Mediated presence is edited and framed by the technology, it is also edited and interpreted within these frameworks by people using the technology. Mediated environments that offer both information and communication facilities are attractive. The more layers of consciousness that can be addressed, the stronger the presence experience. Previous knowledge and opinions (including prejudices), media schemata and processes of attribution, synchronization and adaptation define how people receive and contextualize the mediated presences they perceive. Other media also influence the media schemata of a particular mediated presence. Mediated environments contribute to the taxonomies of communities. When mediated presence generates vital information, it can add elements to natural presence which natural presence otherwise would not have possessed. Vital information creates the bridge between mediated and natural presence in a very convincing way.
Cultures evolve when time is shared over longer periods. This also occurs in mediated presence. The value of mediated presence cultures is ultimately judged by the contribution they make to the natural presence of their participants. In mediated presence cultures confusion can easily arise about who is doing what in terms of the hardware, software and 'wetware' (human beings). Also the rules of engagement are not clear: politically, economically and judicially. However, being able to operate technology increasingly determines our capacity for survival in a world that is developing a techno-diversity as complex as bio-diversity. Processes of adaptation are taking place. Our actions feed back into our brains and this influences our perceptions, which influence our actions and so forth. These adaptation processes influence our capacity to operate technologies. The variety of technologies is changing our identities because they change our capacity and possibilities for survival and therefore they influence our natural presence in its essence. The nature of our 'utterances' has certainly changed because of technology; they can reach any place any time. When our words, sounds and images become our deeds, there is no longer any mediated presence. The mediation of presence is an act itself. The implications of this possible trend demand an even more rigorous normative approach than this study facilitates.
In mediated presence 'place' as a context of social interaction has disappeared, which is why the relationship, and most of all the connection itself, is the context of the social interaction when mediating presence. In the relationship between two people involved in social interaction by means of mediated presence, each possesses their own natural presence as well as a perception of the relationship as a context for understanding what is taking place. People distinguish how they relate to each other in the dimension between You and not-You. In mediated presence, and particularly when this permits the witnessing of each other's behaviour, a sense of 'place' can also evolve. This issue is addressed in presence research from a psychological and technological perspective (physics, chemistry and mathematics are all part of this). Whether a culture of mediated presences can generate a sense of place that is also capable of nurturing processes of catharsis is unclear at the present time and would require further research.
