Social Presence Theory

The original theory

Short and colleagues (1976) argued that communication media such as face-to-face conversation, video, telephone and written documents differ in how far they convey the feeling that the other person is present. The more nonverbal cues, such as facial expression, gaze and voice, a medium transmits, the higher its social presence. They argued that interpersonally demanding tasks such as negotiation or conflict resolution call for high-presence media, while simple information exchange can rely on low-presence media. Together with media richness theory, which addressed media's information-carrying capacity, this idea became a foundation of media choice research.

Organizational media and the social information processing challenge

Rice (1993) compared the social presence of email, voice mail, videoconferencing and other organizational media and showed that communication is more effective when media fit the task. Early research, however, tended to assume that cue-poor media such as email allowed only cold, impersonal communication. Walther (1992) challenged this with the social information processing perspective: even with few cues, people form impressions from other signals such as wording and response timing, and given enough time they can develop relationships comparable to face-to-face ones. This connects to social penetration theory, which describes how relationships gradually deepen.

Extensions to online learning and virtual reality

Garrison and colleagues (1999) proposed the Community of Inquiry framework, holding that successful online learning requires social presence, learners perceiving one another as real people, alongside cognitive and teaching presence. It became the most widely used framework in distance education research. Biocca and colleagues (2003) and Lee (2004) redefined presence as a psychological state experienced by users rather than a fixed property of media, distinguishing physical, social and self presence. Oh and colleagues (2018) synthesized research on virtual reality, avatars and social robots, concluding that immersion, interactivity and individual traits increase social presence.

FAQ

What is social presence theory in simple terms?

Video calls, phone calls and texts differ in how much the other person feels truly there, and that feeling affects the quality of communication.

Is it hard to build close relationships by text or email?

Early theory suggested so, but Walther's social information processing perspective argues that with enough time people can form close relationships through other cues such as wording, even when cues are limited.

Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26

References

1. Short, J., Williams, E., & Christie, B. (1976). The Social Psychology of Telecommunications. London: John Wiley & Sons. The founding text introducing social presence.
2. Walther, J. B. (1992). Interpersonal effects in computer-mediated interaction: A relational perspective. Communication Research, 19(1), 52–90. The social information processing challenge to cues-filtered-out views.
3. Rice, R. E. (1993). Media appropriateness: Using social presence theory to compare traditional and new organizational media. Human Communication Research, 19(4), 451–484. Compares organizational media by social presence and task fit.
4. Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (1999). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2–3), 87–105. Introduces the Community of Inquiry framework for online learning.
5. Biocca, F., Harms, C., & Burgoon, J. K. (2003). Toward a more robust theory and measure of social presence: Review and suggested criteria. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 12(5), 456–480. A review proposing criteria for defining and measuring social presence.
6. Lee, K. M. (2004). Presence, explicated. Communication Theory, 14(1), 27–50. Explicates physical, social and self presence.
7. Oh, C. S., Bailenson, J. N., & Welch, G. F. (2018). A systematic review of social presence: Definition, antecedents, and implications. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 5, 114. A systematic review including virtual reality and avatar research.