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ABSTRACT
This study examines the influence the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), on national identity. Taking the case of the 2019 ESC which took place in Israel, this study employed a longitudinal design to examine its impact on different aspects of the national identity of Israeli Jews. The findings showed some substantives differences between those exposed to the contest and those not and conflicting trends in the contest's influence on the public: cultural patriotism and increased chauvinism, on the one hand, and some cosmopolitan affects, on the other. The article discusses these findings in light of theories on national identity and mega-events.
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank the Simone Veil Research Centre for Contemporary European Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the East-Med Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence for supporting this research. We would also like to thank Sharon Prado for his valuable help.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Israel is not the only case of a non-European country joining the European Broadcasting Union. Public broadcasting services from Algeria, Jordan, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Armenia, Tunisia, Lebanon, and other non-European countries are also permanent members, and some of them also participate in the ESC.
2 Online panels conduct web-based surveys of register respondents. We used the Midgam Project, a leading online survey research company with a pool of over 62,000 potential respondents. Participants were informed that participation was anonymous, given contact details in case of queries, and required to complete a consent form.
3 Some participants were excluded due to an instructional manipulation check (IMC) failure, indicating a lack of sufficient attention to the survey questions.
4 See Appendix 1 for information on the variables.
5 Following the events reduced 14% of the unexplained variance in the first model and 9% in the second model.
6 For example, in our sample, levels of chauvinism among religious people are one point higher (on a 1–7 scale) than among secular people.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Gal Ariely
Gal Ariely is associate professor at the Department of Politics & Government, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Employing cross-national analysis and experimental survey research Ariely study mainly national identity.
Hila Zahavi
Hila Zahavi is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Her research focuses on Israel- EU relations, diplomacy, and higher education policies. She teaches various European Studies modules at the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and the Open University of Israel. Hila is currently the Director of the Simone Veil Research Centre for Contemporary European Studies, and the elected Secretary General of the Israeli Association for International Studies.