On the Couch with Europe: The Eurovision Song Contest, the European Broadcast Union and Belonging on the Old Continent

Abstract

This study explores the role of the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) in creating and shaping European identity and belonging through an analysis of the affective bond television audiences have built with the largest and longest running pan-European media event. In reference to the ESC as an object of retained childhood media consumption, this bond is analyzed drawing on the notion of transitional objects in the work of object-relations theorist D.W. Winnicott and its adaptations in recent work on media consumption. The paper argues that ESC serves as space of both illusionary belonging, yet equally challenges the homogenous constructions of home and belonging prevalent in national identity through the disillusionment of a shared and negotiated cultural space, allowing for the formation of, borrowing Winnicott's term, a “good enough” Heimat that offers a dual space of belonging yet simultaneously challenges the horizon of expectation upon which such belonging rests.

Notes

¹Posted on http://escfans.esctoday.com/38353, retrieved March 15, 2008. Please note that all viewer/fan comments quoted in this manuscript have been edited for spelling and slight grammatical errors.

²Posted on http://www.demandi.co.uk/rp/esc_uk/1_comments.html, retrieved March 15, 2008.

³Posted on http://www.demandi.co.uk/rp/esc_uk/1_comments.html, retrieved March 15, 2008.

⁴Posted on http://www.thedvdforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=473922, retrieved March 15, 2008.

⁵Posted on http://www.thedvdforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=554352, retrieved March 15, 2008.

⁷Posted on http://www.demandi.co.uk/rp/esc_uk/1_comments.html, retrieved March 15, 2008.

⁶BARB, http://www.barb.co.uk/viewingsummary/weekreports.cfm?report=weeklyterrestrial&RequestTimeout=500, and Die Welt, http://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article869750/Guildo_Horns_Rekord_bleibt_unuebertroffen.html, both retrieved March 15, 2008.

⁸Posted on http://www.demandi.co.uk/rp/esc_uk/1_comments.html, retrieved March 15, 2008.

⁹Hills' primary concern, however, remains that claims of a non-pejorative regressive engagement with transitional fan objects open the door to “common sense” readings that see such regression as precisely pejorative.

¹⁰Scandinavia Wiped Out: West Goes South, posted on http://www.esctoday.com/news/read/8684, retrieved March 15, 2008.

¹¹Posted on http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/non_aviation/read.main/1605673/, retrieved March 15, 2008.

¹³Scandinavia Wiped Out: West Goes South, ibid, retrieved March 15, 2008.

¹²Worries on EU's Proposal for Another Contest, http://www.oikotimes.com/v2/index.php?file=articles& id=19, retrieved March 15, 2008.

¹⁴Posted on http://www.demandi.co.uk/rp/esc_uk/1_comments.html

¹⁵See also Heller (2007) on the conflict between Russian pop duo t.A.T.u. and the EBU in the run-up to the 2003 contest.

¹⁶ http://www.ebu.ch/en/ebu_members/actives/index.php, retrieved March 15, 2008.

¹⁷ http://www.ebu.ch/departments/legal/activities/leg_membership.php, retrieved March 15, 2008.

¹⁸ http://www.ebu.ch/departments/legal/activities/leg_membership.php, retrieved March 15, 2008.