International Society
for Presence Research

Author: Matthew Lombard

  • Call: Operationalising the Audiovisual Turn in Digital Journalism

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Operationalising the Audiovisual Turn in Digital JournalismSpecial issue of the journal Digital Journalismhttps://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/operationalising-the-audiovisual-turn/ Special Issue Editors: Jonathan Hendrickx, University of Copenhagen, Department of Communicationjohe@hum.ku.dk María-Cruz Negreira-Rey, University of Santiago de Compostela, Department of Communicationcruz.negreira@usc.es Jorge Vázquez-Herrero, University of Santiago de Compostela, Department of Communicationjorge.vazquez@usc.es Sherwin Chua, Hong Kong Baptist University, Department of Journalismsherwinchua@hkbu.edu.hk Deadline for submission of abstracts and bio statements: April 17, 2026 This special issue of Digital Journalism focuses on the ongoing audiovisual turn in journalism, which reinforces the central role of video content in shaping news production, distribution, and the audience experience.…

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  • “XR for VR” makes manufacturing more accessible for people with disabilities

    Published:

    [The short story below from the North Dakota Monitor via KVRR, and the longer one from The Bismarck Tribune via GovTech.com that follows it, describe a promising application of presence to help people with disabilities learn about and obtain jobs in manufacturing (and in the future, other fields). See the XR for VR website of Bismarck State College for more information. –Matthew] [Image: Bismarck State College unveils its new virtual reality room on March 9, 2026. The room is part of the XR for VR project, which uses virtual reality to help people with disabilities see what it’s like to…

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  • Call: Video Game Cultures 2026: Ludic Literacies – Learning Across Playful Contexts

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Video Game Cultures 2026: Ludic Literacies – Learning Across Playful ContextsSeptember 3- 5, 2026University of KlagenfurtKlagenfurt, Austriahttps://videogamecultures.org/call-for-papers/ Deadline for submissions of abstracts and bio statements: May 4, 2026 As digital games increasingly shape how we learn, relate, deliberate, and imagine the future, questions of what it means to be literate in and through ludic systems have become both urgent and expansive. Games are no longer marginal cultural artifacts; they are complex aesthetic, ethical, and political environments in which knowledge, values, and identities are negotiated across multiple contexts. Responding to shared interests and themes emerging from our recent…

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  • Expanded simulation center trains military medical personnel to save patients during transport

    Published:

    [An expanded simulation center at the University of Cincinnati replicates the challenging environments of “en route” medical care for the training of US Air Force medical personnel. This story from the Cincinnati Enquirer via Yahoo! News, provides some of the details. Excerpts from the UC Health press release follow, and a 2:52 minute video report from Spectrum News is also available. –Matthew] [Image: Source: UC Health] Saving soldiers in virtual reality, UC Health opens training center By Cameron KnightMarch 12, 2026 For a moment on March 11, a room on the bottom floor of one of UC Health’s buildings in…

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  • Call: Algorithmic Images and Informational Urgencies: Challenges and Transformations in Contemporary Photojournalism

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Algorithmic Images and Informational Urgencies: Challenges and Transformations in Contemporary PhotojournalismSpecial Issue of Estudios sobre el Mensaje Periodístico (Studies of Journalistic Messages)https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/ESMP/monograficos/periodismografico Guest Editors:Nieves Limón-Serrano (University of Castilla-La Mancha)Marta Martín-Núñez (Jaume I University)Mathias-Felipe-de-Lima-Santos (University of New South Wales, Universidade Federal de São Paulo y Universitat Pompeu Fabra) Deadline for submissions: June 30, 2026 PRESENTATION AND OBJECTIVES Digital technologies have revolutionized photographic imagery and photojournalism. Although the potential to transform representations of reality has been inherent to photography since its invention—and used since its inception—the ease of use, widespread accessibility, and cost reduction brought by these technological developments…

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  • As hospital assaults rise, VR training steps in

    Published:

    [As this story from Edith Cowan University via Medical Xpress reports, new research demonstrates that a single 20-minute training session in virtual reality can raise medical professionals’ confidence in managing the increasingly common and challenging problem of aggressive hospital patients. Although the study doesn’t include a direct comparison with other training modalities, in their jourrnal article describing the work the authors note that using VR has other benefits: “This form of training can be standardized in terms of exposure and duration, requires fewer instructors with less specified expertise, and may be facilitated with lower costs compared to live (particularly higher…

    Read more: As hospital assaults rise, VR training steps in

  • Call: “The Agency and Politics of LLM-Based Chatbots” and other open panels at 4S 2026

    Published:

    Call for Abstracts: Open panels at 4S 2026 TorontoThe Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)Conference Theme: TechnoPower – Technoscientific FuturesOctober 7-10, 2026Toronto, Canada [and online]https://www.4sonline.org/accepted_open_panels_toronto.php Deadline for submissions: April 30, 2026 4S 2026 TORONTO The 50th Anniversary for the Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S): calls for presentations, panels, and adjacent gatherings that engage our theme of TechnoPower. Science, technology, and innovation are not neutral; as STS scholars, we understand them as socially, culturally, and economically constructed and deeply entangled with a specific form of technoscientific power.…

    Read more: Call: “The Agency and Politics of LLM-Based Chatbots” and other open panels at 4S 2026

  • Post-truth and beyond: Popular MAGA influencer is an AI foot fetish model

    Published:

    [As of this writing, it appears that Fast Company is the only high-profile media outlet reporting on Jessica Foster, a popular conservative social media influencer who – er, that – is completely computer-generated. The author notes that “Foster’s one-million-follower army is the ultimate demonstration that we have reached a predicted and very dangerous era, as the latest generative photo and video AIs have finally shattered our ground truths with perfect synthetic reality indistinguishable from real life.” But as this author, and the journalist in a 20-minute video report on the story on Courier’s YouTube channel, note, while it’s not clear…

    Read more: Post-truth and beyond: Popular MAGA influencer is an AI foot fetish model

  • Call: Advances in Map-based Interfaces and Interactions (MAPII 2026)

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Advances in Map-based Interfaces and Interactions (MAPII 2026)A Workshop at the 18th International Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces (AVI 2026)June 8 or 9, 2025Venice, Italyhttps://avcd.aalto.fi/mapii2026/ Deadline for submissions of short papers and extended abstracts: March 16, 2026 ABOUT THE WORKSHOP Tools, applications and services relying on map-based interfaces are so ubiquitous in our modern digital world that often the important roles which maps play in supporting users’ interactions with them go unnoticed. Yet, without further advances in the design and development of map-based interfaces and interactions it is highly unlikely that future such systems will meet the…

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  • New businesses offering immersive approach to building plans

    Published:

    [Two new business opening in Sioux Falls, South Dakota represent a larger trend in which architectural plans are made more immersive and likely to evoke spatial presence by being reproduced at full scale. The story below from SiouxFalls.Business describes how the services work and why they’re useful; see the original version of the story for nine more large images. –Matthew] New businesses will offer immersive approach to building plans By Jacqueline PalfyFebruary 26, 2026 Two new businesses in Sioux Falls and Tea will offer an immersive experience for everyone from architects to families remodeling a home. Alex Drey, owner of…

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  • Call: 14th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI 2026)

    Published:

    Call for Papers: The 14th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI 2026)November 16-19, 2026Osaka, Japanhttps://hai-conference.net/hai2026/ Deadlines for submissions: Full papers: May 29, 2026 Poster papers: August 7, 2026 Workshops and Tutorials: June 5, 2026 The Fourteenth International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI 2026) is the premier interdisciplinary venue for discussing and disseminating state-of-the-art research and results on the design and building of agents and the study of how humans interact with them. We welcome research that makes contributions and has implications across conventional interaction boundaries including robots, virtual agents, conversational agents, multi-modal agents, and digitally-mediated human-human communication. HAI will gather…

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  • Study finds virtual audiences can trigger real-world stress responses in speakers

    Published:

    [In a new study, some of our friends and colleagues at Michigan State University demonstrate that, as presence scholars would predict, giving a speech to a fictional audience in virtual reality evokes a variety of “physiological reactions, emotional response[s] and communication behaviors” that match what we’d expect if the experience occurred in person. This short story and the researchers’ new publication note that given the increasing prevalence of mediated communication, especially since the global pandemic, the results have important implications for helping people develop communication skills for both mediated and nonmediated settings. –Matthew] Study finds virtual audiences can trigger real-world…

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