The purpose of this research study was to use the Technology Acceptance Model (Pan, 2003) for re-examination of the relationships between students' attitude toward the use of WebCT and the relevance of the actual usage in light of social presence and sociability. By using Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) developed by F. Davis (1989), this study focused on variables such as perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, computer self-efficacy, subjective norms, attitude and actual use of WebCT to account for the effect towards the achievement in the exam which is an outcome variable. The data were collected over three different time periods during the spring semester of 2007 to find how these results changed over time. The participants were the students who enrolled in the business marketing course (Principle of marketing) at the University of Central Florida in spring, 2007. The course was divided to three sections: on-campus, video-streaming and online classes. Although there were three different delivery methods, there was only one instructor and they used same material for all sections so the results were used to compare the differences from three classes. The study was conducted by using instruments to measure perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, computer self-efficacy, subjective norms, actual use, attitude, sociability, social presence and an additional demographic instrument.

The advancement of artificial intelligence and its diverse applications have attracted great interests from several research scholars examining communication between humans and chatbots. Many have explained the motivations of chatbot use, however, less emphasis has been given to myriad customer experiential needs for the interaction with this AI-powered technology. Therefore, in the light of U&G theory, this thesis presents a conceptual framework for customer experience as the needs for chatbot use. SOR model was also adopted to establish the links among customer experience as organisms (utilitarian – perceived informativeness and credibility; hedonic – perceived transparency, enjoyment and engagement; anthropomorphism – mindful and mindless anthropomorphism; and social presence), their primary stimuli (functionality, communication style similarity and aesthetics) and responses (customer satisfaction and reuse intention). 417 convenient samples were collected from the UK where chatbots are widely used. Results from SEM revealed that perceived credibility, informativeness, enjoyment, functionality and communication style similarity hold the keys for customer satisfaction, while effects of anthropomorphism and social presence are not significant in this research setting. This study has enriched U&G theory by addressing customer experience as ones’ motivations to use chatbots. Also, it has presented a fresh understanding of customer experience in chatbot context by considering utilitarian, hedonic, anthropomorphism and social presence as dimensions of customer experience rather than merely measuring how customers think, feel, sense, act and relate. In addition, practical implications and direction for future research are discussed.

Studien har funnit flera faktorer som påverkar deltagarnas upplevda möteseffektivitet i hybridmöte. Dessa inkluderar rätt utrustning, vara i en störningsfri miljö, ha en agenda, tydligt mötesmål, spelregler, feedback samt möjlighet till socialisering före och efter mötet. Andra viktiga faktorer är att vara punktlig, hålla mötet kort samt skicka sammanfattning efter mötet. Mötesstorlek och vilka som bjuds in, närvaron av mötesledare och aktivt deltagande från alla deltagare kan öka den upplevda möteseffektiviteten. En central faktor som påverkar alla andra faktorer är teknisk kompetens. / The study has identified several factors that affect participants'perceived meeting effectiveness in hybrid meetings. These include having the right equipment, being in a disturbing-free environment, having an agenda, clear meeting goals, rules, feedback and opportunities for socializing before and after the meeting. Other important factors are punctuality, keeping the meeting length short, and sending a summary after the meeting.Meeting size, relevant attendees, the presence of a chairperson and active participation from all attendees can enhance the perceived meeting effectiveness. A central factor that influences all other factors is digital literacy.

Loneliness among older adults is a problem with severe consequences to individual health, quality of life, cognitive capacity, and life-expectancy. Although approaches towards improving the quality and quantity of social relationships are the prevailing model of therapy, older adults may not always be able to form these relationships due to either personality factors, decreased mobility, or isolation. Intelligent personal assistants (IPAs), virtual agents, and social robotics offer an opportunity for the development of technology that could potentially serve as social companions to older adults. The present study explored whether an IPA could potentially be used as a social companion to older adults feeling lonely. Additionally, the research explored whether the device has the potential to generate social presence among both young and older adults. Results indicate that while the devices do show some social presence, participants rate the device low on some components of social presence, such as emotional contagion. This adversely affects the possibility of a social relationship between an older adult and the device. Analysis reveals ways to improve social presence in these devices.

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Yes / This study aims to build on the understanding of social commerce in the emerging markets and how it influences online community engagement. The conceptual model was proposed using theories including the social support theory, the trust theory, the social presence theory, the flow theory and the service-dominant logic theory. Using Facebook online community, the data were collected from 400 respondents from Jordan and analysed using AMOS based structural equation modelling. Results revealed that social commerce constructs positively influence social support, community members’ trust and social presence. Furthermore, it was found that social support and social presence positively affect community members’ trust. We also found that community members’ trust positively influence flow whereas both community members’ trust and flow positively influence community engagement.

This investigation has been carried out at the RoyalInstitute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. The main goal hasbeen to investigate the factors determining the production of asense of presence and reality in video mediated communication.Presenceis in these studies defines as the subjectiveexperience of being together in one place when one isphysically situated in another. Presence is an emergentproperty; it has no physicality, but arises as a mentalsensation. Special attention has been paid to spatial factors,embodiment issues, and narrative elements related to theproduction of presence. A context map has been used in order to model the semanticsof presence production and to visualize the relationshipsbetween the determining factors. The conclusions may besummarized as follows:     Knowledge about physical and extended spaces and bodiesand of the shifting of attention between these is importantin presence production.     Well planned design of physical and virtual spacesenhances the sense of presence.     Coherent design and production of mediated embodiment canenhance the sense of presence.     Conscious use of content characteristics, e.g., goodstorytelling, can enhance the sense of presence.     Different communication modes need the support ofdifferent combinations of presence production factors.     Even technically poorly mediated communication maysupport a sense of presence and reality if the storytellingis good.     The human sensory environment should be supported by asense of non-mediation, technological transparency, on theplane of discourse.     The results indicate that individual differencesinfluence the sense of presence and reality. The perception of video mediated communication evolves aspeople become daily users. People seem to intuitively begin tointerpret new types of mediated cues, adding what is missing incomparison to a real time physical communicationexperience. Keywords:Telepresence, presence, social presence,co-presence, concept modeling, virtual reality, person space,task space, narration, video mediated communication, videoconferencing.