Consequently, Stereo Mike’s entry divided Greek audiences. Those particularly fond of it suggested it would be a rightful representation of Greece at the Dusseldorf Eurovision, for it would convey a powerful message of resistance and defiance to the enormous pressure by the EU, IMF and ECB for further austerity measures and budget cuts. Its detractors, however, considered it a shameful hybridisation that did not do any justice to either its rap or zeibekiko elements.

My paper scrutinises this polarisation, predicated upon aesthetic and moral criteria, and discusses wider issues of place-making and the complex ways in which Greek identities are being (re-)invented and/or (re-)affirmed through the internationally mass-mediated genre of hip-hop.

Ioannis Polychronakis is currently finishing his PhD at the University of Oxford, St Hugh’s College, under the supervision of Dr Martin Stokes and Prof. Emanuele Senici.

Daniel Koch is member of the OGAE Germany and studied communication management at design akademie berlin. He is working as a marketing manager for a European outsourcing company.

Starting with an overview of Eurovision since the very beginning I compare it to Brazilian music festivals, and also analyse the latest visual brand identities and a reflection of how they have been affecting the image of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Leonardo Vaz is 20 years old and I lives in São Paulo, Brazil. He is currently concluding a Graphic Design university course at Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (FAAP), and working as a Graphic Design trainee at Casa Claudia, the high profile interior design magazine in Brazil. He also writes for ESC12points.com, which he sees as a way for developing an analytic view on all the things Eurovision.

Following the introduction of the modernising agency of the Eurovision brand in 2004 the ESC has continued to foreground the European Broadcasting Union’s public service remit. Indeed, with issues of European identity and citizenship being played-out during the television broadcasts how has its sphere of influence changed – as a celebration of heterogeneous European culture, or an homogenising agent? This presentation will discuss these themes and re-appraise the role of the EU audio visual policies such as the Television Without Frontiers directive.

Phil Jackson is the Associate Head of Media at Edge Hill University in the United Kingdom. In addition he is the Programme Leader for BA Media, Music and Sound. As a fan and scholar of the ESC, Phil has researched areas of fandom, branding and media events theory which relate to the Contest. Phil, along with Toni Sant and Karen Fricker, is a co-founder and executive member of the Eurovision Research Network, which launched in 2009.

This is an overview of my current doctoral research on how the Eurovision Song Contest has been used as a platform for image building with particular focus on Estonia and Ukraine. Recent victories by Estonia (2001), Ukraine (2004), as well as others in the “new Europe” Serbia (2007) and Russia (2008) have demonstrated the tremendous significance attached to Eurovision by those post-socialist states pursuing the goal of a ‘return to Europe’ (on the latter concept, see e.g. Eglitis, 2002; Smith, 2001). This paper will present some of my empirical research and present an overview of the identity-political debates surrounding Eurovision and the hosting of this event by the countries concerned.

Paul will ask questions about who ultimately took the decisions on how the contest was staged in Estonia and Ukraine. What “official” representations of Estonian/Ukrainian national identity have been presented through either hosting or participating? How successful was Eurovision in terms of boosting Estonia’s “Nordic” credentials? How was the “awakening” theme of event received in Ukraine? How contested have these respective representations been? Do the current debates exemplify Eurovision as an established European cultural “ritual” and therefore a signpost of a nation’s “return to Europe”?

Paul Jordan is a PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow, currently working on his thesis, Nation Branding and Image Building Through Popular Culture: A Case Study of Estonia and Ukraine.

The Eurovision Song Contest shows apparent national differences in using the show as an instrument for national-cultural representation. These ones can be explained by reducing its complexity to seven essential and interconnected ‘dimensions of meaning’.

The results of an interview study on the occasion of the 49th Eurovision Song Contest in Istanbul show a focus on the national-cultural dimension and confirm the theory of German sociologist Reinhard Bendix: the more a country is seen as a democratic and industrial ‘latecomer’ in comparison to the Western European ‘avant-garde’ nations, the more likely it is to highlight its cultural uniqueness, since national culture is regarded as a key to the country’s future success.

Irving’s contribution will also focus on recent German and international research related to the voting.

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.

The socio-political and economic realities of Europe as well as larger conceptual frameworks about what ‘Europe’ means are shifting rapidly in our times. Europe is becoming the site of multi-directional flows of power, finance, ideas, and bodies. The ESC, with its own unique imaginative and aesthetic modality, has been since its founding in 1956 a symbolic contact zone between European cultures, an arena for European identification in which both national solidarity and participation in a European identity are confirmed. It is also a site where cultural struggles over the meanings, frontiers and limits of Europe, as well as similarities and differences existing within Europe, are enacted. This presentation will introduce the Eurovision and the ‘New’ Europe project, an ongoing research network (launched in 2009) which aims to advance critical thinking about the contemporary ESC with a focus on the ways in which the Contest has reflected, and perhaps driven, changing perceptions and realities of Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Dr. Karen Fricker is a lecturer in contemporary theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London, and deputy London theatre critic for Variety (US). Her research interests include theatre, globalisation, and nation (with a focus on the Québec theatre director Robert Lepage); and the ESC. She has written and broadcast about theatre and about Eurovision for The Guardian, The Irish Times, The New York Times, RTÉ, the BBC, and the CBC. 

Dr. Milija Gluhovic is Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Warwick (UK). His major research interests include 20^th- and 21^st-century European theatre and performance; memory studies; discourses of European identity, migrations and human rights; and critical theory. He is currently working on two book projects: European Memories: Spectacles of Loss, Mourning and Intervention and Performing a ‘New’ Europe: Contexts, Ethics, Politics.

In Ireland, where homosexuality was decriminalised as late as 1993, Eurovision fandom previously served for many as a closet, and a secret code for being gay. By coming out in thelr love of Eurovision, gay men came into a gay family through the shared discourse of camp. This research is grounded in fieldwork conducted from 2005-2007, including interviews with Irish Eurovision fans across several generations. It notes how the changing practices of Eurovision fandom – and of the Contest itself – have allowed fans to literally become ‘part of the show’. This presentation will also offer thoughts and provocations towards future directions for theatre and performance studies research on the ESC.
Professor Brian Singleton is head of the School of Drama, Trinity College Dublin. He is President of the International Federation for Theatre Research and former editor of Theatre Research International (Cambridge University Press). He is co-editor (with Janelle Reinelt) of the book series “Studies in International Performance”, published by Palgrave/Macmillan, and is the author of several volumes and edited collections.

Eurovision promises to display easily what is usually more difficult to read: queerness. In what ways then, is it possible to speak of a “queer tradition” with respect to eurovision and how helpful are concepts like “camp” that are generally associated with it in this context? Even though “queering” the event certainly appears tautological would it be, on the other hand, still imaginable that the event looses its queer touch (given that “queer” is such a volatile category)? And how does queerness relate to other political issues discussed in this field, like nationality, eastern and western europe? In this paper I will present a couple of key questions that queer studies have to offer in understanding eurovision.

Dr. Peter Rehberg is editor-in-chief for MÄNNER, a gay monthly magazine in Germany. He holds a Ph.D. in German Studies from New York University and has published on Kafka, Baudelaire, Genet, Fassbinder, Madonna, Porn, and Eurovision. He also wrote two novels.