Reading the €uro : Money as a Medium of Transnational Identification

• Media culture is a main element in the formation of cultural identities, whether of people or of places. Cities, regions, nations and supranational formations like the EU are identified by mediated texts that symbolically give meaning to such geographical sites. The same is true for the individuals and groups who populate or cross them. Such issues were at stake in a team focusing on cultural identities, within the European Science Foundation programme -Changing Media - Changing Europe-, organised by Ib Bondebjerg and Peter Golding, 2000-2004. A series of workshops were held in various -liminal- European cities - places where the intersectional dynamics of personal, urban, national and European identifications were particularly contested or filled with tensions, including Bilbao, Palermo, Istanbul, Berlin and Budapest. We explored and analysed how local monuments, films, television, radio, popular music and the press contributed to establish and transform such identity formation. I had previously done research on popular music, youth culture and media consumption. In this context, my interest became focused in two main directions. On one hand, I started investigating popular song lyrics of identity in these cities. I hope to be able to complete that study in a not too distant future. My other project concerned euro money as a medium of identification for Europe and its nations. This study is presented here. The following study owes much to feedback from the ESF team mentioned above. Among them were Karin Becker, Jérome Bourdon, Daniel Dayan, Kirsten Drotner, Rob Kroes, Sonia Livingstone, Sabina Mihelj, Giuliana Muscio, Roger Odin, Kevin Robins, Maria Rovisco and Philip Schlesinger. Strong support was offered by the team leader William Uricchio, who edits a collection of essays where limited parts of this euro text is to be published as -Meanings of Money: The Euro as Sign of Value and of Cultural Identity- (in William Uricchio (ed.): We Europeans? Media, Representation, Identities, Bristol: Intellect Press). A Portuguese anthology about the euro in the media has published another version as -Leituras do Euro- (in Maria João Silveirinha & Cristina Ponte (eds): Moeda e Comunicação. A representação mediática do Euro, Lisboa: Livros Horizonte). The study also derived impetus from the extraordinary interdisciplinary Department of Culture Studies (Tema Q) at Linköping University, where parts of it have been presented at seminars. Also, the Passages project - a collective ethnographic study of media consumption in and around a Swedish shopping centre - was a valuable source of inspiration for ideas on how economy, culture and media interact in late modernity, inspired by Walter Benjamin-s Arcades Project (see our English volume, published May 2007 as Fornäs et al.: Consuming media: Communication, shopping and everyday life, Oxford/New York: Berg). This printing has been made possible through a grant from the Swedish foundation Magn. Bergvalls Stiftelse.

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SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

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