Most studies on public opinion and citizenship tend to eschew the fact that under the new conditions of the media public space, individuals build their opinions and participate in this public space from their own homes. Withdrawal of traditional public spaces, together with the omnipresence of the media in households, notably affected the process of opinion building, the ways in which people participate and create a sense of belonging, and the strategies of inclusion in the public sphere. It is not necessary to go downtown to publicly show discontent with or support for a movement anymore, and neither are people required to go out to form new relation- ships or ask for emotional support. The domestic sphere has become the center from where individuals bridge the distance with the world. From
This article is based on socio-anthropological research on the daily uses of the radio that I carried out in Mexico City with the sponsorship of the National Council of Sci- ence and Technology for my doctoral dissertation during the years 1996–1998. Within the framework of the theoretical-methodological approach, I designed two research strategies: an ethnographic record of eighteen families from different sociocultural backgrounds and qualitative interviews to members of the families selected to complete and extend the meaning of the ethnographic observations.