Against the tyranny of PowerPoint: Technology-in-use and technology abuse

Yiannis Gabriel

(2008)

Yiannis Gabriel (2008) Against the tyranny of PowerPoint: Technology-in-use and technology abuse. Organization Studies, 29 (2). pp. 255-276. ISSN 1741-3044

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Abstract

Over the past five years, PowerPoint has emerged as a powerful piece of communication technology, having profound consequences on presentations (business and educational), classroom communication and, possibly, on the nature of lecturing itself. An analysis of the ways in which PowerPoint is used offers considerable insights into, first, the nature of educational technologies and their organizational implementations, second, the effect of these technologies on the construction and dissemination of organizational knowledge, and, third, on the qualities and skills of a society of spectacle, where a great deal of organizational knowledge assumes the form of visual representations. Using illustrations from his personal experience, the author examines some uses to which the software is put and some of its potential short-comings. These include the parcelling of knowledge into bullet-points, reliance on visual aids to support weak analysis and the forced linearity of argumentation that limits improvisation, digression and inventiveness. The author, however, argues that PowerPoint can be used more creatively, to build on our culture’s emphasis on spectacle and image and related multi-tasking skills that lecturers and students develop. In this manner, PowerPoint can redefine the nature of a lecture, from the authoritative presentation of a text into a multi-media performance that elicits a critical, creative and active response from its audience.

Information about this Version

This is a Draft version
This version's date is: 2008
This item is peer reviewed

Link to this Version

https://repository.royalholloway.ac.uk/items/c35e0807-b1ba-d760-4b50-1616d4b4942c/1/

Item TypeJournal Article
TitleAgainst the tyranny of PowerPoint: Technology-in-use and technology abuse
AuthorsGabriel, Yiannis
DepartmentsFaculty of History and Social Science\Management

Identifiers

doi10.1177/0170840607079536

Deposited by () on 17-Feb-2010 in Royal Holloway Research Online.Last modified on 09-Jul-2010

Notes

(C) 2008 SAGE Publications Ltd, whose permission to mount this version for private study and research is acknowledged.  The repository version is the author's final draft.

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