by Diane Howard, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2003

Distance, interactive, communication technologies, such as videoconferencing, are being used as powerful and cost-effective commercial and instructional tools throughout the world. They are providing connection and accessibility to information, resources, and education for people at remote sites in the United States and around the globe. In South Africa, for example, there is a national videoconference network that runs over ISDN telephone lines, since using them is cheaper and more available than Internet or satellite communication. Videoconferencing is enabling students to connect with experts and colleagues to meet and discuss from remote sites in real time. Counselors and therapists use it to support and guide clients who are in remote locations. Businesses are more commonly using videoconferencing for meetings, as they are safe and cost-effective, especially when business colleagues or partners are at significant distances from each other. Medical institutions and personnel are using this technology for training, collegial support, and medical practices.

In a series interviews David Dunlap (2002) of Audio Visual Innovations has explained the expanded use of use of videoconferencing today. He says it is used to advise distance patients or to involve distance medical colleagues in surgical procedures. Teaching hospitals are using teleconferencing equipment in operating rooms to allow students to "sit-in" on operations all over the world. This enables medical students to view the work of some of the best surgeons in their field and to interact with those surgeons before, during, and after the procedure. The same type of equipment allows surgeons to seek and receive consultation from colleagues immediately in real time from anywhere in the world, sometimes without leaving the operating room! Nurses today also have to know how to use teleconferencing equipment, as they are many times the ones who end up dialing the videoconference calls for the doctors. This means that the nurses' stations are no longer equipped merely with medical monitoring technology, but also by videoconferencing codecs (coder/decoders), touch-sensitive control panels, and video/audio routers. Nurses need to know how to manage this type of equipment without sacrificing their attentiveness to medical monitors.

Leavy (2001) has told how Marty Schaffel, founder and president of Audio Visual Innovations Inc., sent a contingent of employees to the Pentagon immediately following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. His troop's mission was to install videoconferencing capability and to activate a presentation room in the damaged Department of Defense facility. They went in after the Pentagon was hit and within 48 hours had a videoconference room up and running. They provided instant response via videoconferencing and presentation display capabilities. Since Sept. 11, military and corporate personnel who are travel-wary have turned more to technology companies like Audio Visual Innovations. The firm's revenue grew from $40 million in 1996 to a projected $120 million in 2001. Besides the Pentagon, customers include MacDill Air Force Base, Disney World, and Disney Land.

According to Anne Kadet of Smart Money, as businesses have cut back on travel since 9/11, videoconferences have gained ground as means of holding meetings among remote sites. Kadet (2002) has quoted Richard Parlato, executive vice president of a videoconference service provided by Proximity, whose business has doubled since
Sept. 11. He has said, "Our traditional customers have been lawyers and headhunters, but now we're seeing the technology used for broader purposes (Kadet, 2002, p. 1)." He has explained that managers can use it to introduce new products to their sales personnel or to follow-up with their clients.

Leavy (2001) has asserted that the events of Sept. 11 have amplified the need for videoconferencing. He has also predicted that Webconferencing will play a greater role in the future. This is because Webconferencing goes right to the desktop personal computer (PC), is less expensive, more direct, and shares programs on the PC .

Dunlap (2002) has stated that as computer, digital, and teleconference technologies have been developed, businesses have incorporated them. There has been a recent shift in interest in businesses from whiteboards, overhead projectors, and data projectors, to digital presentation and communication technologies. These have included products that incorporate Digital Video Interface (DVI) and Ethernet connections for direct digital display. More businesses have moved toward fully networked systems, allowing a single IT manager in Chicago, for example, to monitor systems in Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, and Miami without leaving his desk. Appropriate audiovisual equipment selection no longer just helps companies make money with impressive presentations. It can now help them save money, as well, through streamlined processes that are fully integrated into existing computer and data networks. Tying videoconferencing and audioconferencing capabilities into these systems gives businesses efficient, powerful communication tools. These enable transmissions to be made from a distance to many locations simultaneously. Speakers can upload presentations directly to a projector or computer at their destination locations and can present their supporting information "face-to-face" with multiple locations in a single videoconference call. They can also interact with those to whom they are presenting

Dunlap (2002) has asserted that more organizations are utilizing video technology for sales presentations, staff meetings, training sessions, interviews, and innumerable other applications. Predecessors to modern videoconferencing were live broadcasts of church services to television/radio audiences and/or to audiences in overflow rooms. Having seen the advantage of being able to present to larger and multiple groups, businesses have driven manufacturers to develop two-way technologies. Now, they can also present to larger, multiple audiences and can get feedback from them, as well.

Dunlap (2002) has also insisted that the development and use of these new technologies have expanded beyond medical and business fields and have impacted the world of education. Students can now go to the college of their choice, even if the school may not offer all of the courses they need to prepare for their chosen fields. In the past, correspondence courses were their only choice to fill educational gaps. Now they can participate in the interactive learning environment of a classroom thousands of miles away through videoconferencing technology. It opens the world of distance education to those students who are visual, interactive learners, as well as to those who learn well from reading and independent study. Further, it allows schools to share and multiply professional resources. For example, a single professor is now able to teach the same course at multiple campuses simultaneously.

Therefore, camera "presence" is no longer something reserved for television or film personalities. Dunlap (2002) has contended that presenters need to be able to deport themselves well via cameras in sales, medical, educational, and business professions. Professionals of the future will no longer be able to hide behind computer screens or telephone handsets. They will need to be able to effectively project ten feet high images of themselves to audiences of thousands who are sitting half a world away. Communication courses need to prepare students for these realities. While public speaking techniques are still vital, they are no longer an end, but a beginning in the skills which are to be necessary for corporate communication. Communication students need to have access to videoconferencing and digital presentation technologies from day one in order to be completely comfortable using them upon entry into the workplace. Large screen projections of computer presentations have transitioned from novelties to expected necessities for professional speakers, and corporate presenters are following closely behind. Videoconferencing and audioconferencing are inextricably intertwined with this presentation revolution, as companies look for ways to cut expenses without losing valuable employees. Employees who come into workplaces ready to utilize these technologies on a daily basis will soon prove themselves as valuable assets to their companies.

Dunlap (2002) has said that many businesses are utilizing videoconferencing in interviews, rather than flying candidates to corporate offices. Interviewing executives are sure to be impressed with graduates who are comfortable in front of cameras and who are ready to meet, present, and sell themselves from thousands of miles away. Executives can feel confident that these graduates will be able to do the same as employees for their companies. In short, if graduates cannot communicate in ways expected by marketplaces, it won’t matter what other skills they might possess.

Further, face-to-face communication in Cyberspace via videoconferencing or Webcasting is safe and can facilitate personal benefits for those communicating at a distance. Interactive, face-to-face communication, education, and performance in Cyberspace can uniquely and powerfully facilitate insights and connection between distance presenters and audience members or between distance communicators. The equalizing, leveling, anonymous, and somewhat disembodying aspects of distance interactions may be major facilitating factors. Strong visual images, multi-media elements, interactive facilitation, and skillful moderating techniques can enhance the uniquely personalizing, humanizing, socializing, and even potentially therapeutic effects of distance education, communication, and performance.

Videoconferencing can provide qualitatively unique, humanizing, non-threatening communication interactions. Therefore, teachers and school personnel are using it to reach and to engage students who are confined to home due to disabilities, discipline, or other factors. Some educators hope that such students, who are often negatively influenced by social factors in school classrooms, might respond more positively and productively at home via videoconferencing as they interact personally with instructors. Videoconferencing can provide up-close and personal connections. Ironically, although participants at all sites are visible via cameras, there is still an atmosphere of anonymity, which seems to facilitate more vulnerable, open, transparent, and subjective interactions. It seems that participation in Cyberspace is somewhat disembodied and spiritual. Minds, souls, and spirits can connect vitally in the virtual world.

Time and space does not limit the virtual world. Interactive communication in Cyberspace can uniquely and powerfully connect and unify minds, spirits, and souls in various places and times. Videoconferencing can be far more than just an educational, informational, training, or commercial tool. The virtual world of teleconferencing is less confining, restricting, and inhibiting than the visceral world. It is very easy and natural to address spiritual, subjective, and personal issues in Cyberspace.

These characteristics have been demonstrated in the author's distance communication, research project. In this research, African American performance studies students and alumni from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and some community associates have been performed over BellNet videoconferencing equipment. Their audiences have been African American history students at Central Texas College and other students at regional schools. They have performed autobiographical stories about themselves and about great African American role models. Their performances have been subjective in nature, having been developed from primary, personal sources. These autobiographical productions, which have been followed by discussions facilitated by research professors and by participating teachers at different sites, have been part of a qualitative and quantitative research project. Qualitatively the professors have been observing and recording video documentation and evidence of the quality of the performances and student interactions at all remote sites of the Cyberspace experience. The virtual world has seemed to facilitate the connection between the participants' minds, souls, and spirits of those at various sites.

For several years students and professors at all sites of the videoconferences been able to discuss potentially, highly volatile racial topics following performances. They have found that the distance, virtual interactions have usually been calm, thoughtful, and objective. They have observed that performers and audience respondents have seemed more honest, vulnerable, and transparent than on-site. Over-reactions have appeared minimized, and discussions have seemed especially fruitful and productive. In each videoconference, the research professors have witnessed participants easily and freely interchanging about subjective, personal, spiritual matters and applications in relationship to the stories and discussions. Their video evidence has presented the humanizing, vulnerable, productive, and therapeutic transactions they have witnessed during their videoconference performances and discussions.

Quantitatively, the researchers have collected statistical evidence of the relationship of African American role models presented over videoconferencing and locus of control in audience members in distance African American history classes. (The study was based on a thorough review of relevant scholarly literature.) The historic characters being performed present an array of African Americans, who encountered, and in most cases overcame, adversity throughout American history. They have performed and participated in discussions with the college student audiences following the performances. All audience member subjects who have participated in this study have been pre-tested and post-tested with a locus of control scale and with a role model questionnaire. Subjects have ranged in age from 18 to 56, have been married and single, and have been freshmen-seniors. Preliminary evidence has supported the two quantitative hypotheses: locus of control is a changeable variable, and there is a relationship between identification of role models and internal locus of control. (Achievement motivation is predicted by internal locus of control, and lack of it is predicted by external locus of control.)

The researchers have worked on a quantitative modification of this project that has compared interactions in on-site and distance performances that are followed by discussions. Thus, communication and African American history professors have qualitatively and quantitatively collected and documented evidence that has supported their qualitative and quantitative hypotheses. The first hypothesis has been that translating and transforming performances in cyber-space facilitates humanizing and personalizing transactions. The second has been that there is a relationship between role models presented through virtual performances and locus of control in audience members. The findings of these research professors may be especially significant for females, ethnic minorities, and the physically disabled. Individuals in these groups commonly gravitate toward external locus of control from outside sources. External locus of control is a predictor of a lack of achievement motivation.

These research professors have seen that modeling expected behavior is important in distance education of all kinds. They also have come to see value in videoconferencing that transcends that of text-based, online, education, communication, and art. Some students are more communicative, open, and vulnerable in videoconferencing or Webcasting than in online communication, as they feel constrained in a text-based environment. Further, videoconferencing provides visual, kinesthetic, and sound cues in synchronous communication, which are lacking, in general, in online education and communication.

These researchers believe that many distance educators prefer various kinds of online teaching rather than videoconferencing due to cost, needed training, and discomfort with on-camera exposure. However, they contend that the humanizing, personalizing, and therapeutic potential of videoconferencing, when facilitated and moderated skillfully, is worth the financial costs and effort necessary in terms of training and practice. This may be especially important for marginalized populations that include females, minorities, physically challenged, and isolated people.

Distance, face-to-face teaching via videoconferencing or Webcasting often requires extra time investment and ongoing, professional staff training. Teachers need to learn camera presence skills, need to give more control to students, and need to have to encourage interactivity. Virtual communication is much more informal, and students are freer to respond and work more independently. Instructors need to be more personal and empathetic in distance education. They need to help students find their own paths through the highways of Cyberspace. Teachers need to assist students to organize their own ideas. They need to foster participation, collaboration, and interactivity. In a Web cast via the Internet, an instructor or presenter may be seen on a PC monitor, while distance participants can be encouraged to respond in chat boxes on the same screen. Distance audiences can view visuals such as PowerPoint slides, URLs, Quickslides, and photos of presenters on one Web page. Although, instructors and presenters must adjust to less control and more interactivity in distance education than in face-to-face instruction, the benefits of communication in Cyberspace are worth all the necessary adjustments and costs.

It is ironic, but true, that it is possible to have social interaction and even social intimacy at a distance. Cyberspace communication can stimulate social interaction and connection between people. People today have integrated many communication technologies into their lives, which they resisted initially due to fear of various kinds of losses. Intimacy at a distance seems like an oxymoron. How can people vitally connect at a distance? Doesn't distance diminish between people? People today have been both fascinated and afraid of the world of Cyberspace. Many see the value of connecting people over distance, but are concerned about reinforcing isolation.

With each new distance, technological tool, new communication forms have developed. As each new technology has developed, so has the "grammar" of that medium. Letters and telephone calls each have different patterns that have seemed to work. We have known that letters can take several days to deliver and therefore must be clear and explicit. We have known that in a telephone call speakers can adjust, clarify, and correct as they converse. The rhetoric of the letter or telephone call has been different, but we have not thought that either has reduced or diminished human connections. We see writing and calling on the telephone as different modes of communication. We have also experienced greater intimacy at times through letters or telephone calls than we have experienced at times in on-site, face-to-face communication. Likewise, we have sometimes said things in writing, as in letters, which we would have refrained from saying in person. Videoconferencing and Webcasting have been newer modes of communication that have offered offer new, unique, empowering possibilities. In order to use them effectively, we have had to need to learn new communication protocols, grammars, and skills.

It has become clear that in order to vitally engage distance audiences, presenters need to work harder to captivate audience members and distance participants than in most on-site presentations and meetings. Presenters in videoconferences, videostreaming, and Webcasting need to understand that visual and non-verbal aspects become more significant with cameras. They need to concern themselves more with visual issues and body language. Further, they have to expend more energy to communicate personal commitment to the distance participants or audience members. Furthermore, they need to pay attention to the visual aspects of videoconferencing,   videostreaming, or Webcasting. Since a camera seems to add the appearance of the weight of an on-camera body, standing or sitting at a slight angle gives a more pleasing appearance. Sitting back with an open jacket, crossing the legs, and using too many gestures with too quick motions are unattractive on-camera. On-camera presenters, communicators, and performers need to careful what they wear. Kadet (2002) has stated that they should avoid red or orange colors, as they tend to vibrate on-screen. Bold, busy patterns create visual fuzz
on-camera. They should avoid metallic accessories, which tend to reflect light.

On-camera presenters, communicators, and performers should pay attention to the environment around them, the set, which will show up on screen. A dark blue or black background is best. A large sheet of fabric or large paper can be hung over a light-colored wall to create a pleasing background. Blue is the one of the best colors on-camera. On the monitor, presenters should fill most of the screen. On-camera communicators should keep gestures under control. Gestures should appear decisive and energetic but not busy. Communicators need to speak slowly and articulately over distance technologies, since words can be easily garbled or delayed during transmission and over varying connection speeds. Presenters should avoid, however, quick overly brief statements that can be missed altogether over distance communication equipment. They also need to appear engaged throughout the distance communication event. Kadet (2002) has stated. They should avoid staring in space or yawning because it gives the appearance of boredom

Most importantly, distance communicators, presenters, and performers need to avoid extraneous sounds being transmitted. Modern microphones can be powerful and can transmit private comments, sniffs, and audible breaths. Presenters don't need to speak extra loud on good microphones. They should avoid the appearance of shouting. In interactive communication, listeners need to mute their microphones and activate them when they speak. Even after a presentation, cameras can still be on. Kadet (2001) warns that presenters need to be careful not to discount everything they have just presented by displeasing words or behavior after an event, when the cameras are still operating.

Here are some guidelines for effective, interactive videoconferencing, videostreaming, and Webcasting, which can engage and facilitate positive participation, social-connectedness, intellectual awareness, and growth in participants.

• Learn to use the equipment and practice with other presenters. Don't depend totally on facilitators.

• Research the audience.

• Establish rapport with distance participants or audience members.
  (1) Learn names at the distance site.
  (2) Learn something about them personally.
  (3) Refer to them by name and according to their interests.

• Provide an agenda for each presentation.

• Realize that teleconferencing, videoconferencing, videostreaming, Webcasting are visual media.
  (1) "A picture is worth a thousand words."
  (2) Realize the presenter is a visual aid.
  (3) Wear bright colors without busy patterns.
  (a) Blue is a pleasing color.
  (b) Avoid black.
  (4) Wear simple hairstyles.
  (5) Female presenters should wear bright, but naturally-looking make-up.
  (6) Female presenters should not wear dangling earrings, jangling bracelets,
  or a lot of jewelry.
  
  
• Presentations need to be visually interesting.
  (1) Realize that the room in which a presentation is made is a "set."
  (2) Make sure that the background behind the presentation area is not busy.
  (3) Blue is a good color for a background.
  (4) Because the emphasis in any work involving cameras is on the visual
        elements, presenters should use interesting, varied, well-designed visual aids
        and backgrounds.
  (5) Effective distance teleconferencing, videoconferencing, Webcasting,
        videostreaming uses engaging audio-visual aids, such as the following: slides,
        photographs, video clips, live streaming, music, sound effects, and
        voice-overs that reinforce and align with the purpose of the presentation, the
        audience demographics, and the time limit.
  (6) Limit the use of text and Power Point slides that are overloaded with text on the opening Web pages.
  (7) Use links to connect to supplemental textual documents.
  (8) Less is usually best. Keep your audio-visual aids readable and audible.
  (9) Don't be a "talking head."

• Use body language that is confident and engaging.
  (1) Look into the camera, speaking directly to the distance audience/s.
  (2) Gesture deliberately and naturally with hands at about waist height.
  (3) Do not step back from the podium or console.
  (4) Smile.
  (5) Practice in front of a mirror.
  (6) Effective communicators convey by their facial expressions and body
        language that they are intensely involved in and committed to what they are
        presenting.
  (7) Although distance presenters must be careful with the amount and speed of
        movement in teleconferencing, videoconferencing, videostreaming, or
        Webcasting, they still must appear energetic and intensely committed to
         what they are presenting in order to engage distance audiences.

• In videoconferencing, videosteaming, Webcasting try to look pleasant and expressive.
  (1) Lean in a little toward the audience to convey sincerity.
  (2) Appear visually interesting, warm, others-centered, and connected to the
       audience.
  (3) Try to use slight angles.
        (a) Using a straight-on, full-front position makes you look heavier.
        (b) Slight angles are more pleasing-looking.
        (c) Presenters' bodies can be turned slightly at an angle away from audiences
        with their heads turned toward the audiences.
        (d) Arms can be slightly bent.
  (4) For interactive distance teaching and communication, look at the camera and
        thus at the audience. This gives the appearance of confidence and interest in
        the audience.
  (5) For performances, looking above the camera, as did Jacqueline Kennedy, can
        give a regal, above-it-all look. Looking below the camera, as Princess Diana did,
        can give an innocent look. For distance performances of private, lyric
        scenes, or dramatic scenes with others, performers can look slightly away
        from camera but not so much that the faces cannot be clearly seen.

   

• Check out the lighting and the background, before presentations or performances in distance contexts (videoconferencing, Web casts, videosteaming etc.).
  (1) Make sure that the lighting is pleasing on human skin.
  (2) Amber is generally a good color, yellow is not.
  (3) Check the background to see that it is a pleasing color for you and that it is
  not busy or distracting.

• In videoconferencing and Webcasting, there is a time lag in delivery of audiovisual elements, when they are digitalized over a videoconference network or the Internet.
  (1) Adjust speech and movement for the time lag between sites.
  (2) Speak and move a little more slowly and deliberately than normal.
  (3) Check with the distance audience as to whether or not they understand you.
  (4) Enunciate carefully and emphasize your consonants for good diction.
  (5) Open your mouth and actively use articulators ( lips, teeth, and tongue) as you
        speak.
  (6) Project the voice forward.
  (7) Use vocal variety.
  (8) Practice with a tape-recorder.
  
• In videoconferencing and Webcasting try to involve the audience in discussions.
  (1) Ask questions of distance audience members.
  (2) Give immediate feedback to their responses.
  (3) In giving a response to participant’s question, refer to the question in your
        answer.
  (4) Try to focus the discussions on the content for the day, avoiding social,
  argumentative, or unproductive dialogue.

• Plan interactive, project-based activities for your distance audience.

• In using stories for videoconferencing, videostreaming, or Webcasting, in which there is a wide range of audience members, tell stories that have cultural and universal relevance. The individual characters in the stories can be specific and identifiable, but universal meaning should transcend the particular lives.
  

References

Dunlap, D. (2002). ddunlap@aviinc.com (2002, August) [E-mail interviews].

Howard, D. (2000). Autobiographical writing and performing: An introductory,
     contemporary guide to process and research in speech performance. New York:
     McGraw-Hill.

Howard, D. (2002).Enhanced by technology, not diminished: A practical guide to
     effective, distance communication. New York: McGraw Hill.

Howard, D. (1996). The relationship of internal locus of control and role models in
    female college students. Ph.D. diss., University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved
    August 11, 2002 from http://www.dianehoward.com/Dissertation.htm.

Kadet, A. (2002, February). Screen test. Smart Money, Wall Street Journal Magazine of
    Personal Business, 105.

Leavy, P. (2001). Technology issues create dichotomy for users and providers.
     Tampa Bay Business Journal, 12/1.                                                                                                                        

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