Deweyan Journalism Revival

I found much of what Dewey had to say in our reading about art intriguing and I began to wonder what other fields he might have either influenced or thought about himself in this way.

Upon doing a little bit of research, I came across a few mentions of Dewey's modern influence on the field of journalism. In Dewey's 1927 release The Public and It's Problems, he tackles issues of his time such as can true Democracy work in the modern world? Although I have yet to read the text, there is also another interesting idea that stems from this book.

In this text, Dewey proposes a clear definition as to what public really means. He puts forth the idea that publics are spontaneously forming groups of individuals who share the indirect effects of a particular action. This definition also affects the way we look at journalism. The idea of public journalism, which depends on the people who are experiencing the moment, is meant to draw away from elitist outsider journalism.

Dewey's public journalism gave many writers a new way to look at things and created a trend in the 80's. The most recent example I can think of to do with this idea of public journalism rather than spectator journalism would be the Iran election, where users uploaded pictures, videos and first-person accounts directly from the streets on Tehran. Through the recent developments in technology, specifically mobile technology, the average citizen now has the potential to capture and deliver news to the globe far faster and less restricted than newspapers ever could. Public journalism allows for people to become more informed about what is truly going on in government and everything else, to create more informed and educated citizens, two essentials to a true democracy.

Q: Do you think that Deweyan Democracy is possibly even with the accessibility of new technological mediums?