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Staging and engaging with media events: A study of the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest

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journal contribution
posted on 2016-07-18, 13:06 authored by Michael SkeyMichael Skey, Maria Kyriakidou, Patrick McCurdy, Julie Uldam
Recent work on media events has questioned their integrative function, arguing that they operate as sites of symbolic struggle between different interest groups. However, relatively few studies have examined the experiences of those who design, organize, and attend such events. This article addresses this lacuna with reference to the biggest nonsporting live TV event in the world, the Eurovision Song Contest. Drawing on data from the 2014 competition in Copenhagen, Denmark, it examines the varying levels of commitment to the event among organizers, fans, broadcasters, and journalists and, in particular, notes how this shaped responses to a controversial incident involving the Russian entry. While those with an ongoing interest, including organizers and fans, tended to emphasize personal narratives and individual freedom of expression, mainstream media and audiences adopted a far more cynical standpoint, privileging geopolitical issues to make the event seem more relevant and compelling.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies

Published in

International Journal of Communication

Citation

SKEY, M. ...et al., Staging and engaging with media events: A study of the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest. International Journal of Communication, 10, pp. 3381–3399.

Publisher

© The Authors. Published by the University of Southern California

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 2.5 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.5) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/

Acceptance date

2016-05-24

Publication date

2016

Notes

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by IJOC under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Unported Licence (CC BY-NC-ND). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/

ISSN

1932-8036

Language

  • en