Re-Membering Eastern Europe: Mediated Representations of Post-Soviet States in British and Danish Media Coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest

Since the break-down of the Soviet Union and the inclusion of a growing number of Post-Soviet countries into the Eurovision Song Contest, the contest has become an occurring occasion for remembering and discussing the nature and limits of “Europe”. This paper explores how the inclusion of Post-Soviet states into the “Eurovision” has been represented and discussed in Britain and Denmark, two countries with their own complex and complicated relationship to "Europe".

Taking the cue from a growing scholarly production that argues for the importance of pop culture in the construction of social and political memories and perspectives (e.g. Couldry, Dittmer, Grey, Plate), this paper explores the ways that “Europe”  is constructed and challenged in and by media in Denmark and Britain.

The paper starts with a brief discussion of what the Eurovision Song Contest is and why it is an interesting framework for analysing (political) memory. It then discusses the ways that the “Eastern enlargement” of the Contest in the 1990s triggered discussions of borders and belonging in both a historical and contemporary perspective. Finally the paper zooms in on British and Danish debates of three post-Soviet states; Estonia, Ukraine and Russia in order to explore how they are re-membered in relation to various perceptions of Europe. The paper refer to a larger research project on representations of Europe in popular culture.