The Presence Producers: On design and use of presence production systems

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(1)kth royal institute of technology. Doctoral Thesis in Media Technology and Graphic Arts. The Presence Producers On design and use of presence production systems LEIF HANDBERG. Stockholm, Sweden 2021.

(2) The Presence Producers On design and use of presence production systems LEIF HANDBERG. Academic Dissertation which, with due permission of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, is submitted for public defence for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy on Friday the 3rd September 2021, at 1:00 p.m. in F3, Lindstedsvägen 26, Stockholm.. Doctoral Thesis in Media Technology and Graphic Arts KTH Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, Sweden 2021.

(3) © Leif Handberg ISBN 978-91-7873-932-5 TRITA-EECS-AVL-2021:46 Printed by: Universitetsservice US-AB, Sweden 2021.

(4) Abstract Feeling present with others – as if we are in the same room even if we are apart – is a key experience in mediated communication situations. But how do we produce mediated communications so that we increase the likelihood of forgetting the mediating technology, letting participants engage as if they are all there? This thesis summarises the analyses of practice-led work on organising more than 35 presence productions over a period of more than 20 years. The presence productions go from small groups pursuing utilitarian work to large public concerts. This iterative longitudinal research process has been altered and informed by new technological developments and changes to setups, tools and dramaturgies. However, no matter whether we have advanced or less advanced technology, a range of pragmatic considerations of how to facilitate and orchestrate presence situations arises over and over in these productions. First, and perhaps most importantly, there is a need for a presence producer who arranges and takes responsibility for the overall experience. The presence production case studies clearly show how the layout of spaces (real and mediated); the choice of technology and how it is arranged to narrate the communication; alongside the overall social context all have bearing on the presence experience and are key components in a presence production system. Moreover, a meticulous analysis of these presence productions reveal ways by which components should be considered in the planning and execution phases so as to overcome the cracks and breaks that may disrupt participants’ experience of presence, and thereby their communication. The analysis shows the need for three distinct presence producer roles: Presence designer: Designer of the presence production system before it is put into action. Not a participant in the communication. Presence facilitator: Facilitator/orchestrator in the presence production system as the presence production unfolds. Not a participant in the communication. Participant presence producer: Users of the presence production system, actively taking part in the communication but also serving as facilitators/orchestrators, controlling or adjusting aspects of the mediated situation to support the presence experience..

(5) Furthermore, the following design elements and how they can be shaped are discussed: ways of using video as a storytelling tool; dividing the space into rooms as a path to organising the production; and use of dramaturgy and stage directions to guide the production. Keywords Presence producer, presence production, presence production systems, presence design, spatial connectedness, social connectedness..

(6) Sammanfattning Att känna sig närvarande med andra – som om vi vore i samma rum även om vi är på olika platser – är en nyckelupplevelse i medierad kommunikation. Hur kan vi då producera medierad kommunikation så att vi ökar sannolikheten att deltagarna glömmer den medierande tekniken och engagerar sig som om de verkligen är där? Avhandlingen sammanfattar analyser av praktikbaserat arbete med att organisera och genomföra mer än 35 närvaroproduktioner under en period som sträcker sig över mer än 20 år. Dessa produktioner har varit allt från arbete i små distribuerade grupper till stora offentliga konserter. Forskningsprocessen har utvecklats och påverkats av den tekniska utvecklingen, samt av olika upplägg med utrustning och val av dramaturgi. Oavsett om tekniken har varit mindre eller mer avancerad har vissa grundläggande praktiska lärdomar ofta återkommit i dessa produktioner – lärdomar som visat hur närvarosituationer underlättas och kan styras. Den viktigaste lärdomen är att någon bör tar ett övergripande ansvar för upplevelsen, vad vi här har valt att kalla en närvaroproducent. Analysen visar även hur utformningen av rum (fysiska och medierade); valet av och nivå på teknik och hur den används för att möjliggöra kommunikationen; samt det övergripande sociala sammanhanget alla har betydelse för upplevelsen, och utgör nyckelkomponenter i ett produktionssystem för närvaro. Tre distinkta roller för närvaroproduktion har utkristalliserats: Närvarodesigner: Designer/konstruktör av produktionssystem för närvaro. Är inte delaktig i den faktiska kommunikationen i kommunikationssituationen. Närvarofacilitator: Facilitator/orkestrator i produktionssystem för närvaro, inför kommunikationssituationen med förberedelser och eventuellt under kommunikationssituationen som operatör av teknik eller som värd. Är inte delaktig i den faktiska kommunikationen i kommunikationssituationen. Deltagare som närvaroproducent: Användare i närvaroproduktionssystemet som aktivt deltar i kommunikationen och som också kan fungera som facilitator/orkestrator, i förberedelser inför kommunikationssituationen och medan den pågår..

(7) I avhandlingen introduceras och diskuteras även följande designelement: sätt att använda video som ett verktyg för berättande; hur rum kan delas in i olika typer av rum för att organisera produktionen på bästa sätt; samt användning av scenografi och dramaturgi för att styra produktionen. Nyckelord Närvaroproducent, produktion av närvaro, produktionssystem för närvaro, design för närvaro, rumslig samhörighet, social samhörighet..

(8) Contents 1. Introduction ___________________________________________ 1 1.1 Background to the study of presence ________________________________ 4 1.1.1 The relationship between presence, awareness and immersion __________ 5 1.1.2 Delimitations___________________________________________________ 6 1.2 Research question ________________________________________________ 6 1.3 Method: practice-led research _______________________________________ 7 1.4 Contributions _____________________________________________________ 8 1.5 Thesis outline____________________________________________________ 12 1.6 List of included papers ____________________________________________ 15. 2. Background __________________________________________ 21 2.1 Presence research________________________________________________ 21 2.2 Mediated Communication and Media Production ______________________ 27 2.3 Production and production systems ________________________________ 32. 3. Research Method _____________________________________ 35 4. Empirical work: mediated productions ___________________ 45 5. Results ______________________________________________ 63 5.1 Definition of the three orders of presence producers __________________ 64 5.2 System thinking related to the production of presence ________________ 67 5.3 Design elements to be shaped by the presence producer ______________ 73 5.4 Presence Producers – summary ____________________________________ 83. 6. Discussion___________________________________________ 85 6.1 The Presence Producer roles – responsibilities and overlaps ________________ 86 6.2 Components of a presence production system – holistic systems thinking ____ 88 6.3 Design elements and decisions for presence producers – preparing to share __ 89. 7. Conclusions _________________________________________ 91 7.1 Presence production as a new practice ______________________________ 91 7.2 Reflections on my practice based research method ___________________ 94 7.3 Final remarks on presence_________________________________________ 96.

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(10) Preface The work leading up to this dissertation started in the late 1990-ies, following the process of globalisation and advances in communication possibilities that accompanied the birth of the Internet as we know it. In more recent years, the climate crisis has made sustainability an added influence, with implications for reduced travel and so on. Finally, in 2020 we have faced a pandemic that led to heavy restrictions on physical meetings. The intent is to provide pragmatic and useful tools for anyone who wants or needs to communicate over distance. Acknowledgements I want to express my gratitude to the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and my former head of department professor Ann Lantz and the present professor Henrik Artman who made it possible for me to conclude this dissertation, the latter also for many discussions and valuable feedback as internal reviewer. I also want to thank and express my gratitude to my present and former colleagues: Charlie Gullström for all collaborations. Alex Jonsson for all collaborations and supervision. Johan Stenberg for supervision. Late professor Simo Karttunen, who enrolled me as a PhD candidate when I started as a teacher at KTH in 1992. My former teacher professor Nils Enlund, who took over the chair and led the Media Technology Department during its period of greatest expansion, who supervised me to a licentiate degree and after that encouraged me to continue within a new empirical field. Claus Aase Knudsen, who introduced me to the field by inviting me to be an examiner in the precursor to the current Telepresence Production course, where I myself experienced immersion in mediated communication and became interested in how it happened and whether.

(11) it could be controlled. We also enjoyed many productive discussions on the commuter train Roslagsbanan on what Presence Production is. Jason Geistweidt and professor Niels Windfeld Lund, for discussions and successful tests within the World Opera Project, and for their continued friendship, which is now mostly mediated. To everyone I shared my office with for good discussions, especially Hannes Ebner, Emma Frid and Ludvig Elblaus. Everyone in the department who supported me in different ways, especially Björn Hedin, Elina Eriksson, Miriam Börjesson Rivera, Malin Picha and Jarmo Laaksolahti. To the students in my courses and everyone who in various ways has been involved in all the activities that form the basis of this thesis. To my final main supervisor, professor Kristina Höök, for helping me to ultimately tie all the loose ends together. I, of course, also want to thank my family for their patience, and the writers’ cabin in Ystad – a peaceful place that I will always hold in high regard as a sanctuary for concentration. Stockholm, 30 April 2021 Leif Handberg.

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(14) 1. INTRODUCTION. |. 1. 1. Introduction Presence is often an important part of the experience for participants in a mediated communication situation. Here, we define mediated communication as the use of a technical medium for transmission across time and space (Davis 2017). Presence can be defined as the subjective feeling of being together, despite being in physically separate locations. This subjective feeling of being present together arises in the interplay between the spaces between which the communication takes place and the technology used for communication. It is also dependent on the context for the communication. With this thesis, I introduce a new role, that of the presence producer. Or rather, I articulate three different presence producer roles, which I argue for and validate by analysing a series of real-world media productions that I have been involved in. In this context, a presence producer may be anything from a team of professionals setting up the production, to a single person who is simultaneously taking part in the mediated communication as it unfolds. At both ends of the scale, the producers will be responsible for setting up all the resources to facilitate and orchestrate the overall mediated communication experience, be it an everyday work-related video meeting or an expensive interactive staged performance. The proper term for this sense of being present with others in distributed locations is telepresence. The prefix ‘tele’ refers to the Greek word meaning ‘distant’. For practical reasons, the terminology recommendations of the International Society for Presence Research (ISPR 2000) suggest that the term presence can be used as a shortened form for telepresence. The mediating technology research field has a longstanding debate on how to increase the chances of users enjoying a vivid presence experience (Lombard & Jones 2015). Underlying the problem is the fact that presence is an elusive experience that sometimes arises without much effort and at other times can be very hard to achieve. In moments of struggle with the technology, interaction becomes awkward and participants fail to engage with one another. Beyond technological struggles, no matter how well the technology is set up, ultimately it is also a matter of how the participants choose to engage. The presence producers that we explore in this thesis should, of course, do their best to minimise distractions and maximise the chances that participants will be willing to engage, but they cannot control all aspects of an interaction. This said, as we will argue here, there are.

(15) 2. |. 1. INTRODUCTION. technological and best-practice-based ways of arranging technology and set-up, alongside with dramaturgical knowledge, that may increase the likelihood that participants not only feel that they are present but become totally immersed in the mediated communication. Technologies to support mediated communication have developed over the years, and there are now many options. Both professional and family life sometimes rely on mediated interactions. Family members can be spread over countries and continents, and companies may have highly distributed organisations, in turn requiring mediated communication in situations where trust and the need for presence are critical. Even though mediating technology is becoming more and more accessible to many, there are still many pitfalls, and the slightest mistake in the setup or preparations can result in failed communication. As we will discuss, providing high-fidelity technology is not enough to ensure good communication. Instead, the whole situation has to be set up as a part of a communication production system, with routines and distributed responsibilities for how to use it. Furthermore, new practices will evolve parallel to increased general understanding of production systems for mediated communication. As Krippendorf argued, “understanding and practice are inseparable twins and the understanding of something always is the key to its practical use” (1989 p. 5). In the everyday way people speak about mediated communication experiences, many claim that the experience can never be as good as physical co-located interaction. While this is often true given the practices currently in use and the products available on the market today, there are also situations where we do not only feel present but where the mediation with improved practices brings added value to the communication, and possibilities that would not be possible in a co-located situation. Drawing on 35 real-world productions created over 20 years of practice, this thesis aims to show that a sense of presence can be achieved given the right preamble. To enable such valuable interactions, a number of basic prerequisites first need to be in place to remove barriers and lower the threshold for a good presence experience to occur: there needs to be sufficient technological fidelity to enable smooth communication; principles for storytelling must be applied through good use of cameras and other media; spaces need to be carefully designed so that they fit with the communication context (including backdrops and light sources); and.

(16) 1. INTRODUCTION. |. 3. producers need an overall understanding of how different communication contexts lead to different setup requirements. Once such basic requirements are fulfilled, there is still a need for what might be framed as ‘production thinking’ (which is lacking in many cases) – a holistic, systemic position where the experience is facilitated and orchestrated in a step-by-step process over time. In many ways, production thinking is similar to how a choreographer envisions a dance performance or how a director sets up a stage play. The field of mediating technology research has often been over-reliant on technological advance and fidelity as the main enabler of presence experiences. Often, when communication fails, the technology is blamed, when in reality what was missing was production thinking. Some might argue that organising the technological setup so that it ‘works’ is quite easy, since each individual component – be it technology or arrangement of the mediated space – may not be very complex. But when a whole range of such simple components are put together into a complete system, the interactions become quite complex. All parts of the system must work, and even if only one component fails to work properly, that single fact can destroy the sense of presence for the participants involved. Performing arts as an example of presence production Much of the terminology and associated practices that we will use in this thesis are borrowed from the performing arts. Elements of mediated communication are getting more common in the arts, enabling greater audience reach and making performances more accessible. What is particularly interesting to our analysis here is how the world of performing arts has, over the centuries, developed its professional roles, such as assigning a director or lighting producer, together with welldeveloped practices for how to achieve an orchestrated experience from all the different bits and parts. As part of the practices this thesis reports on, we will look at many staged productions that were inspired by the performing arts. In those contexts, there was never any question as to the need to properly produce the mediation per se in order to achieve the aims of the production. In stage performances, all participants, audience and performers alike, are accustomed to and expect the overall production to be carefully crafted and produced throughout the timeline of the spectator experience. But in contexts such as everyday video conferencing, the.

(17) 4. |. 1. INTRODUCTION. assumption is that no production knowledge is needed, which often leads to failures. Presence production practice While the art world recognises the need to carefully craft mediated technology setups, the lion’s part of mediated communication applications takes place outside the realm of the performing arts. One major challenge, therefore, lies in transferring this ‘professional production thinking’ to other organisations and communication situations in a way that the need for involving professionals becomes accepted. Based on the analysis of a variety of case studies, I will argue that such productions will benefit from an organisation with different orders of presence producers, each with different responsibilities depending on the available resources and requirements of the mediated communication production at hand.. 1.1 Background to the study of presence Understanding and supporting a sense of presence is a fairly recent research topic that has engaged scholars from many fields, such as psychology, architecture, social science, media technology and computer science. As a result, theoretical frameworks have been imported from different academic disciplines. Lombard and colleagues frame presence as: “Presence (shortened from telepresence) occurs when media users in some way overlook the role of technology in their experience; it is increasingly common and takes place with media from novels to videoconferencing to virtual reality. A variety of theoretical frameworks have been proposed to understand spatial presence (in which a mediated environment seems to not be mediated) and social presence (in which mediated actual or artificial people or characters seem to be present). The development of presence theories [..] is at an early and fragmented stage but represents an exciting and important challenge for scholars.” (2017, in Encyklopedia of Media Effects) In different areas of research and usage, the concept of presence is defined and used in different and sometimes overlapping ways. Lombard & Jones argue that:.

(18) 1. INTRODUCTION. |. 5. “[..] while it’s a sign of the growing sophistication in presence scholarship, the identification of many new dimensions of presence has led to a glut of composite terms (e.g. spatial, social, mediated, virtual, immersive, perceived, objective, subjective, physical, environmental, inverse, backward, forward, physical, self and corporeal presence).” (2015, p. 16) All these terms are commonly used as keywords for articles published in the field. In this thesis, I define presence in two ways: as spatial presence – the subjective experience of being somewhere else than solely in the physical location, and as social presence – the experience of being together with other participants in a mediated communication setting. We will detail and analyse how production thinking and processes are key to the success of repeated everyday mediated communication situations, such as distributed workgroups or organisations, healthcare and support for active ageing or distance education, as well as for more costly or unique contexts such as: distributed museum exhibitions offering mediated access to cultural heritage, distributed art installations, or mediated performances. The bulk of research in the field concerns how presence can be defined (e.g. ISPR 2000, Lee 2004, Nilsson et al. 2016), and how it can be measured (e.g. Haans & IJsselsteijn 2018). As few academic studies cover the organisation and production of presence situations from an engineering perspective, this work fills a gap. 1.1.1 The relationship between presence, awareness and immersion There is an ongoing debate in the field over how presence relates to awareness or immersion experiences. Some scholars are concerned that these concepts are ill-defined and sometimes even used interchangeably (e.g. Schmidt 2002, McMahan 2003), resulting in confusion and dismay. Schmidt and McMahan argue that we can no longer use these terms because they are linguistically overburdened with overlapping definitions and confused usage. I will rely on the following high-level interpretation of these concepts: the term presence will be used when referring to the overall concept, encompassing both awareness and immersion. Awareness, in turn, will be used when referring to the ‘lowest’ form of presence, where participants might be aware of others in the shared space even when no explicit verbal.

(19) 6. |. 1. INTRODUCTION. or visual communication is taking place. The term immersion will be used to refer to the ‘highest’, or most involved, level of feeling present together with others – which is characteristic of situations where one does not even think of the interaction as mediated. To reach a state of immersion, participants need to go beyond a state of a ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ and ‘poetic faith’ (Coleridge 1817/2003) and must come close to Lombard & Ditton’s (1997) definition of presence as the perceptual illusion of nonmediation. That is, participants in a mediated communication situation do not focus on the technical equipment and systems that make the communication possible and instead simply experience being together and interacting with other people. 1.1.2 Delimitations Let us continue by providing delimitations on what this thesis will focus on. First, the aim is not to provide insight into how presence, per se, can be explained or measured. While other researchers have delved into understanding the concept of presence as a perceptual or cognitive phenomenon and others have studied certain situations where a presence experience has occurred in order to measure and control the experience, here I will employ a more holistic approach, aiming to characterise presence production practices that aim to increase the likelihood of successful communication taking place. Second, in terms of context, many researchers in the field focus on computer-generated situations using software frameworks or applications. Here, we will instead focus on technology-mediated settings that mix realworld settings that may include physical artefacts, scenes and props with technology-mediated activities. This said, as we will see, some of the general principles of how to increase the likelihood of a presence experience will be the same whether the production is computer generated or a technology-mediated reality.. 1.2 Research question Through an analysis of 35 presence productions that took place over a 20year period, I will address the following research question: • What are the key factors in the planning and execution of a mediated presence production, that contribute to a presence experience?.

(20) 1. INTRODUCTION. |. 7. 1.3 Method: practice-led research As this thesis is based on the author’s practice, the pronoun ‘I’ will be used when the text relates to this practice. The pronoun ‘we’ will be used when the author and the reader move forward together through the text. Originally, when I started working in the field of presence production, I could see that the production of presence could benefit arts installations and mediated communication in positive ways. In an iterative design process, unfolding over a 20-year period, I have repeatedly tested a growing number of setups, reflecting on and learning from earlier installations. In the beginning, many of the productions came about as stand-alone activities where we were free to explore and design as we saw fit, while later productions were part of research-funded projects with more clearly defined goals. Most productions were successful in one way or another, but both the successful and less successful have contributed to my expertise and understanding. The research component of the projects was thus mainly practice-led (Candy 2006), where my practice is best described by what Schön refers to as ‘reflection-in-action’: that is, to reflect while you are carrying out the activity and letting those reflected understandings inform and propagate alterations and improvements (Schön 1983). My practice has given me the opportunity to approach, from a longitudinal perspective, what makes a presence production system ‘work’ and the demands on its organisation and execution. I have carried insights from one project to the next, and together these insights form a ‘design repertoire’ (ibid. p. 60). As part of the work on this thesis over the last three years, I revisited and analysed the different media productions I have been involved in, extracting the qualities, strategies and procedures that are required to achieve successful productions moving forward. I have compiled what I frame as an annotated portfolio of presence productions and installations, forming the basis for the analysis. An annotated portfolio is, in short, a means for communicating design thinking in general (Bowers 2012). To avoid confirmation bias I have repeatedly during the analysis revisited the 35 productions and discussed with my supervisors. Through that process came shifts, as for example identifying three different presence producer roles instead of one, that I originally saw..

(21) 8. |. 1. INTRODUCTION. Some of the productions reported in the annotated portfolio are documented in the six publications that also are part of this thesis, and have the production of presence as their common denominator. Most of the productions (23 out of the 35) were carried out ‘in the wild’: that is, in real-world settings rather than setups constructed for research purposes. The ‘in the wild’, settings direct our focus towards documentation and observation rather than taking controlled measurements (Rogers & Marshall 2017). In the field of presence research, controlled measurements are difficult to instrumentalise, since there is little agreement on how presence should be measured (Haans 2014). Most presence measurement methods are devised as questionnaires where participants answer questions about their presence experience post-experience. While questionnaires may be useful in some situations, providing explicit answers to whether a sense of presence was achieved, questionnaire-based methods are not applicable to or practical for everyday presence production settings. The experience will be different for each participant on each occasion even if the system setup is exactly the same (McCarthy & Wright 2004). Furthermore, the overall experience, as reported in a questionnaire after the event, will not capture exactly what aspects of the overall production that lead to presence experience breakdowns. Participants cannot tell us whether the problem was some particular technology, some use of a particular camera or live video feed, or if it was simply ‘not happening’ because the participant was not in the mood to engage. This is where observations and expert analysis of productions are key.. 1.4 Contributions The analysis provided in this cover paper, alongside the annotated portfolio and the six publications, points to need for and substantiates a presence producer practice in a presence production system. Orders of presence producers In particular as I analysed the 35 productions in the portfolio I came to see that, depending on the setting, three distinctly different presence producer roles and responsibilities keep reoccurring. I define these briefly as:.

(22) 1. INTRODUCTION. |. 9. • The first-order presence producer, which we will refer to as presence designer, designs the setup for the mediated communication production before it takes place. This includes: specifications for to arrange the layout of different spaces; choosing which technology to use and how it should be installed in the different spaces; describing the routines for how to use the technology; and providing instructions on how to prepare for and later execute the different parts from a dramaturgical perspective, in order to get the best possible presence experience. The presence designer is typically not a participant in the mediated communication once it takes place. • The second-order presence producer, which we will refer to as a presence facilitator, executes the design described by the presence designer and also functions as a facilitator and orchestrator before and, if needed, during the presence situation. This entails: setting up and preparing the space; operating the technology; and on occasion acting as guide or host. The presence facilitator is typically not a participant in the mediated communication once it takes place. • The third-order presence producer, which we will refer to as a participant presence producer, is a participant in the mediated communication situation, but can at the same time facilitate the space setup and arrangements and use of technology both before the event and helping to orchestrate the event as it unfolds. The presence producers operate within a presence production system. The picture on the front cover and (below) in figure 1, showing a tin can telephone, illustrate the components of such a production system. The illustration I have used is from A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar, by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer (1852), which was edited by Thore Kahlmeter into the Swedish translation Hvarför? och Huru? Nyckel till naturvetenskaperna (1890)..

(23) 10. |. 1. INTRODUCTION. Figure 1. Tin can telephone.. First, we can note that it is not enough to have the tools – the string and tin cans: they must be correctly used to become part of a production system for mediated communication. The presence designer may provide instructions for this production system as follows: The tin can telephone consists of two tin cans connected to one another with a string attached at the bottom through a hole, with a knot on the inside of the hole. Two users, A and B, can use the tin can telephone: user A holds the can to the ear, and user B talks into the other can. Both A and B are responsible for keeping the string taut. Communication is reciprocal, and the users take turns in holding the can to their ear or mouth, respectively. These instructions are quite simple and based on the laws of physics regarding the distribution of sound waves. The bottoms of the cans act as membranes, and the string will transfer B’s speech, and thereby make it possible for A to hear what is said even if they are far apart, as long as the string is kept taut. A quick search for popular images of tin can telephones shows many examples where the string is not held taut, and therefore the system would not actually work. Instructions for using a production system.

(24) 1. INTRODUCTION. |. 11. are obviously needed, even for less complex systems such as this, let alone more complex ones. To apply my presence producer terminology introduced above, Brewer and Kahlmeter are presence designers describing the tools and how to use them. If there had been assistants helping users A and B to hold the string taut, they would be presence facilitators: both would be facilitating the communication process as it unfolds, but not taking part in the communication themselves. Finally, users A and B are both participant presence producers as they will both be using the mediating technology, but also continuously adjusting it to make it work. Presence production system components Through the process of analysing the design and use of presence production systems in the annotated portfolio, I will show that three major components have always been used and can be summarised as follows: • Spaces: consisting of both pre-set boundaries, such as walls, doors and windows, but also elements that can be controlled or designed, such as furniture, backdrops, entrance routes and video displays that will show other locations included in the communication. • Technology: the technical equipment is, of course, important in and of itself, as single components or as parts of an overarching technical system. Alongside the choices of technology, the routines for how to operate the technology are equally vital to the success of a production system. The chosen technology setup will sometimes require training users and participants before the mediation can take place. • Context: the drama, narrative or domain where the communication will take place, whether it is an everyday meeting in a work situation or a mediated opera performance. Here presence producers may have to adapt the dramaturgy and provide directing instructions – a behaviour code of sorts – in order to make sure that the mediation aspects of the performance or meeting do not get in the way of the presence experience..

(25) 12. |. 1. INTRODUCTION. Design elements to be shaped by presence producers As part of my analysis, I have uncovered how presence producers (who are making technology choices, setting up the spaces and enabling the right context to be established) needs to rely on a set of practices in order to delimit the design space and craft workable solutions. I have identified three significant design elements at hand for presence producers: • The first element concerns the use of video as a storytelling tool1, which is connected to what we perceive with the visual sense and includes what the cameras 'sees' and how video streams are presented ‘on the other side’. • The second element provides a way of structuring the space into different ‘rooms’ to let presence producers creatively design different activities for different spaces – some supporting the activity, others directly engaging with what is being portrayed on-stage or between the participants. • Finally, the third element concerns the use of dramaturgical principles in setting the scene for the mediated experience. Here is also where the orchestration of and unfolding of time in the production becomes central and can (for some contexts) be treated as a design element. All three of these practices can be applied to most mediated communication productions, and will take different shapes and forms depending on the presence production system components and the prerequisites they provide for the actual situation.. 1.5 Thesis outline This is a compilation thesis consisting of three parts: a cover paper (kappa), an annotated portfolio and a set of six published papers. The major part of the annotated portfolio is compiled from 35 presencerelated activities that took place from 1997 to 2018. My roles included acting as project leader, producer, designer, researcher, consultant and. 1 Video is of course not the only possible storytelling technology, e.g. audio and touch are others. I have. given video a strong focus here, since it has been a prevalent mediating technology in many of the presence productions described in this thesis..

(26) 1. INTRODUCTION. |. 13. technician, as well as instructor, supervisor, participant and examiner2 in the many student projects. In all these roles I was able to not only observe and reflect on, but also actively vary routines and design decisions, to make presence experiences more likely, and, in general, identify where the presence production issues arise. One important core activity throughout the years has been the Telepresence Production course given at KTH annually. I have acted as the course-responsible teacher all years between 2002–2018. It is a projectbased course where students work in teams with presence production design for cases that are as realistic as possible. Recent themes of the course have included mediated opera, remote access to cultural heritage and presence in extreme conditions (such as outer space or in the desert). It connects many of the other activities in the portfolio and is a guiding thread that has allowed me to work with and reflect on presence production in a structured manner. Entries in the annotated portfolio will be referred to in the format ‘name of production’ (#N), for example, the Telepresence Production course (#1) or sometimes (the Telepresence Production course #1). The cover paper is divided into seven sections, the first being this introductory section. Section 2 provides a literature background divided into three parts. The first part gives an account of contemporary presence research and explains how the presence concept has been defined and treated in the prior research. The second part covers mediated communication and characteristics of different kinds of media productions, such as the relation between the concepts media production and media consumption – practices that sometimes overlap in a prosumer3 role. The third part describes production and production systems in general. Section 3 introduces the research methodology employed. The thesis is based on practice-led activities, complemented by methods originating in design and interaction design research as a path for analysing and articulating knowledge contributions. Section 4 describes five of the 35 presence productions in the annotated portfolio, chosen to illustrate the most significant contributions of this. 2. An examiner in the Swedish higher education system is the teacher responsible for grading the students. A prosumer is a combination of producer and consumer. In media production this may be an individual sending footage to a news agency or someone commenting in a real-time chat channel displayed in the TV feed during a broadcasted debate.. 3.

(27) 14. |. 1. INTRODUCTION. thesis. These productions were carefully chosen, as they each illustrate, substantiate and explain different parts of the main contributions of the thesis. Section 5 introduces the main contributions derived from the analysis. It explains and substantiates the presence producer roles and describes the components of a presence production system: spaces, technology and context. It then describes three design elements the presence producers have at their disposal to make the mediated experience happen: use of video as a storytelling tool; dividing the space into different rooms; and the use of dramaturgy and stage directions. In Section 6, I discuss the main contributions, contextualising and debating what these concepts really entail, by returning to the research question outlined above. Finally, Section 7 summarises the thesis contributions, offers some conclusions as to how presence production can evolve as a new practice, and shows how the contributions offered here provide a starting point for addressing an increasingly important topic: how to perform presence productions for instrumental purposes, such as making organisational practices more sustainable by reducing travel or maintaining communication during times of travel restrictions, as well as how to produce mediated performance productions where the technology can alter or add to the drama and experience of the production. Based on the experiences presented, I argue that it is likely that the role of the presence producers will become increasingly important in the years to come. Finally, the set of published papers consist of six research papers published between 2001 and 2012. These papers all deal with aspects of presence and presence production and are based on some of the presencerelated activities in the annotated portfolio. Two of the papers expand on experiences from the Telepresence Production course (#1). Reading recommendations After reading the Introductory section of this cover paper, turn to the annotated portfolio to see what kind of presence productions that form the basis of this practice-led thesis. Later, it might make sense to revisit the annotated portfolio to compare details in the 35 productions, especially when reading section 5..

(28) 1. INTRODUCTION. |. 15. 1.6 List of included papers Let us now turn to a brief description of the six included papers, with summaries of their content, authors contribution to papers, and reflections on how they relate to presence production: Paper I Sponberg, H., Knudsen, C., & Handberg, L. (2001). New learning modes in the production of presence – distance techniques for education. In International Council for Open and Distance Education. ICDE 2001. This paper describes findings from the first iterations of the course Networking Multimedia. In this course, students worked with television production and video conferencing technologies, as well as different kinds of storytelling methods, to create a communication situation with mediated participants. The student projects were evaluated based on four criteria: • Storytelling – how well the content in the communication came across. • Interactivity – the ability to create and maintain interaction so that communication is two-way. • Technical complexity – choice of technology with appropriate levels of breadth and depth. • Technology operation – competence in using the technology. In some of the projects, the participants felt that the technology became transparent (non-intrusive) and that the full focus was entirely on the context and content, without thinking of what made the communication possible. This is what we later came to regard as immersion. Such experiences did not seem to result or emerge from technical performance, or mere skills in using the technology, but instead came about as a consequence of a well-planned setup and the way the story was allowed to come across for the context at hand. This is where the initial ideas on presence production came about. My role was as course examiner, and I acted as a participant presence producer or observer in all project presentations. After reflecting on the importance of production aspects, the course was renamed Telepresence Production. Paper V shares findings from iterations of this later course..

(29) 16. |. 1. INTRODUCTION. Authors contributions to Paper I I was participant in activities and follow up discussions (experiences, development). I defined the evaluation criteria. Reflections on presence production from Paper I: At the time, I did not conceive of the students’ work as being that of presence production in the way that I understand it today. The students in the early course iterations had backgrounds in television production, and apart from myself, the teachers involved in the course were skilled in that medium as well. This may explain why, to them, production thinking was an obvious part of what was needed to make the interaction work. In retrospect, many of the best student projects succeeded because of extensive ‘production thinking’ that addressed myriad details in the setup. Later, it became clear to me that the students worked in the three levels of presence producers and acted as presence designers, presence facilitators and participant presence producers in their work. Paper II Handberg, L., Jonsson, A., & Knudsen, C. (2005). Community building through cultural exchange in mediated performance events. In The Virtual – a room without borders. A conference 2005. School of Communication, Technology and Design, Södertörn University College. This paper describes a mediated concert with distributed musicians and audience members spanning 10,000 kilometres, in a cross-disciplinary project between the Royal Institute of Technology and Stanford University. The paper’s title – Community Building – expresses the goal of the project: that the audience in the two locations would be to experience and share the same performance even though they were geographically separated. Careful staging of the performance spaces and planning and execution of the event dramaturgy, with a focus on the audience, made the project gratifying for both audience members and performers. My role was as project leader and first-order presence producer – presence designer. Authors contributions to Paper II I was main author and drafted the paper..

(30) 1. INTRODUCTION. |. 17. Reflections on presence production from Paper II The project team acted as presence designers in the planning process. During the performances there were two presence facilitators, one in each location (with an audio backchannel), performing real-time actions such as manipulating projected backgrounds and making video effects using chroma keying4 and video loops5. The audiences were mainly observers during the performance, but sometimes they became participant presence producers in interaction between audience members (in each of the performance spaces) before and after the performance, as well as in a dedicated ‘remote mingle corner’ provided after the performance. The performance spaces offered extensive storytelling possibilities, and the use of local presence facilitators proved to be a good way to achieve success. Technology, spaces and context had all been taken into consideration. Paper III Handberg, L., Jonsson, A., & Knudsen, C. (2007). Living with a continuously produced presence – experiences from an extended office space. In Telework 2007. This paper summarises experiences from working in a continuously mediated office environment for three years. The experiences turned out to be very similar to those of the Media Space Project at Xerox Parc in the mid-1980s (Bly et al. 1993); however, we were not aware of that project at the time. My role was as first-order and third-order presence producer – presence designer and participant presence producer. Authors contributions to Paper III The paper was a collective effort by all the authors.. 4. Chroma keying is a video composition technology where a blue or green background can be changed to a static or moving image. 5 A video loop is made by directing a camera towards an image surface displaying the feed from that same camera. A double video loop is set up between two locations by displaying the camera feeds on a display surface at the other site. If the display surfaces are back-projected screens, people in the loop will be seen on both screens if they are located between the camera and the screen, and their shadows will be seen if they are located between the projector and the screen..

(31) 18. |. 1. INTRODUCTION. Reflections on presence production from Paper III The spaces were set up using available technology, and camera and screen positions were carefully planned to create extensions of the office. The participants knew each other previously, which lowered their thresholds for achieving a level of comfort. We set up the production so that we easily could move from awareness to presence, and back, enabling a strong sense of social presence. Also, spatial presence was achieved mainly by being able to change the camera view at the remote site: e.g. being able to turn the camera to look outside a window to see weather conditions. Paper IV Gullström, C., Handberg, L., Hauptman, K., Svanberg, F. (2008). The mediated window: Enabling remote presence to cultural heritage sites. In Nordic Digital Excellence in Museums – NODEM 20086. This paper concerns mediated presence in the context of an extended, or mediated, museum. The production involved a complex setup linking a museum and an active outdoor archaeological excavation site, and it offered communication between visitors, experts and museum pedagogues. Over a two-week period, the installation was open to the public and drew over 3,000 visitors, combining outreach and research. My role was as project leader and presence designer (in collaboration with others) and occasional presence facilitator assisting visitors at the sites. Authors contributions to Paper IV Co-designing of the set-up for the study, participant in data collection and reflections, and analyses on the text as such. Reflections on presence production from Paper IV This was a large-scale project with an extensive design phase that needed considerable preparation to set up and arrange the communication and display infrastructure. The context of collaborating with a museum regarding live access to cultural heritage was appealing. Staff at the sites fluctuated during the two-week production, which also led to the need for a training/introduction phase, since the museum staff were largely new to the roles of presence facilitator and participant presence producer. It was 6. The paper was awarded Best in Show..

(32) 1. INTRODUCTION. |. 19. interesting to see the museum staff gain experience and comfort with mediated communication over time. Paper V Gullström, C., Handberg, L., & Jonsson, A. (2011). Teaching presence: Reflections on ten years of teaching presence design and production. International Society for Presence Research annual conference – ISPR 2011. This paper summarises 10 years of teaching the course Telepresence Production, the course that evolved out of the original Networking Multimedia course described in paper I. My role was as course supervising teacher and examiner, as well as project leader for several of the students’ presence-related projects (some of which are described in this thesis) based on the topics for the course and that the course content was based on. I acted as presence designer in some projects which the course used as topic, and then as participant presence producer when experiencing the students’ project presentations. Authors contributions to Paper V I drafted the paper and was the main author. Reflections on presence production from Paper V The course has continued to be offered after Paper V was published. Since the launch of the course in its updated form, some 80 student projects have been completed and presented, and more than 300 students have taken the course. All have provided individual reflections on what constitutes a good presence production system and on the role of a presence producer. The findings in Paper V are still relevant and valid, even if communication technologies have continued to advance also since we first offered the course. The topics discussed in this paper are still covered in the course. Paper VI de Greef, T., Gullström, C., Handberg, L., Nefs, H. T., & Parnes, P. (2012). Shared mediated workspaces. International Society for Presence Research annual conference – ISPR 2012..

(33) 20. |. 1. INTRODUCTION. This paper reported initial work within the ‘Mediating Presence’ project. We built, tested, and implemented a number of iterations of prototypes for a ‘mediated sketching table’, based on new standards like WebRTC (webrtc.org 2020), which then became the subject of further research. This technology shows great potential and, in the future, will make technology and systems even more accessible. My role was as project participant and co-designer for some of the prototypes mentioned in the paper. During some of the test sessions I acted as a presence facilitator. Authors contributions to Paper VI I was one of the initiators for the project that formed the background for the contents of the paper, and for the paper itself in which I took part of drafting. Reflections on presence production from Paper VI Easily accessible technology is not enough to make good communication happen. The technology is important but is just one part of a presence production system..

(34) 2. BACKGROUND |. 21. 2. Background We will draw on three areas of research in presence production. The first, and most obvious, is presence research. The second is mediated communication and the characteristics of different kinds of media productions. Finally, the results on presence production put forth in this thesis are inspired by general production and production systems theories.. 2.1 Presence research This thesis focuses on the production of presence in mediated communication situations between persons in two or more geographically distributed locations. While mediated communication might sound like a modern phenomenon, it has, in a sense, been around since the first cave paintings. But it is the introduction of synchronous mediating technology towards the end of the 19th century that allowed real-time communication over geographical distance to develop rapidly. “If, as it is said to be not unlikely in the near future, the principle of sight is applied to the telephone as well as that of sound, earth will be in truth a paradise, and distance will lose its enchantment by being abolished altogether.” (Mee, The Pleasure Telephone, 1898, p. 339) “Presence, naturally, is defined in terms of time and space. ‘To be in the presence of someone’ is to recognise him (sic.) as existing contemporaneously with us and to note that he (sic.) comes within the actual range of our senses – in the case of cinema of our sight and in radio of our hearing. Before the arrival of photography and later of cinema, the plastic arts (especially portraiture) were the only intermediaries between actual physical presence and absence.” (Bazin 1992, p. 409) The term telepresence was introduced by Marvin Minsky (1980), referring to teleoperation systems for remote manipulation of physical objects. Mediated communication had been discussed in general terms for some time: for example, in Short, Williams and Christie’s social presence theory (1976), which highlighted how communication media could transmit social cues. The most iconic work in media theory is McLuhan’s theories and the notion that all media are extensions of our bodies and senses (McLuhan 1964)..

(35) 22. |. 2. BACKGROUND. Presence has, since those early days of exploration, been a subject of research by scholars from many different fields, including psychology, philosophy, architecture, sociology, cognitive science, computer science, communication, media technology and the arts. This, in turn, means that there are many definitions of presence, and the concept is used in quite different ways in these different disciplines. Many scholars focus on presence as a sense of ’being there’, in a computer-generated or technology-mediated environment (Minsky 1980, Held & Durlach 1989, Sheridan 1992, Steuer 1992, Schloerb 1995, McLellan 1996, Snow 1996, Kim & Biocca 1997, Witmer and Singer 1998, Riva et al. 2003). Others focus more on togetherness and ’sharing space’ (Mühlbach et al. 1995, Zahorik & Jenison 1998), presence as a basis for trust (Nevejan 2007) or as a particular state of consciousness (Loomis 1992, Waterworth et al. 2015). Many scholars stress how presence can be seen as an individual perceptual experience (e.g. ISPR 2000, Nilsson et al. 2016) rooted in both psychological and technical factors. Jurnet and colleagues (2005) define presence as a multi-component construct influenced by technological factors, on the one hand, and human factors, on the other hand. Lombard & Ditton (1997) explain presence as experiences where a person does not perceive or acknowledge the existence of a technology-based medium in the communication. While all of these definitions pertain mainly to individuals engaging with mediating technology, other researchers note that presence also relies on social processes – that it may have several components touching on three domains of human experience: physical, social and self (Biocca 1997, Biocca et al. 2001). As Lee frames it in defining presence as ”a psychological state in which virtual objects are experienced as actual objects in either sensory or non-sensory ways”, objects can be either physical, social actors or self/selves (Lee 2004, p. 27). Riva and colleagues summarise various understandings of social presence by defining it as the sensation of ‘being with other selves’ in a real or virtual environment (Riva et al. 2014). This thesis defines a virtual environment as either a computer-generated or technology-mediated environment. In some research, the term co-presence is used to refer to the sense of being together in a shared space at the same time, combining significant characteristics of both physical and social presence (e.g. IJsselsteijn 2004)..

(36) 2. BACKGROUND |. 23. In general, there is some consensus regarding the meaning of presence, even if some definitions focus more on spatial aspects and a sense of being transported to a different space and others focus more on social aspects such as social connectedness with other mediated participants. Presence in relation to awareness and immersion Another path to defining presence is to relate it to similar experiences, such as awareness and immersion. Unfortunately, both of these concepts are also used in many different ways in the literature of presence. Let us start by examining how awareness has been defined. Awareness can be defined as an understanding of the activities of others (Dourish and Bly 1992), as a simile for consciousness (Rettie 2003) or as the state of knowing about the environment in which you exist – about your surroundings and the presence and activities of others (Dey & De Guzman 2006). Christiansen & Maglaughlin (2003) have, based on a number of studies, classified awareness into four types: • Workplace awareness, which is knowledge of tasks within the virtual environment. • Availability awareness, which relates to the availability of people and objects. • Group awareness, which promotes the feeling of belonging to a group. • Contextual awareness, which includes physical, social and mental contexts. Rodden (1996) framed awareness as the likelihood of actions by one user being noticed by another. Artman & Waern (1999) writes about the concept of mutual awareness, in the context of collaboration, where mutual awareness can vary in degree from a simple awareness of another's presence, through an awareness of another's workload, to a conscious assessment of the kind of help another worker needs. Sallnäs (2004) makes a distinction between awareness, as the fact that other persons are remotely present, and social presence, which is the perception of the extent of social information that one gets from remote persons. It can be noted that even in communication based only on audio, like telephony, the awareness of physical location can be important to establish connection (Weilenmann 2003). Now let us turn to immersion, a term similarly subject to debate. One of the most significant of these debates pertains to whether immersion can be.

(37) 24. |. 2. BACKGROUND. defined based on technical fidelity and performance as Slater (1999) and Kalawsky (2000) suggest, or if it would be better defined in terms of whether both mind and body are surrounded by another reality – be it computer generated or technology mediated (Murray 1997). As we have seen, there is still some confusion around the use of the concept of presence, and there are also conflicting views on the definitions of both awareness and immersion. Some scholars claim that the different and sometimes overlapping definitions hinder progress in the field (e.g. Rodden 1996, Schmidt 2002, MacMahan 2003, Slater 2003, Waterworth et al. 2015). What we need is a kind of conceptual calibration (Naeve 1997) to raise the understanding of how others use these concepts. That way, we can communicate and avoid misconceptions. Lombard & Jones (2015) point out that if you want to write about presence and presence-related subjects, it is important to clarify your own definitions and usage of terms. How Presence, Awareness and Immersion are used in this thesis In this thesis, as mentioned in the introduction above, the definition of presence will relate to two aspects: spatial presence – referring to ’the subjective experience of being somewhere other than one’s actual physical location’, and social presence – referring to ’the experience of being together with other participants in the mediated communication’. Spatial presence is important, as it means being perceptually transported to another location or shared mediated space. Social presence is likewise important, as it is the basis for good communication with other human beings. The term presence will refer to the overall experience. Awareness will be used to refer to the lowest level of presence, where one might be aware of others but not necessarily feel as if one is present together with them in the same space. When prompted – for example, if someone ‘waves’ for attention – awareness can switch to a higher level of presence. This definition is closest to Sallnäs’s (ibid.) definition of awareness as related to the fact that other persons are remotely present. Immersion, finally, will be used to refer to the highest level of feeling present with others – situations where one does not even think about the interaction as mediated. This use of immersion is similar to Murray’s definition (ibid), which emphasises the sensation of being surrounded by a completely other reality..

(38) 2. BACKGROUND |. 25. This usage is similar to the idea that people can become absorbed by a theatre play or story to such an extent that they believe what is happening on stage is real (Watson, 1988). An important concept here that has influenced not only our understanding of theatre plays, but also presence research, is the willing suspension of disbelief, originally coined by Coleridge in reference to the writing and reading of poetry: ”[Y]et so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination, that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith” (Coleridge 1817/2003, chapter XIV). In other words, the willing suspension of disbelief means that one has made an informal contract with the event – the author, the director, the actors and others in the audience – to believe what is happening, rather than continuously question the events and the experience in a way that will immediately destroy any sense of immersion. The production and design of presence Many early research findings regarding presence originate from activities related to ‘media space’ activities at PARC and EuroPARC (including Buxton 1992, Gaver 1992, Bly et al. 1993, Dourish 1993, Gaver et al. 1995, Dourish et al. 1996, Heath et al. 1997, Harrison 2009). As Dourish (1993) defines it, ‘A media space is formed by the combination of audio, video and computer networking technologies to provide a flexible, dynamic interconnection environment for collaborative work groups’ (p. 125). These and other similar prototype environments have had a common focus on communication rather than communication technologies (Dourish et al. 1996). Some studies are about affordances in media space, where affordances are defined as properties of the environment that offer actions to appropriate organisms (Gibson 1979). Gaver (1992) reflects on this, stating, ”Above all, audio-video technologies have an important affordance that the everyday medium does not: Media spaces convey visual and auditory information between arbitrary points, and thus afford remote collaboration” (p. 18). Others have been working in related fields: for example Gullström, who explains the role of a presence designer and describes a toolbox for presence design. Gullström also argues that presence design implies new digital building materials for architects and includes architects among presence designers (Gullström 2010)..

(39) 26. |. 2. BACKGROUND. Few studies cover the production aspects of presence from an engineering perspective, with certain exceptions, such as Enlund (2000), who proposes a set of factors (inspired by Steuer 1992) that contribute to the feeling of presence, presented in figure 2 and with the following main factors: • Sensory environment • Individual preconditions • Content characteristics. Figure 2. Factors creating a sense of presence and reality (from Enlund 2000).. Knudsen’s work (2004) provides a conceptual map with the relation between factors that influence presence, presented in figure 3 on the next page. Rae et al. (2015) introduces seven design dimensions for presence: 1. Initiation: how a telepresence interaction is started. 2. Physical environment: where the system will be used in. 3. Mobility: the obstacles and amount of movement the remote user will engage in while using the system. 4. Vision: What users see and how they adjust their visual focus of attention. 5. Social environment: relationships among all the stakeholders both directly and indirectly involved in the interaction. 6. Communication: how users communicate or interact. 7. Independence: The level of autonomy that users have..

(40) 2. BACKGROUND |. 27. Figure 3. A conceptual map for factors influencing the sense of presence (from Knudsen 2004).. As we will see, there are parallels in the descriptions above and the analysis of presence production presented in this thesis.. 2.2 Mediated communication and Media production This thesis defines presence production as an area within mediated communication and media production. By mediated I mean communication that is taking place between people who are not in the same physical space and where mediating technology is used to capture and present their activities using audio, video or other sensory content (Davis 2017). By communication I mean a reciprocal exchange of words, signs and expressions in human-to-human interaction. McCroskey and Richmond (1995) define communication as the process by which we stimulate meaning in the minds of others using both verbal and non-verbal messages, a definition that resonates with the focus of this thesis, with meaning-making as one of its main concerns. There are different ways to make meaning in mediated communication, which is often described as either synchronous or asynchronous communication (whether the communication takes place in real-time or not) and one-to-many and any-to-any communication (one producer to many consumers versus communication on equal terms)..

(41) 28. |. 2. BACKGROUND. The different combinations of communication types have different demands in terms of production systems and organisation from an engineering perspective. For our purposes here, a brief overview is sufficient: • One-to-many asynchronous communication = mediated publishing Publishing is an asynchronous form of communication where the publisher may be a company, organisation, formal or informal group, or individual. The published material may include text, images, audio, video or other sensory data. It includes static media, such as printed materials, and dynamic media, such as broadcast radio, TV and streaming services (Kindem & Musburger 2005, Stamps 2007). The formats encompass both large-scale mass media and small-scale social media such as Twitter. The production focus in mediated publishing is the production and distribution of content. From an engineering perspective, the production system for mediated publishing includes planning, preproduction, production, post-production and distribution. We can see this in, for example, film production (Bordwell & Thompson 2004) or print production (Stenberg 1997). • One-to-many synchronous communication = mediated performance Performances are normally synchronous. Even if we can imagine broadcasting recorded performances, in this format they are closer to publishing or hybrids of that format. Examples include stage plays, music concerts, lectures and sporting events. Traditionally, a performance occurs in front of an audience – viewers, listeners, ’experiencers’– although in a mediated performance, the performers and the audience are not all in the same location. The production focus in mediated performance is on the real-time distribution of dynamic media in the forms of broadcasted radio, TV or streaming. The real-time component makes it different from mediated publishing, where there are opportunities to record multiple iterations and make corrections, in the post-production phase, before publishing..

(42) 2. BACKGROUND |. 29. The production system for mediated performance covers planning, realtime execution and handling of technology and routines, including scenography, dramaturgy and directing. The more complex the production is, the more complex the organisation required, with responsibilities for different components and aspects of the production. Note that the technology used in one-to-many media productions may be exactly the same, including cameras, microphones and mixers. What differs is the real-time aspect of synchronous media production, which introduces high demands on the organisation and production system under the strictures of a tight timeline. • Any-to-any synchronous communication = mediated dialogue These are settings such as written, spoken or other synchronous exchange between two or more participants. Mediated dialogue may use one or more modalities, normally audio and video, but we can also imagine using other modalities, such as haptics. The production focus in mediated dialogue is successfully mediated communication between participants in different locations. Within this area, production systems are, as of yet, not well described, nor do we even have an acknowledged need for such systems at all. Additional investigation is in order, and it is on such production systems this thesis focuses. The technical equipment may be the same as in one-to-many media productions, such as cameras or microphones, and also includes needs for lighting and other important aspects of setting up spaces for realtime communication. Figure 4 summarises these combinations of mediated communication, which will be further detailed in the Results section..

(43) 30. |. 2. BACKGROUND. Figure 4. Different kinds of mediated communication.. There is a possible fourth category of media production: Any-to-any asynchronous communication, which could be labelled as mediated services. This category is not of interest here, and we will therefore not go into details. . Media organisation and production Media industries and organisations are different from most other businesses and organisations, in that they produce commodities and content that are essentially symbolic in nature (Cottle 2003). The product they deliver is not just ink on paper, waves through the air or bits and bytes. The actual product is the message conveyed and the meaning it makes, regardless of the medium that conveys it. The organisation of commercial media production has developed from Benjamin Franklin’s almost one-man operation with the Pennsylvania Gazette in the middle of the 18th century, where he produced the content, sold ads and printed and sold the newspaper (Aldridge 1962). During the 19th century, technological development and the emergence of a new industrialised society influenced newspaper production (Stenberg 1997). Media companies developed and grew, with different internal responsibilities such as editorial, advertising, circulation and production divisions. Production and workflows were divided into different steps, depending on the technology and content..

(44) 2. BACKGROUND |. 31. Towards the end of the 1970s, Nicholas Negroponte predicted a convergence among the broadcast media and motion picture industry, the print and publishing industry and the computer industry, a process that could be seen with the emergence of desktop publishing using personal computers.. Figure 5. Negroponte’s picture of converging media formats, which motivated the formation of the MIT Media Lab (from Fidler 1999).. Since the 1980s, we have seen Negroponte's predictions for media convergence increasingly materialise. Tools for digital production and digital distribution, tools for accessibility and user friendliness for computers, and other mediation tools such as cameras have, with the help of the vast expansion of the Internet, led to a convergence that blurs the boundaries between media producers and media consumers. Everybody with a computer and camera is now a potential publisher or video producer. The convergence of production and consumption of media across companies, channels, genres and technologies is an expression of the convergence of all aspects of everyday life (Velkova 2017). These converging technologies and emerging business models are also reflected in the restructuring of these industries, where the new intermediaries are not companies controlling content but rather managing consumption (Bilton 2019)..

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