Tele-democracy: Albanian talk shows and new media

Abstract

When Phil Donahue first aired The Phil Donahue Show in Dayton, Ohio, in 1967 he made the studio audience a full participant by putting them in direct dialogue with guest experts or celebrities. Critics evaluated this as a revolution in television talk, which has variously been called participatory television. Today, nearly half a century later, history recurs. Social networks create opportunities for talk show programs to have an interactive communication with a much wider audience, even international. Thanks to the social media tele-democracy takes a full dimension! But, how does talk shows in Albania exploit these new platforms? What is the opinion of the TV hosts on them? What is the studio audience involvement and what are the social networks used for? - These are some of the questions that will be given an answer in this paper. The research is based on interviews and a survey with 31 talk show TV hosts in Albania; archived talk show programs and contemporary authors on communication and new media, such as professor Bernard Timberg, Artan Fuga, Eric Scherer, Jürgen Habermas, Marshall McLuhan, ect.