The 2022 Eurovision Song Contest as a tool of Ukraine’s emotional diplomacy

This paper examines how a cultural event can serve as a medium for emotional diplomatic communication in the digital media environment. Using the example of Ukraine’s victory in the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest, it analyzes how this event was interpreted in the context of the ongoing Russian invasion. The thesis is designed as a qualitative case study based on a framework analysis supplemented by elements of discourse analysis. The empirical data consists of publicly available sources from May 2022, analyzed through the cultural, media, and political dimensions of communication. The analysis shows that the song “Stefania” functioned as an authentic emotional signal, which was further amplified by the media through the frameworks of solidarity, resistance, and symbolic transference. Political communication institutionalized this signal and linked it to specific goals. A key finding is that the diplomatic effect did not arise as a result of a centralized strategy, but rather as an emergent process based on the interaction between cultural production, media framing, and audience participation. The study therefore proposes the concept of hybrid emotional diplomacy.