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I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO. A Discussion on PowerPoint and it’s Role in Consumer Culture. What is the purpose of PowerPoint?. To nauseate viewers with flashy presentations devoid of content, meaning or purpose.
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I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO A Discussion on PowerPoint and it’s Role in Consumer Culture
What is the purpose of PowerPoint? • To nauseate viewers with flashy presentations devoid of content, meaning or purpose. • PowerPoint serves to reinforce our nature as a Sound Bite culture and instead of promoting critical thinking promotes short term investment strategies. • PowerPoint acts by providing positive (or negative) Sound Bites capable of reinforcing our cultural feel-goodism.
Case Study: TED Talks • TED Talks is an example of how PowerPoint is used in our Sound Bite culture. • Most TED Talks are not based on sound science and are typically feel good. The nature of the talks as marketable to an audience of rabid technophiles allows pseudo-science, utopianism and woo-woo to creep in wherever permitted. • Entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates (whose success is a Black Swan) are heralded as gurus in topics that they not only know nothing about but are actively damaging to the spread of factual information.
The Digital Myopia of Our Age • We are told, by marketers, that the information age is the next stage of the industrial revolution and that it changes everything. Some even posit a deviance from normal advancement of cultural systems.
The Internet is a Giant Library We are often told the internet is revolutionizing the world, bringing democracy in form of facebook likes,and allowing the masses access to information they never dreamed of. Such an event has already occurred once in the history of the west. That was the construction of public libraries. The construction of public libraries did not culminate in some sort of enlightenment 2.0. It merely increased access to information once inaccessible to the poor. The internet will prove to be the EXACT same thing. It is a refinement of communication and information technologies allowing dissemination of information to those where information was not once possible. That is a positive impact but it also increases dissemination of disinformation. Trying to decide an appropriate stance on Climate Change, Fracking or other hot button issues? Good luck with non-partisan information. Better believe the high priests of your political party.
And now… • For something completely different.