Social imaginaries are a society’s shared assumptions about collective existence.

Evidence

In this article, I introduce Charles Taylors’ concept of social imaginaries as a useful analytical tool to explore this further, including how ideas of belonging and inclusion can directly impact on the everyday practices of journalists. Taylor (2004) introduces the concept of social imaginaries as the shared understandings and assumptions that people within a society have about their collective lives. This includes understandings of ‘the ways that people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations’ (Taylor, 2004: 23). The social imaginary provides a framework for common practices and a sense of legitimacy in society, reflecting a collective understanding of the morals, beliefs, values and symbols that dictate how members should interact and live together. — Nadia Haq, ‘The National Media Just Sees Muslims…, 21

Categorization

• DEFINE: Taylor’s social imaginary is the chapter’s core analytic tool, defined here in his own words.
• XREF: Connects to Benedict Anderson’s imagined communities and to Bourdieu’s habitus as parallel accounts of shared tacit frameworks.