Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I appreciate the opportunity to review this manuscript. The essay explores a broad subject, which initially concerned me, but it does so with exceptional precision and clarity. The author(s) avoid(s) the trap of trying to do everything, in favor of a tight and concise argument. While I could imagine there being some more recent citations in the essay, I find the sourcing to be solid, engaging with pivotal figures in publics theory. I enjoyed the author(s)' weaving together of Dewey, Benjamin, Adorno, Horkheimer, and others. The connections among aesthetics, journalism, media, and democratic engagement are thought-provoking, leaving me with plenty to ponder after finishing the essay. 

There is always something that could be changed in an essay, but I do not feel the need to nitpick, given the high quality of the research and writing here. I recommend the article for publication and I thank the author(s) for their thoughtful work. I hope to see the article published soon. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I would like to warmly thank you for your generous and encouraging assessment of my manuscript. Your appreciation of the connections drawn between Dewey, Benjamin, Adorno, Horkheimer, and contemporary debates on journalism and democracy is deeply gratifying. I am especially grateful for your recognition of the clarity and conciseness of the argument, which was a central aim in my writing.

Thank you once again for your thoughtful engagement and support for the publication of this article.

With best regards and appreciation,

The author

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

you have prepared an interesting study in which you intertwine Dewey's work with critical theory , focusing on journalism and providing well-chosen case studies. Since you deal with aesthetics, and citing Benjamin, whose key contribution is that he helps us understand aesthetics through politics, I would advise you to further develop the relationship between aesthetics and politics, drawing on the work of Buck-Morss, who has done a great deal of work in this particular field.

You also mention the problem of mediation. Here, I suggest that you include Beller's work, which represents an important extension of Kant's scheme of the culture industry, as inaugurated by Adorno and Horkheimer, in the concept of the cinematic mode of production and the subsequent inclusion of the digital apparatus.

I also recommend reviewing a texts by Cvar & Bobnič (Truth, Post-truth, Non-truth: New Aestheticized Digital Regime of Truth, Springer, 2019) and Kornbluh's book on immediacy published last year, as they all deal with the problems of mediation, aesthetics, politics, and form as a medium.

Since you also mention affectivity, I would advise you to add Massumi's fundamental text, which you are currently missing; I believe, this is a conceptual problem in terms of the theoretical trajectory you have presented - by this evocation, you will also cover the 1990s, which are very pertinent in terms of transformation of the journalism's social function.

I also recommend reviewing at least Srnicek's work on platform capitalism and Beer's article on the social power of algorithms o address the issues regarding the relation between journalism/state/sovereignty/citizens/users.

Bellow, the suggested references. I suggest that you review and thoughtfully incorporate the following sources into your research, as doing so will significantly contribute to the enhancement of the theoretical framework of your study:

Buck-Morss, S. (1992). Aesthetics and anaesthetics: Walter Benjamin’s artwork essay reconsidered. October, 62, 3–41.
Massumi, B. (1995). The Autonomy of Affect. Cultural Critique, 31, 83–109. https://doi.org/10.2307/1354446
Beller, J. (2006). The cinematic mode of production: Attention economy and the society of the spectacle. Dartmouth College Press/University Press of New England.
Beller, J. (2017). The message is murder: Substrates of computational capital. London: Pluto Press.
Srnicek, N. (2017). Platform capitalism. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.
Beer, D. (2017). The social power of algorithms. Information, Communication & Society, 20(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2016.1216147
Cvar, N., & Bobnič, R. (2019). Truth, post-truth, non-truth: New aestheticized digital regime of truth. In R. Overell & B. Nicholls (Eds.), Post-truth and the mediation of reality (pp. 95–112). Palgrave Macmillan
Kornbluh, A. (2024). Immediacy, or The style of too late capitalism. Verso Books. https://doi.org/10.5840/verso2024 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I would like to sincerely thank you for your generous and insightful reading of my manuscript. Your comments have been extremely valuable and have significantly improved the theoretical depth and clarity of the article.

In response to your suggestions, I have expanded the discussion on the relationship between aesthetics and politics by incorporating Susan Buck-Morss’s (1992) influential reading of Benjamin. I have also integrated Jonathan Beller’s concepts of the cinematic mode of production (2003) and computational capital (2017) to address the problem of mediation and the extension of the culture industry into the digital apparatus. Following your advice, I introduced Brian Massumi’s (1995) seminal text on affect, which allowed me to cover the 1990s and to strengthen the argument concerning the transformation of journalism’s social function.

Furthermore, I have carefully reviewed and integrated the contributions of Cvar and Bobnič (2019), Kornbluh (2024), Srnicek (2017), and Beer (2017), which enrich the discussion of mediation, aesthetics, politics, and the power of algorithms. Together, these additions considerably reinforce the theoretical framework and sharpen the article’s argument.

I am deeply grateful for your constructive and generous engagement.

Your comments helped me to improve the manuscript but also opened new avenues of reflection for my ongoing research.

With best regards and appreciation,
The author

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The basic argument put forward by the author is that contemporary journalism is plagued by disinformation, which in turn leads to fragmentation and a loss of a sense of community. The author argues that journalism should become a public art of experience again through aesthetic literacy and in the process evoke the “art of experience” as proposed and developed by John Dewey. The submission is interesting, and the premise developed is promising. I was for instance especially intrigued by the author’s redefining of disinformation as a problem or crisis of experience, as Dewey explains “an experience”.

I would like to make the following recommendations in order to refine the article’s contribution:
 

• The way journalism can evoke the art of experience remains tenuous throughout the discussion and there is no real evidence that the well-designed interactive and participatory online journalism (as explored through the case studies) will indeed evoke the type of experience and imagination described by Dewey. Furthermore, it remains speculative at best to ponder whether aesthetically guided journalism will indeed counter disinformation. It could easily be argued the other way around. It may even be argued that disinformation makes use of the same strategies to disseminate its content. In other words, I am not convinced that by focussing on the object (interactive multimodal online journalism) that it can be used to determine or predict specific results or experiences. Similar to the aesthetic experience of the sublime, it cannot be predicted or staged. There is no formula for experiencing the sublime, just as there is no formula for experiencing “an experience” in Dewey’s sense. Even with the best intentions there is no guarantee that aesthetically educated journalism will have the predicted results.
• The notion of aesthetic literacy (as an extended form of media literacy) is interesting but may also be an over-extension of Dewey’s art of experience. As stated above, “an experience” is something that happens or not. I am not convinced that it can be educated through aesthetic literacy.
• The interaction mediated via the screen is also determined through algorithmic feedback that works through affective responses. By making the interfaces more enticing and alluring it may not necessarily change the journalism into the art of experience but could in effect just deepen the screen enslavement. The argument put forward is therefore debatable since affective responses may be triggered even more and the devotion to screen time and algorithmic determinism just confirmed.
• The correspondence between Dewey’s pragmatism and Critical Theory’s theoretical approaches requires more substantiation. There are definite links to be drawn but the author remains vague on the comparisons. On first read, the pairing of Adorno and Dewey seems odd, although the link between their aesthetical approaches is established, but this need to be explicated for the reader.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I would like to sincerely thank you for your careful and insightful review of my manuscript. Your observations have been extremely valuable in helping me refine both the scope and the nuance of the argument.

In response to your comments, I have clarified that the notion of journalism as a public art of experience in Dewey’s sense does not imply a guaranteed formula or predictable outcomes. Rather, I present it as a condition of possibility, a framework that can foster experiences of critical and democratic imagination but without certainty or determinism. Similarly, the concept of aesthetic literacy is now articulated not as a prescriptive training in how to have “an experience,” but as an extension of media literacy that cultivates dispositions and sensitivities capable of enabling such experiences.

I have also integrated your important point about the ambivalence of affectivity and algorithmic mediation. The revised version acknowledges that the same multimodal and participatory strategies that can enhance journalism may also reinforce algorithmic capture, thereby intensifying rather than countering disinformation. This recognition adds complexity and balance to the argument.

Finally, I have further substantiated the correspondence between Dewey’s pragmatism and Adorno’s critical theory. While they differ in their orientation—Dewey emphasizing continuity between aesthetic experience and everyday life, Adorno highlighting the autonomy and negativity of art—I argue that both converge in offering resources to critique the commodification of experience and to envision aesthetics as a site of resistance and democratic renewal.

I am deeply grateful for your constructive engagement.

Your suggestions have strengthened the manuscript and have opened valuable directions for future research.

With best regards and appreciation,

The author