Abstract
Integration of Television with Internet technologies has renewed the discussion for a new era of political communication. The adoption of Internet communication rules in television, has introduced a new hybrid model of “Internetized Television”. This hybrid model aims to reverse the passiveness of tele-democracy, supporting a more active political participation of citizens. However, since now, the impact of this new medium in politics has not been studied adequately. In this research paper, we performed an extensive empirical study of the political impact of internetized television. In particular, we study the impact of this new medium in the 2007 national elections of Greece, when a specific broadcast was aired on TV, named “Skai-YouTube Debate”. Based on our survey results, we conduct an in-depth theoretical discussion of the political and communicative challenges imposed by internetized television.