A quasi-experiment tests six hypotheses predicting that social language would increase the feeling of social presence among readers of online journalism. Participants read eight articles in one of eight Conditions created by four manipulations: use or absence of one of the four aspects of social language.
T- Test, ANOVA & ANCOVA were used to test the effects of the manipulations on social presence among readers. It was found that social language increased social presence among readers in the four manipulations. The effect of both interactive language and cohesive language is stronger than the effect of affective language. Social language can compensate the lack of nonverbal cues in face to face communication and that can help online journalism to encourage readers to participate and interact with journalists.