ABSTRACT
In this opening chapter, I want us to consider some ideas about the ‘cyclical’ or ‘recursive’ character of social life and, in particular, arguments about the significance of routines and traditions. We will be focusing on the role of radio and television in basic processes of social reproduction (looking, for instance, at their constructions of ‘dailiness’ and ‘eventfulness’, see Scannell 1996), but to begin with, it is necessary to lay a foundation for that discussion of communications via broadcasting by thinking more generally about the temporal and spatial arrangements of day-to-day lives and social institutions. My starting point is the theory of ‘structuration’ outlined by Anthony Giddens (1981; 1984), since an important aspect of this theory is its concern with ‘recursiveness’.
