PowerPoint as Consumer Communication

Paper Summary:

This paper examines PowerPoint, a communication mode that blends visuals with the spoken and written word in a succinct and visually appealing manner. The paper looks at Ian Parker's article "Absolute PowerPoint," where he maintains that PowerPoint presentations sometimes cause the ideas presented to go unexamined and just consumed un-refuted by observers. The paper discusses the advantages of PowerPoint such as its multimedia abilities that allows for maximum information transfer. The paper argues, however, that PowerPoint's multimedia nature ultimately distracts the audience from the central ideas, The paper concludes that PowerPoint is effective only when it is used as a visual aid that enhances whatever ideas the presenter is putting forth, instead of merely packaging and glossing over those ideas.

From the Paper:

"The room goes dark and the projector hums to life. The presenter reads from his slides, his PowerPoint presentation clicking from one visual to the next, while the audience sits silently. When the presentation ends, there is sparse applause and the presenter looks pleased as he ushers himself off stage."
"As the Western culture has drifted more towards the visual and technological as its prime modes of communication, so has the forms of information presentation; the opening descriptive scene is a typical one: PowerPoint has emerged as a mode to blend visuals with the spoken and written word in a succinct and visually appealing manner. As such, the program is used in a variety of settings, prominently in classrooms and business transactions."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Cyphert, D. (2004). "The problem of PowerPoint: visual aid or visual rhetoric." Business Communication Quarterly. 67.1. p. 80-85
• Parker, I. (2002). "Absolute PowerPoint." Writing Material: Readings from Plato to the Digital Age. Ed. Tribble and Trubek. New York: Longman. p. 352-59.
• Tufte, E. (2003). "The Cognitive style of PowerPoint" as cited in "Presentations and the PowerPoint Problem." (2004). Business Communication Quarterly. 67.1. p. 78-79.

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