That’s how you write a Eurovision PhD…
In this guest post, Liverpool local and expert in digital fan cultures, Jamie Halliwell, reflects on the ups and downs of online fandom, and on finding his own place as a Eurovision fan and researcher.
Becoming a Eurovision fan
So I guess my love of Eurovision started way back in 1997 when I watched Katrina and the Waves win the contest for the UK through a small cathode-ray television screen while holidaying at the family caravan when I was growing up. The next time I paid any attention to Eurovision, or that I have recollection of paying some close attention to it was in 2005, when I realised this television mega-event had two shows: a semi-final and grand final. It was around this time I started buying the Eurovision CD from this year, and from the previous years (2001-2004), and then soon after I was organising Eurovision house parties, putting up flag bunting and creating my own scorecards. Even though I was trying to make my own collective experience of Eurovision with family and friends, my enjoyment of Eurovision felt very much an individual practice outside of these parties. It would not be until 2014 until I started discovering Eurovision fans and developing my own fan network on Twitter.
That’s how you write a Eurovision PhD
Before I delve into the origins and development of the PhD, it was 2010-11 when I decided to focus my undergraduate research dissertation on Eurovision and expressions of national identity in the 2000 and 2010 contests. This was much to the satisfaction and sheer delight of my dissertation supervisor, who also encouraged me to do a PhD in Eurovision in the first place. Around this time, I was considering doing a Masters in something geographical - town planning was a serious contender - but as a result of my supervisor’s enthusiasm I finally settled on expanding my dissertation research and applied for the PhD. For various reasons, this got delayed by 2 years, and through some connections with my dissertation supervisor I ended up applying to do my PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University that commenced in 2013.
It was only by chance that I became aware of Eurovision fan networks and communities on social media in 2014. This came about as I met, my now friend, doing a shift in our part-time work who was also a big Eurovision fan and introduced me to an online Eurovision radio show on Oystermouth Radio based in The Mumbles, South Wales called ‘Wales 12 points!’. It was only through listening to this late on Thursday nights and chatting and networking with fans on Twitter (when I feel that Twitter seemed a much more pleasant space to make connections) that transformed my whole PhD research proposal.
In a sense, my Eurovision fandom and PhD research developed at the same time in 2014. It was this year when I went to my first Eurovision in Copenhagen and got some funding to go and do research there where I had conversations with fans. Then later in 2015, I also got 2 weeks funding to go to Vienna, Austria to speak to fans who were involved with Eurovision fan media outlets. I used my position as a fan journalist to gain access to the press centre to write articles about the backstage goings-on at the contest (e.g., artist rehearsals, interviews, and press conferences), as well as carry out my own PhD research.
In 2017-18, I then expanded my research to explore how fan and sexual identities are expressed through digital Eurovision fan spaces. This included setting up weekly WhatsApp group chats with fans, analysing fan tweets from my Twitter network, and interviewing bisexual and straight men via video conferencing. This latter piece of research was fascinating for a number of reasons. First, I did not tell my participants that I was gay cis-man and I felt this was assumed because I was a man who was a Eurovision fan. My participants seemed to feel similarly as many had experiences whereby others assumed them to be gay because they enjoyed Eurovision. Some of these straight men would reiterate that they were straight during interviews during questions that asked about their experiences of being straight male Eurovision fans, attending Eurovision events, and in everyday social interaction. You can read more about this in my journal article.
Social network, uh-oh…
Since completing my research and finishing the PhD, online Eurovision fandom has been a rollercoaster. In the past 10 years of using social media to practice my Eurovision fandom, I have met some wonderful people online and met some of them in person - and this still continues. In 2020, as I was finishing writing up my PhD and was forced to work from home due to lockdowns as a result of the Covid pandemic, I found a renewed comfort and solace by engaging with Eurovision online. The contest brought people together online amongst global feelings of fear, isolation, trauma, and uncertainty for the future that was caused by the Covid pandemic. The #EurovisionAgain events were a wonderful source of nostalgia, escapism, and encouraged togetherness through the live broadcasting of past Eurovision contests (see Abby Waysdorf’s chapter on liveness through archives, chapter 30). I remember distinctively many fans, myself included, vibing in collective jubilation towards Norway’s entrant from 1976 Anne-Karine Ström strutting out onto the stage in large sunglasses wearing a gold jumpsuit and loving life.
More recently, however, I have at times struggled to find my place in the rapidly changing landscape of Eurovision fan Twitter. I think this is due to a number of reasons. First, I have had what Julie Cupples has described as a ‘love affair’ between my Eurovision fandom and research - a relationship that has been oftentimes unstable and anxious.
There was a time in 2016 when I felt I saw my position in the fandom differently, when I was a fan journalist. Being a fan journalist opened up a diverse range of spaces to me, such as the press centre in Vienna. This was a fantastic experience and I am always grateful to the fan media outlet for giving me the opportunity to access this space and other backstage spaces to get closer to the contest, working together to produce content for their website, and meeting a diverse range of Eurovision fans to learn about their experiences of being fans.
But there were two occasions around 2016 where I felt undervalued as a writer and fan journalist in Eurovision backstage spaces and activities: when being asked to cut an interview with an artist short in the London Eurovision Party press room and being told that an article I wrote was ‘unacceptable’ (and soon after I received an apology for this comment). In my head I felt that my position as an academic researcher was also being judged as a result of my ‘work’ as a fan journalist. I also felt this added further pressure on to the pressure and demands of the PhD and, consequently, I left this fan journalist role so I could devote more time to focus on the PhD.
This ‘love affair’ between my fandom and my research continued into the second phase of data collection. This required me to analyse Twitter tweets and conduct WhatsApp group chats with Eurovision fans. As Eurovision had become embedded in my everyday life, I felt it impossible to leave the fieldwork site as these platforms were instantly accessible on my smartphone. For example, I would be looking out for potential data on Twitter for research that I would constantly analyse. Thus, it was impossible to divorce myself from my fandom and my research as they become intertwined and they blurred into each other.
Since completing the PhD, I feel that my personal use of social media has been transformed because of my research. However, I don’t feel that I constantly tweet my thoughts as regularly. Although saying that during #EurovisionAgain and some national finals - for instance ‘Festival da Canção’ in Portugal, or ‘San Remo’ in Italy - I can often be doing just that! I could also be feeling a sense of tiredness from being constantly embedded in my fandom for my research, which has resulted in me keeping some distance. This may be why I feel that I don’t seem to ‘fit in’ to the wider online fan landscape - like I am a lonely satellite in an outer orbit around everybody else.
Twitter itself has been rebranded as ‘X’ since I completed the PhD and it feels an increasingly volatile, hostile, and deeply fragmented space. Its new owner is capitalising on the spread of hate speech and misinformation. This has also trickled down into X’s Eurovision fan networks, where hate speech targeted towards people’s identity, music taste and their fandom is widespread. Misinformation is also commonplace in X’s Eurovision fan networks including users impersonating fan accounts and fans spreading misinformation, for example, about Eurovision artists. This has always existed, however, these activities seem more normalised than when I started using Twitter back in 2014. Even though accounts can be reported for misinformation, impersonation, or hate speech, they still seem immune to these reports and the reporting cycle continues.
Eurovision in Liverpool
I should end this post on a positive note and that is when Eurovision came to my hometown, Liverpool, in 2023. This was the most ambitious Eurovision organisation project to date and it was well needed given the isolation and trauma that was caused by the Covid pandemic in 2020. It still feels like a blur, that it didn’t actually happen, like it was all a dream. I was in the arena for the Eurovision semi-finals, I was actually there, down the road from where I live. The atmosphere was buzzing, fans, non-fans, and local residents all came together to experience the joy of Eurovision. Since then, I’ve felt a renewed sense of pride in the city that has made its mark for hosting large-scale international events for years to come.
Be bold…leave your host city decorations on display long after the event!
(Kalush Orchestra billboard in Liverpool city centre, January 2024)