The Politics of Eurovision: A Case Study of the United Kingdom’s 2021 and 2022 Participations as Expressed on Social Media

Abstract

In recent years, the opinion that the Eurovision Song Contest has become highly politicised is prevalent in the media and the popular voice, although not much research exists that can attest to this claim. In this work we conduct a case study that applies sentiment and discourse analysis methodologies to the assessment of political opinions in social media regarding this artistic and social event. The main objective is to explore to what extent and in what form this supposed politicisation has an expression on Twitter, as illustrated by the cases of artists Sam Ryder and James Newman, the United Kingdom’s representatives in the 2022 and 2021 editions of the contest, respectively. We examine references to two historical-political contexts that have had a severe impact on the European society over the last few years, and which have determined, among many other social aspects, the reception of Eurovision results ever since they took place: Brexit and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Keywords

• eurovision
• twitter
• social media
• politics
• sentiment analysis
• discourse analysis