ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the importance of studying the social imaginary, and addresses its relation to media and communication technologies, reviewing key theories and thinkers. It focuses on the relation between media imaginaries and social movements, explores the connection between cyber-libertarianism and digital democracy, and examines the sublime of digital activism within diverse protest movements across history. Robin Mansell’s work on imagining the internet is concerned with the exercise of power through media imaginaries for the design, regulation, and use of technological platforms. As theorists of media imaginaries have underlined, there are competing, coexistent media imaginaries at play, pushed by different social, cultural, and economic forces. Instead of relying on the concept of social and media imaginaries, Vincent Mosco has instead analysed communication technologies through the lens of the myth. Mosco departs from the assumption that in order to investigate cyberspace a double perspective is needed, one that looks at both the material dimension and the mythical dimension.
