Medios comerciales y ciudadanos de segunda

Abstract

This paper presents the outcome of an empirical analysis through the comration of life stories of two representative samples of young adults (between 18 and 25) of low socio-economic status in Brazil and Spain as an aftermath of another work in which young College students from Spain and USA were compared. The authors test their hypothesis that the media have become agents of political socialization of the new generations of voters y that their socio-economic status will be determinant when the time comes in which they have to assume their role as citizens within political and media systems more and more constrained by market considerations. The empirical date of the study backs the thesis that the greater the market character of media and the lower the socio-economic status of the public, the citizen’s discourse tends to keep the public sphere apart from the social and private ones of the audiencies.