The Eurovision Song Contest and the problem of ’quality’
Recent research has discussed the Eurovision Song Contest as an arena for negotiating cultural tensions related to the idea of Europe, particularly its eastern enlargement. In the popular media, the results of the contest have often caused protests, with Western European commentators complaining that neighbourly and diaspora voting by Eastern Europeans has skewed the results. In response to this criticism, the organisers re-introduced national juries to the contest in 2009. At stake in these developments is the question of quality: how is quality in popular music to be judged and who is considered capable of doing it? What are the politics behind the supposedly neutral appeal to the authority of music industry professionals? In this presentation I suggest that research could make a useful contribution to current debates on Eurovision by engaging critically with the notion of quality. In the case of the Eurovision Song Contest, the problem of quality is complicated by the fact that the programme should not only be a pop music competition but also, and primarily, good television entertainment.
Mari Pajala has written a PhD on the Eurovision Song Contest, nationality and Finnish television history and has published several articles on the ESC. She is currently a post doc research fellow at Media Studies, University of Turku and visiting researcher at Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University.