq.org/mpage/ICA27-calls-for-papers[From a post to NCA COMMNotes] Deadline for submission of abstracts and bio statements: October 16, 2026 I am organizing a panel proposal for the International Communication Association (ICA) 2027 conference exploring AI’s growing role as a participant in communication and what this means for human agency, authenticity, relationships, trust, and connection. As AI increasingly writes messages, advises decisions, supports relationships, assists leaders, and shapes organizational communication, the question…

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  • Perhaps Star Trek’s computer voice makes sense

    [As a fan of Star Trek since childhood, I’m particularly interested in this post from the Neurologica Blog about how the original television series almost exactly six decades ago (and I’d argue the many subsequent series and films) portrayed voice interactions with computers in the distant future. The author points out what many of us have observed, that the portrayal reflect little of the extremely convincing and presence-evoking simulations of human voices becoming common today, and he argues that whether purposely or not, the portrayal may represent a better approach. –Matthew] Perhaps Star Trek’s Computer Voice Makes Sense By Steven…

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  • Call: Mental Models in Human-AI Interaction

    Call for Papers: Workshop on Mental Models in Human-AI Interaction: Methods and Challenges in the Generative and Agentic AI EraAt ACM IUI 2027: 31st Annual ACM Conference on Intelligent User InterfacesFebruary 8, 2027Helsinki, FinlandWorkshop: https://mentalmodelsofai.vercel.app/IUI 2027: https://iui.acm.org/2027/ Deadline for submission of papers: November 9, 2026 The mental model construct is widely used in HCI to refer to the knowledge structure people hold to reason about computing systems. Yet the construct is often used interchangeably with related concepts (e.g. folk theories, sensemaking) and methods of studying it are many and diverse. Generative and agentic AI systems further complicate mental model formation…

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  • How VR is changing brain-training technology

    [Neurofeedback (a type of biofeedback) provides real time visual or auditory cues about a person’s brain activity to help them alter that activity – to ‘train their brain.’ Although it doesn’t directly consider the role of presence, a new meta analysis described in this PsyPost story tentatively indicates that the technique is more effective when the visual and auditory cues are not simple graphs and tones, but vivid and meaningful changes in an immersive virtual or mixed reality experience. Follow the link to the new publication for more details.  –Matthew] [Image: Figure 1 from the research review: The two different…

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  • Call: Blue Sky Ideas track at AAMS 2027

    Call for Blue Sky Ideas: The 26th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMS 2027)May 3-7, 2027Hanoi, Vietnamhttps://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/dcs/aamas2027/calls/call-for-blue-sky-ideas/ Deadline for submission of abstract: November 5, 2026Deadline for submission of papers: November 12, 2026 The Blue Sky Ideas special track is intended to present and provoke visionary ideas, long-term challenges, new research opportunities, and debate. It serves as an incubator for innovative, risky, and provocative research directions, and aims to provide a forum for publishing and presenting these without being constrained by the result-oriented standards followed in the review process of the main track of the conference.…

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  • Airline launches inter-airport remote passenger support via telepresence robots

    [Here are two short stories, from Japan’s The Mainichi and the UK’s Travelling for Business, about what sounds like a clever use of telepresence robots at airports in Japan. –Matthew] [Image: An All Nippon Airways Co. staff member (on screen) at Kansai International Airport provides assistance with check-in and other procedures remotely via a Newme robot at Hiroshima Airport in Mihara, Hiroshima Prefecture, on Aug. 21, 2026. Credit: Kyodo News via The Mainichi] ANA launches inter-airport remote passenger support via telepresence robots September 6, 2026 OKYO (Kyodo) — All Nippon Airways Co. has begun rolling out telepresence robots enabling skilled…

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  • Call: Debates and Emerging Futures in Journalism, Media and Comm.

    Call for Chapters: Debates and Emerging Futures in Journalism, Media and CommunicationRoutledge: Taylor and Francis Grouphttp://commlist.org/archive/all/2026-all/msg01116.html Editor: Dr Abdulgaffar Arikewuyo Deadline for submission of chapter abstracts: September 30, 2026 Journalism, media and communication are continually being reshaped by technological innovation, political and economic transformations, cultural change, evolving professional practices, and shifting relationships between media institutions and their audiences. From the transformation of traditional journalism to social media, platformisation, artificial intelligence and synthetic media, the boundaries of journalism, media and communication are being continuously redefined. Debates and Emerging Futures in Journalism, Media and Communication is an edited scholarly volume that seeks…

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  • 9/11 spawned the digital media era

    [This abridged version of a comprehensive essay in Vanity Fair describes how then-new breakthroughs in media technologies and the horrific events of September 11, 2001 “ushered in the age of global simultaneity” and brought billions of people closer to those events, their aftermath, and each other. The author cites two theorists to note potential positive implications of the new technologies – the recognition of our common humanity in an interconnected global community – and negative ones that seem all too prevalent in 2026: the rise of cultures consumed by media spectacle, and uncertainty about, and polarized misperceptions of, reality. See…

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  • Call: Heritages 2027: UNESCO Perspectives: Cultural Pasts – Urban Futures

    Call for Papers: Heritages 2027UNESCO Perspectives: Cultural Pasts – Urban FuturesJuly 6-8, 2027University of Porto, Portugalhttps://amps-research.com/conference/porto-heritages/ Deadline for submission of abstracts: December 10, 2026 This conference marks the fifty fifth anniversary of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Taking the Convention as its starting point, it picks up on the continually evolving definition of heritage UNESCO has offered throughout this time: artistic, natural, cultural and, more recently, through the lens of communities, tourism, technologies, medias, cultural industries and local economies. It now includes what some define as traditional forms of art, architectural and social history, as well as emerging practices in…

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  • Why Erika Woolsey sees VR tech as an ocean conservation tool

    [The story below is about how marine biologist Erika Woolsey is using presence-evoking technologies to educate and build empathy that “make the ocean more accessible to the masses so that they might strive to protect it.” It’s part of TIME magazine’s “TIME Trailblazers: Designing and Making the Future” series; the original version includes a short video. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Xander Peterson] Why Erika Woolsey Sees Virtual Reality Tech as an Ocean Conservation Tool By Alison Van HoutenSeptember 2, 2026 Marine biologist Dr. Erika Woolsey once led a 450-person dive on the kaleidoscopic coral reefs of Palau, a tropical archipelago nation…

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