International Society
for Presence Research

Author: Matthew Lombard

  • Call: Videojogos 2026 – 16th Conference on Videogame Sciences and Arts

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Videojogos 2026, 16th International Conference on Videogame Sciences and ArtsDecember 3-4, 2026Universidade LusófonaCentro Universitário de Lisboa, Portugalhttps://videojogos2026.ulusofona.pt/ Deadline for submissions of full papers: October 1, 2026 For over fifteen years, Videojogos has brought together researchers, developers, artists, educators, designers, students, and industry professionals to discuss the evolving role of games in society. The conference provides a multidisciplinary forum for presenting cutting-edge research, innovative design practices, critical perspectives, and creative projects that explore games as technological, cultural, educational, artistic, and social phenomena. As games continue to shape how we learn, communicate, create, work, and imagine futures, Videojogos 2026…

    Read more: Call: Videojogos 2026 – 16th Conference on Videogame Sciences and Arts

  • High school student creates VR learning experience that will become NC statewide course

    Published:

    [A high school student in North Carolina learned to create virtual environments and then developed a proposal to use immersive digital environments to “allow learners to design virtual spaces using Unity, experience those spaces through VR and share their creations with other students.” The proposal has been approved and the learning experience will be available for students across the state. The story below from India Today is the most complete I’ve found; more information is available from Spectrum News, where it includes a 1:47 minute video report, and from a news release by Lexington Senior High School. Note: I believe…

    Read more: High school student creates VR learning experience that will become NC statewide course

  • Call: Digital Religion V: Interfaces of Discourse, Society, and Politics

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Digital Religion V: Interfaces of Discourse, Society, and PoliticsInternational ConferenceNovember 19-21, 2026University of Lodz, Faculty of Philology, Department of PragmaticsLodz, Polandhttps://www.ethicsinmedia.eu/digital-religion-2026http://commlist.org/archive/all/2026-all/msg01095.html Deadline for submission of abstracts and bio statements: September 30, 2026 Positioned within contemporary struggles over public meaning, social affiliation and political legitimacy, digital religion is articulated through mediated practices in which claims about faith, community, authority and truth become resources for negotiating belonging, morality, identity and power. Digital Religion V invites papers that examine these practices at the interfaces of discourse, society and politics, with a focus on digital religious discourse both as product and…

    Read more: Call: Digital Religion V: Interfaces of Discourse, Society, and Politics

  • Can an AI pastor be a true spiritual guide?

    Published:

    [Three decades ago, asking people how they feel about a computer filling deeply personal roles like religious leader was only hypothetical – today it’s a reality. In the essay below from Religion News Service (RNS) a professor of religion comments on recent stories about pastors using AI – in one case creating a digital twin of himself to interact with his congregation (that California pastor describes his PastorGPT service in a 2:57 minute video on YouTube). See also “The Malnourished Ministry of Relational AI” in Christianity Today, where the author frames his analysis with the 1909 E. M. Forster short…

    Read more: Can an AI pastor be a true spiritual guide?

  • Call: International Communication Association (ICA)

    Published:

    [NOTE: Visit the link directly below for detailed Calls for this conference in 37 submission categories based on the organization’s divisions and interest groups. This post contains highlights from Calls for categories particularly related to presence. –Matthew] Call for Papers: ICA 202777th Annual Conference of the International Communication AssociationJune 3-7, 2027Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdomhttps://www.icahdq.org/mpage/ICA27-calls-for-papers Deadline for submissions: November 2, 2027 at 12:00 Noon Eastern Daylight Time Why Attend ICA27? The Annual International Communication Association (ICA) Conference is one of the biggest global gatherings for communication scholars, practitioners, and students. Cutting-Edge Research: Hear the latest findings before they’re published, across every…

    Read more: Call: International Communication Association (ICA)

  • US Air Force Airlift Group uses VR to train maintainers

    Published:

    [This story from the United States Air Force News Service highlights the monetary and other benefits of using “realistic” and “immersive” presence-evoking virtual reality to train people for the challenging and high stakes work of maintaining aircraft. See the original version of the story for a second image. –Matthew] [Image: U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Austin Malanowski, 913th Airlift Group Virtual Reality Training Center program coordinator, (right), guides Tech. Sgt. Tisha Martin, 913th AG paralegal, through a virtual training environment during the May Unit Training Assembly at Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, May 3, 2026. Malanowski spearheaded the transformation…

    Read more: US Air Force Airlift Group uses VR to train maintainers

  • Call: Intl. Seminar on the Public Sphere in the Age of Algorithms

    Published:

    Call for Abstracts: II EPEA: International Seminar on the Public Sphere in the Age of AlgorithmsUnder the theme: Artificial Intelligence and Political CommunicationOrganized by the Media Studies Group at LabCom – the Communication Laboratory of the University of Beira Interior (UBI) in Covilhã, PortugalDecember 10-11, 2026Onlinehttps://labcom.ubi.pt/epea/ Deadline for submission of abstracts: September 30, 2026 OVERVIEW The rapid popularisation of generative artificial intelligence through easily accessible platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude has introduced challenges related to the automated production of content, the authenticity of information, the concentration of technological power, and transformations in communicative practices. The traditional conception of…

    Read more: Call: Intl. Seminar on the Public Sphere in the Age of Algorithms

  • Tess McKinney helps healthcare and education embrace immersive technology

    Published:

    [Those interested in presence-evoking technologies and their impacts should know about Tess McKinney and the work she does to “[help] hospitals, colleges, and universities adopt virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and other immersive technologies.” This news release about her is from the Nebraska Business Development Center; for more information visit the website of her company XRenegades. –Matthew] Building the Future Through Virtual Reality XRenegades Helps Healthcare and Education Embrace Immersive Technology August 28, 2026Contact: NBDC Communications – [email protected] Tess McKinney was sitting in a national conference session on virtual reality in 2019 when she heard something that didn’t sit…

    Read more: Tess McKinney helps healthcare and education embrace immersive technology

  • Call: Focus on Pedagogy 2026: Across Teaching, Theory, Technologies & Times

    Published:

    Call for Abstracts: Learning & Teaching ConferenceA Focus on Pedagogy 2026Across Teaching, Theory, Technologies & TimesNovember 18-20, 2026Onlinehttps://amps-research.com/conference/learning-teaching/ Deadline for submission of abstracts: October 10, 2026 Education can be seen as a practice in constant flux. Today, AI is transforming how we teach and learn. A few years ago, it was online teaching that reshaped classrooms worldwide. Before that, social justice movements were shifting our focus away from the ‘canon’ and, for several decades now, new theories like transformative learning and connectivism have been reshaping our roles as teachers. Teaching and learning then, are clearly phenomena in continual evolution. Interestingly…

    Read more: Call: Focus on Pedagogy 2026: Across Teaching, Theory, Technologies & Times

  • Lessons from a viral fake sorority hopeful’s TikTok videos

    Published:

    [An AI expert at a venture capital firm recently created a series of videos in which a fictional college student competed with her peers to join different sororities at the University of Alabama. The fact that the student and the videos were all AI creations was only revealed in the last video. This interview from Inc. with the creator of what became a viral experiment reveals some interesting assessments and predictions about how people respond to attempts to create presence misperceptions about the use of this fast-evolving technology (see in particular the last two paragraphs).  –Matthew] A Fake Sorority Hopeful…

    Read more: Lessons from a viral fake sorority hopeful’s TikTok videos

  • Job: Faculty in Human Comm. and Tech. at U. of IL at Urbana-Champaign

    Published:

    Call for Applications: Human Communication and TechnologyAssistant Professor/Associate ProfessorDepartment of CommunicationCollege of Liberal Arts & SciencesUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUrbana, IL, UShttps://illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/careersite/1/home/requisition/17566?c=illinois Deadline for submission of applications: September 15, 2026 The Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign seeks a nine-month full-time Assistant Professor or Associate Professor in the area of Human Communication and Technology with an emphasis that connects with our departmental strengths in health, interpersonal, or organizational communication. Research and teaching should focus on technologies used in communication between or among people. Specific research foci may include the implications and usage of AI in interpersonal…

    Read more: Job: Faculty in Human Comm. and Tech. at U. of IL at Urbana-Champaign

  • To get AR beyond ‘pervert glasses’ companies should remember lessons of VR

    Published:

    [The author of this essay from CNET argues that Meta and other companies that make and market smart glasses should learn lessons from the long history of attempts to encourage consumers to use and purchase virtual reality headsets. As with VR, companies need to give potential adopters of smart glasses opportunities to gain experience with the product and help establish a social contract with them about how and where to use the technology. As he notes (in the second-to-last paragraph), these steps to counter the current backlash against ‘pervert glasses’ are important because of the many “possibilities of assistive wearable…

    Read more: To get AR beyond ‘pervert glasses’ companies should remember lessons of VR

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