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Central to Motschenbacher's work is the titular Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), where he situates his critical discourse analysis to demonstrate how the annual event serves as a platform for poststructural identity construction. Delving into data from 1956 to 2015, he focuses on three aspects of identity—European, national, and sexual—and how they are constructed and negotiated through linguistic and nonlinguistic strategies. Particular to this book is the process of ‘Europeanisation’, which the author describes as the ‘discursive formation of Europe’ (9) on a widely televised stage where imaginations of the continent are actively constructed through song and dance.
The brief but rich history of the ESC serves as an ideal source of data to investigate how identities can be discursively produced on multiple levels....