Social presence is the degree to which a person is perceived as being real and being there in mediated communication.

“Short et al. defined social presence as the degree of salience (i.e., quality or state of being there) between two communicators using a communication medium. They conceptualized [sic] social presence as a critical attribute of a communication medium that can determine the way people interact and communicate. Further, they posited that people perceive some communication mediums as having a higher degree of social presence (e.g., video) than other communication mediums (e.g., audio).” (Lowenthal & Dunlap, 2010).