XI (February 25, 2016) Johan Fornäs

Eurovision, Media and European Culture

This lecture examines how Europe is narrated in the eastern European popular music presented at the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC). Since the fall of the wall, European institutions have eagerly sought new narratives to redefine Europe. Because popular music combines emotive pleasure with social interaction, it has become an increasingly important sphere for mediating cultural values. As one of the most successful European arenas, the ESC offers identifying tools that link cultural, social and political discourses. Within the interdisciplinary research project ‘Narratives of Europe’ (www.narrativesofeurope.com), I interpret some 90 songs from the ESC finals since 1989, finding an overwhelming dominance for the master narrative of redemptive resur­rection, where Europe once had a glorious past, has then until recently been almost annihilated by internal wars, and may now finally recover by mutual co-operation and love. In spite of sub-variants, this dominant narrative resonates with existing myths and symbols. Narrative analysis of musical media texts is here used to uncover East-West relations that elaborate on inherited traditions to subtly transform the meaning of Europe.

Johan Fornäs is Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Södertörn University in Stockholm, Sweden. With a PhD in musicology, his musical studies have dealt with popular music and identity issues, including research on youth culture, karaoke, rock and jazz discourses. He is in spring 2016 visiting scholar at the University of Amsterdam, working on a new book on Rethinking Culture. Previous books include Cultural Theory and Late Modernity (Sage 1995); Digital Borderlands (Peter Lang 2002); Consuming Media: Communication, Shopping and Everyday Life(Berg 2007); Capitalism: A Companion to Marx’s Economy Critique (Routledge 2013); Signifying Europe (Intellect 2012); and Europe Faces Europe: Narratives from its Eastern Half (Intellect 2016, in press). He is Member of Academia Europaea; has been vice chair of the international Association for Cultural Studies (ACS); founding director of the Advanced Cultural Studies Institute of Sweden (ACSIS); and chief editor of Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research. He currently edits a theme issue on “Time and Media” for the International Journal of Communication (in press 2016).

Johan Fornäs