Aesthetics, Political

Over the last two decades, aesthetics has become more central to political communi-cation and media studies in relation to both mainstream political power and counter-cultural movements. the term “aesthetics” originates from the Greek word “aisthesis,”which means perception by the intellect and the bodily senses. As a field of philosophical inquiry, aesthetics concerns the nature and functions of art. The notion of aesthetics is associated with questions around beauty, taste, and the formal (most often visual) qualities of texts, media, and material objects. The philosopher Alexander Baumgarten, who coined this word in 1735, defined aesthetics as the science of sensible knowledge, tying a concern with aesthetics to the understanding of how beauty stimulates and is gathered by the senses. Aesthetics pertains to the more properly formal aspects of communication, but also to its perceptual dimensions and sensuous experiences, as expressed through emotion, pleasure, and affect.