Human beings have been mediating presence for as long as humankind exists. When moving around people leave trails of footprints, nests and other signs that show they 'have been here'. For centuries people have mediated presence consciously by telling stories, making drawings, sending messengers and writing books. Via technology we can now mediate our presence to other places in real time. Via radio, mobile phones, Internet and TV we perceive other people's presence in a variety of ways.

In this section I will first address the issue of the real versus the unreal, which I briefly discussed earlier in the introduction to presence technologies. Then I will discuss the processes of attribution, synchronization and adaptation that can affect an individual human being when he or she is involved in mediated presence. Lastly in this section I will discuss the notion of media schemata, which addresses how large groups of people learn to understand and integrate certain technologies in their day-to-day lives.