Sumario: | What was the rol of the press in Mexican politics in times of the Republica Restaurada? What were its reach and influence in the electoral results? Understanding how these two, in principle, mutually contradictory statements could perfectly converge provides a clue to comprehend how in those years the Mexican public sphere became reconstituted. In that new context, newspapers got a new centrality, encompassing a plurality of functions, beyond the most basic and elementary of serving as a vehicle for the transmission of ideas. A apparently trivial fact, a dispute in 1871 regarding theatrical matters, and the series of intrigues which were woven around it, will show us how newspapers intervened in the political arena, playing a fundamental part in the articulation of party networks on a national level, and, ultimately, how through this practice the very meaning of the concept of “public opinion” became redefined.
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