PowerPoint Demonstrations: Digital Technologies of Persuasion

When policy issues involve complex technical questions, demonstrations are more likely to marshal charts, graphs, models, and simulations than to mobilize popular movements in the streets. This paper analyzes PowerPoint demonstrations, the most ubiquitous form of digital demonstrations. The first set of demonstrations is the PowerPoint presentations made in December 2002 by the seven finalist architectural teams in the Innovative Design competition for rebuilding the World Trade Center. The second case occurred some blocks away, several months later: Colin Powell's PowerPoint demonstration at the United Nations. The authors argue that Edward Tufte's denunciation of PowerPoint does not capture the cognitive style made possible by the affordances of this pervasive new technology. On the basis of our case materials, they identify several features of the elementary grammar of a rhetoric that exploits the medium's potential to manipulate text, sound, and image. The analysis further demonstrates the distinctive morphology of PowerPoint. Its digital character provides affordances 1) that allow heterogeneous materials to be seamlessly re-presented in a single format that 2) can morph easily from live demonstration to circulating digital documents that 3) can be utilized in counter-demonstrations. A careful examination of this widely used technology is critical for understanding public discourse in a democratic society

PowerPoint Demonstrations: Digital Technologies of Persuasion

When policy issues involve complex technical questions, demonstrations are more likely to marshal charts, graphs, models, and simulations than to mobilize popular movements in the streets. This paper analyzes PowerPoint demonstrations, the most ubiquitous form of digital demonstrations. The first set of demonstrations is the PowerPoint presentations made in December 2002 by the seven finalist architectural teams in the Innovative Design competition for rebuilding the World Trade Center. The second case occurred some blocks away, several months later: Colin Powell's PowerPoint demonstration at the United Nations. The authors argue that Edward Tufte's denunciation of PowerPoint does not capture the cognitive style made possible by the affordances of this pervasive new technology. On the basis of our case materials, they identify several features of the elementary grammar of a rhetoric that exploits the medium's potential to manipulate text, sound, and image. The analysis further demonstrates the distinctive morphology of PowerPoint. Its digital character provides affordances 1) that allow heterogeneous materials to be seamlessly re-presented in a single format that 2) can morph easily from live demonstration to circulating digital documents that 3) can be utilized in counter-demonstrations. A careful examination of this widely used technology is critical for understanding public discourse in a democratic society

Le temps du mail. Écrit instantané ou oral médiat

International audienceA partir d'une enquête empirique menée auprès d'une cinquantaine de chercheurs appartenant à des disciplines variées, cet article aborde la question des usages du courrier électronique et de la caractérisation des formes de communication associées à ce medium, en prenant pour fil conducteur l'analyse de la gestion temporelle des activités qui lui sont liées

Les correspondances savantes (espaces, pratiques et enjeux de l'épistolarité électronique)

TOULOUSE2-BUC Mirail (315552102) / SudocSudocFranceF

Groundwater Quality Status of the Parambikulam Aliyar Palar Basin, Tamil Nadu, India Using RS and GIS Techniques

The dependency of ground water is rising day by day. The ground water gets recharged mainly through rainfall. Thirty five water samples were collected from Parambikulam Aliyar Palar basin from open wells, bore wells and dug cum bore wells and analysed for chemical properties such as pH, Electrical Conductivity, cations and anions for two years duration (2020 and 2021) at three months interval (summer, winter, southwest monsoon, northeast monsoon) and analysed for the quality parameters. T Electrical conductivity values were ranged from 0.3 to 5.19 dsm-1, 0.29 to 6.80 dsm-1 0.3 to 6.84 dsm-1 and 0.64 to 4.17 dsm-1 during south west, north east, winter and summer seasons of 2020, respectively. The salt content was slightly increased during winter and summers seasons as compared to south west and north east. he samples were classified under USSL classification.  Most of the samples come under medium salinity class (C2) (48.57%) followed by low salinity class (C1), high salinity class (C4) and very high salinity class (C3) with 28.57, 14.29 and 8.57 per cent respectively in all the seasons. Majority of the samples exhibit there is no permeability hazard. Salinity persists in the basin and possibility of salt accumulation in irrigation pipes observed from LSI values. Using remote sensing and GIS technique, the mapping was done for the groundwater quality of PAP basin. The variations in the ground water quality of the basin are directly positively correlated with rainfall pattern and geology of the basin. For effective utilization of saline water in the basin, management strategies were formulated and field experiments were conducted in the farmer’s holdings in the sampling area of the basin

Le recyclage et la réutilisation de nucléus et de bifaces au Paléolithique Moyen en Europe occidentale : quelles fonctions et quelles implications culturelles ?

Dans plusieurs séries du Paléolithique moyen d’Europe occidentale, des nucléus et des bifaces présentent des plages de percussions qui ne sont pas liées à leur fonctionnement classique. Nous avons utilisé des nucléus et des bifaces expérimentaux comme outils de percussion sur différents matériaux. Les stigmates obtenus lors de la percussion sur des matières minérales présentent de fortes analogies avec ceux observés sur les pièces archéologiques. L’utilisation de celles-ci comme percuteurs ou comme retouchoirs est difficile à démontrer formellement mais cette hypothèse est la plus vraisemblable. Les caractéristiques des traces observées sont par ailleurs similaires à celles observées sur des percuteurs plus classiques. Le recyclage comme percuteurs de bifaces et de nucléus, suivi parfois de leur réutilisation selon leur vocation initiale, même si elle est observée de manière anecdotique au sein de séries du Paléolithique moyen, semble être une caractéristique récurrente indépendante des contraintes environnementales ou du contexte économique ou technique. Ce comportement semble donc relever de choix culturels revêtant un caractère assez universel