Abstract
This article explores volunteering in relation to the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), which took place in Stockholm in 2016 and in Kyiv in 2017, with the aim of shedding light on volunteering as a form of “media work”. Following from this, the article aims to problematize the theoretical concept of free labour and analyse the symbolic exchanges and currencies involved in employing a “free” labour force. Through interviews with volunteers, this article explores what volunteers at huge media events do, how their work is organized, and what motivates them. The empirical basis for this article is an interview study with volunteers and volunteer organizers of the ESC in Stockholm (May 2016) and in Kyiv (May 2017), complemented with a document analysis of volunteer guidebooks and organizational reports. The article shows that eventfulness is an essential part of what volunteer labour brings to an event such as the ESC. It is also a key element in the production of economic value: eventfulness is a currency that expresses the value of the event itself and is a key feature of place branding. Furthermore, eventfulness – along with the feeling of being a part of an event, of something bigger, as it unfolds in time – is a key feature of the motivation for the volunteers who contribute with unpaid labour. As such, eventfulness can also be understood as a form of currency or symbolic capital that forms the main remuneration or “wage” earned by volunteers at an event such as the ESC.
Highlights
Media and cultural events such as the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) rely on volunteer work to a high degree
Volunteering can be a form of unpaid labour, when performed with or in relation to commercial interests; with this concept as a basis, the purpose of this article is to problematize the concept of free labour and highlight the symbolic exchanges and currencies involved in this form of media work
This article discusses how volunteering is an important form of media work that takes place in relation to large media events such as the ESC, and thereby presents a perspective of volunteering that has been somewhat overlooked in the previous literature
Summary
Media and cultural events such as the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) rely on volunteer work to a high degree. For the volunteers interviewed for this article, neither career motives nor an aspiration to “do good” were sufficient motivators for performing unpaid labour Rather, another symbolic currency compensated for and motivated their efforts: participation in and experience of the event, and the sense of belonging that such participation provides. Aside from its general theoretical basis regarding volunteering at media events as a form of free labour in the media industries, this article highlights some of the specificities of volunteering in two countries – Sweden and Ukraine. Sweden differs from other countries, in that its volunteering sector has limited importance in the “core” areas of the welfare state, such as care of the elderly or of children Another important difference is that voluntary work in Sweden is almost entirely organized through membership organizations (e.g., organizations for pensioners or labour unions). Against this background, volunteering may have different meanings and take on different forms and shapes in different countries
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