136 Int. J. Electronic Governance, Vol. 4, Nos. 1/2, 2011 Copyright © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Political parties and web 2.0 tools: A shift in power or a new digital Bandwagon? Paschalia-Lia Spyridou* and Andreas Veglis Media Informatics Lab, Department of Journalism & Mass Communication, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54006, Thessaloniki, Greece E-mail: spyridou@jour.auth.gr E-mail: veglis@jour.auth.gr *Corresponding author Abstract: Since the emergence of the e-democracy project putting emphasis on participation, most analyses focused on the opportunity for political parties to reverse top-down and propaganda-style models and engage in conversation with citizens. Despite the objections posed by the normalisation thesis, the opportunities offered by web 2.0 for feeding vox populi into the political process and letting the ‘wisdom of crowds’ speak are undeniably growing. The study investigates the main communication functions performed by Greek parties online and the level and type of interactivity provided. The findings suggest the development of a hybrid web 1.5 model, while participation ranks low in the agenda of most political parties. Keywords: web 2.0 tools; interactivity; digital campaigning. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Spyridou, P-L. and Veglis, A. (2011) ‘Political parties and web 2.0 tools: A shift in power or a new digital Bandwagon?’, Int. J. Electronic Governance, Vol. 4, Nos. 1/2, pp.136–155. Biographical notes: Paschalia-Lia Spyridou is a Researcher at the media Informatics Lab at the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Thessaloniki. From that institution, she received her BA in Journalism and Mass Communication in 1998 and her PhD on the interactivity of newspaper websites in 2009. In 2000, she received an MA in Communication from the University of Westminster, London. Her research interests revolve around online journalism, interactivity of websites, media consumption, democracy and digital media. Andreas Veglis is an Associate Professor at the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Thessaloniki. He received the BS in Physics in 1988, and the MS in Electronics and Communications from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 1992. In 1995, he received a PhD in Computer Science from Aristotle University. His research interests include information technology in journalism, distributed printing and new media.