In Mexico, television news shares or even replaces political institutions in their role of representatives and promoters of political participation, among citizens. That is evident in two ways. According to several studies, during electoral processes TV news become the main way for the audiences to be informed. On the other hand, TV news programs have played a central role in the democratic transition in Mexico. In consequence, television news are seen as a condition of the healthy democracy of the country. There is the belief that TV news programs are responsibles of producing informed citizens and that the only way for mexicans to participate in the public sphere of political debate is through television news. This phenomena takes particular relevance in the case of groups historically marginated of the public sphere, such as housewifes. All these beliefes, eliminate the possibility to take into account central elements, or mediations, that structure the political participation of people, such as: the social construction of gender, age, socio-economical position, educational level and spheres of socialization (including the domestic and the public). Factors that, at the same time, define particular forms to watch and to interpret television news about politics. This PhD. Thesis attempts to give empirical evidence to this debate. The main purpose is to analyze the relationship between TV news about the electoral process for the Presidence in Mexico, in 2000, and the way that construction of meaning about them, made by Mexican housewifes, was related with their vote decision -as a form of political participation. The central question of this research, is: What role do TV news programs play: a) in informing Mexican housewifes about politics, b) in the way they decide their vote about the presidential election and c) in encouraging their political participation? The main hypothesis of this research suggests that TV news play, neat to main mediations that constitute the identity of people, a central role in the construction of citizenship of housewives and in their political participation. To reach these purposes, this Thesis proposes a methodological model to analyze the reception process of these messages. This model integrates two observables: in one hand, the coverage of TV news to the electoral process and, on the other hand, the reception process of that news, between housewives. This research integrates quantitative and qualitative methodology. In the first case, it was the content analysis the main tool to analyze the coverage of four TV news main programs in Mexico ("Noticiero", "Hechos", "CNI Noticias" y "Noticias") to the electoral process. In the second case, it was qualitative methodology, such as focus groups and in-deepth interviews, the main tools used to observe the reception process with Mexican housewifes, living in Mexico City, aged between 25-60 years old, of three main socio-economical strata (low, middle and high) and with different educational levels. Findings offers, firstly, evidence that TV news programs do not contribute to the democratic transition in Mexico, because their attention to inform is directed by their commercial interests but not by their social responsibility. Secondly, this research gives empirical substance of Mexican housewives' relationships with the public sphere: their feeling about politicians and politics, that, according to the data, can be expressed by escepticism and margination. It also provides evidence of how these women relate to those television news. Finally, it analyses the role that TV news about the election played in the political participation of the housewives, and about their desbelief in these programs because they do not promote the political participation of the audience. What this research shows is that the relationship between TV news and politics among housewives, is mainly defined by the social construction of their gender, it means, by the marginated position of these women in the public but in the domestic sphere too.