“One Damn Slide After Another”: PowerPoint at Every Occasion for Speech : Computational Culture

PowerPoint is installed on more than a billion computers.1 It is the indispensable medium for presentation, one of the most ubiquitous software applications in the world. It has likely been used to raise more money than any other tool in history.2 Teachers rely on PowerPoint. Elementary schoolchildren make presentations and so do researchers in the sciences, arts, and humanities. Sunday sermons are increasingly delivered with slideware just as press conferences, trials, and military briefings have also become occasions for slides. They say the president of the United States sees PowerPoint presentations in the situation room.