O Eurovision de 1969 e a disseminação da ideia de uma “España diferente”

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the 1969 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest as a propaganda tool of Francoist Spain. The sources used include recordings of the festival, as well as advertisements and newspaper articles, in order to analyze the repercussion of the narratives and discourses produced by the Francoist state that were linked to the festival’s organization and production. The Eurovision Song Contest is a music event founded in 1956, which has held 67 editions to date. One of its main features is the participation of state-owned broadcasters through the EBU, the European Broadcasting Union, the body that created the event. Therefore, the organization and production of the festival have always been closely connected to the state apparatuses of the host countries. Spain was no exception, as the responsibility for legislating and coordinating this international event fell to the Ministry of Information and Tourism. The central focus of this research is to understand how the festival was aligned with Francoist cultural policy, which adopted the slogan “La España Diferente” (“A Different Spain”), a phrase also widely used in tourism campaigns run by the same ministry responsible for Eurovision.