PowerPoint: Defining Mass Media v2

When I posted the previous version of this PowerPoint Presentation I included the rider that I’d have a go at making it “More-Prezi” and “Less-PowerPoint”, by which I meant doing away with the semi-linear structure of the original and replacing it with the kind of open structure characteristic of Prezi Presentations.

This, I’m happy to say, has now been achieved by creating a new version of the Defining Mass Media Presentation with a “Main Menu” screen from which you can access all slides in the Presentation at any time and in any order you want.

This, as you might expect, has created a new set of navigation problems because the information in the Presentation was designed as a broadly-hierarchical, rather than flat, structure – by which I mean that in terms of the Presentation structure it’s helpful (and possibly essential) to read and understand one thing (the Major Point) before you examine various aspects of it (the Subsidiary Points).

To get around this I’ve made Major Point links larger than their Subsidiary Point links. The initial “Start or Introduction” link is, for example, largest of all and gives you a strong hint about where to begin. I’ve also introduced branches linking everything together. In other words, you have strong clues about where to begin by looking at the overall structure map and seeing which branches lead from what to where.

And if that doesn’t seem totally clear now, once you look at the Start Slide it will become perfectly obvious.

That, among other things, is my promise to you.

As with the previous version, this Presentation is only available as a PowerPoint Show (.ppsx) self-running file. This is because if you try to load a .pptx version into a pre-2019 copy of PowerPoint it will strip-out the Zoom animation function on which everything rests.

And the Presentation will not work as intended.

Which would be a pity (although not a disaster because it may still work after a fashion).

Possibly.

I can’t promise it will, so I’d be inclined not to try.