Rethinking telepresence: post- and pre-COVID-19.

Following the marked increase in the use of digital technologies during the recent pandemic, the article reconsiders the concept of social , in the sense of interpersonal connection at a distance, locating it in the and within media studies. It reminds the reader that, for centuries, when people were separated from one another by the force of various circumstances, including pandemics, they resorted to technologies at their disposal to experience telepresence, long before the term itself was coined by scholars. Foremost among these has been the epistolary, a vitally important interpersonal media largely overlooked by media and telepresence researchers.