Political communication studies have long described political actors, media, and citizens as distinct actor groups. Various strands of research, however, have shown that there are many reasons to conceptualize media as political actors as well. Particularly in media systems that are shaped by political parallelism, media operate under a high degree of partisanship and pursue open political objectives. Moreover, in the course of a mediatization of political communication, they are increasingly imposing their conditions and rules on political actors who are forced to rely on media to obtain electoral success. Recent debates about the relationship between media, democracy, and participation have emphasized the media's potential as an instrument for civil mobilization and empowerment. However, many of the current shifts in political communication, mainly resulting from advancing commercialization and digitization, are still largely unexplored.