#joinus: The outcomes of a mega event as seen through 300.000 tweets (and a few interviews)

For the first time ever, a social media symbol – the hashtag “#joinus” – has been chosen as the official slogan for the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 (ESC 2014) in Copenhagen. The ESC 2014 is an example of how televised events are currently entangled with social media platforms, lending themselves to synchronic and diachronic digital method queries. We ask: what kinds of queries into ‘the social’ might such entanglements engender? In the case of ESC 2014, the partners of the cross-sectorial consortium that conceptualize and organize the great number of events that will support the glitzy show and turn the whole spectacle into a mega event univocally highlight an ambition to turn the ESC 2014 into much more than a song contest. For the involved partners, the mega event also concerns, for instance, city and business development, education, tourism, and citizenship. This signals a current trend towards the joining of resources across sectors in an attempt to further innovation. We explore the ESC 2014 as a cross-sectorial innovation project with a range of desired – and at times conflicting – outcomes. In our presentation, we will discuss how 300.000 tweets containing one or more of five ESC 2014 related hashtags (#joinus, #esc2014, #eurovision, #eurovision2014 and #myeurovisionidea), which we have collected since January 2014 and analyzed with TCAT, might aid or problematize such an exploration.