Paper short abstract:

Drawing on a cross-cultural ethnographic research amongst activists in Italy and Britain, this paper introduces the concept of media imaginary to explore how people imagine what they do with the media according to particular social and political projects.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will argue that in the analysis of media and social change, it is of central importance to develop a theoretical approach that not merely considers media as practice and highlights the everyday uses of technologies, but also understands media as social and political projects which relate to specific ethnographic imaginations. Drawing on the findings of a cross-cultural ethnographic research amongst two very different political groups of activists in Britain and Italy, the paper will focus in particular on social media practices and will argue that the relationship between social media and political activism is embedded in a tension between opportunity and anxiety, which varies from context to context, from situation to situation.

In order to understand these cultural variations the paper will introduce the concept of media imaginary. In doing so, it will critically assess Taylor's (2004) idea of modern social imaginary and Castoriadis' (1998) notion of radical imagination, and will combine them with the understanding of media as practice (Couldry,2004). Therefore, it will argue that it is important to appreciate that people often imagine "what they do" with media technologies according to culturally and context specific political projects. The concept of media imaginary, it will be argued, enables us to insight on the complex relationship between political participation and social media, and on the multiple and complex human variations that are embedded in these media practices.