‘Being in on the Action’ in Mobile Robotic Telepresence: Rethinking Presence in Hybrid Participation
Channel: Andriana Boudouraki
Date: 2023-02-13

Presentation video for the study: ‘Being in on the Action’ in Mobile Robotic Telepresence: Rethinking Presence in Hybrid Participation. 

This study looks at the experience of being presence via mobile robotic telepresence, through semi-structured interviews with 7 long term users of the technology. The users’ accounts were analysed through the lens of phenomenology – aiming to understand lived experience from the first-person perspectives of the users. We show that presence through robotic telepresence does not align with common notions of presence as a sense of ‘being there’, but is elicited when users are able to gear into the action of the mediated activity. We propose that future work in this domain should focus on understanding what actions are relevant for engaged participation rather than ways of simulating in-person capabilities with the aim of improving presence.