Kate Zambon

This paper investigates the relationship of space, nation and identity, with a particular emphasis on understanding the role of the processes of legibility and symbolism in the construction of national and ethnic space. In order to understand these relationships, this study examines the press coverage of a flag fight in an immigrant neighborhood of Berlin during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. In the heavily covered struggle, German anti-fascists repeatedly damaged and stole a 100-meter German flag belonging to a family of Lebanese extraction. The flag fight and the media’s coverage of it demonstrated competing and overlapping definitions of citizenship, with the media and the flag owners promoting a civic form of nationalism. The case illuminates a national project to redefine German national identity and expand it beyond the boundaries of ethnic nationalism. At the same time, it reveals persistent anxieties about migrant spaces and their place in the nation.

On the evening of Tuesday, September 26th, 2006, 17 million viewers in Germany were presented with a two minute advertisement that aired nearly simultaneously on almost all channels nationwide. The ad featured a quick succession over 30 prominent Germans interspersed with ‘everyday citizens’ who appealed to viewers’ to “treat their country like a friend” and to be proud of their individual role in the success of the nation. This advertising campaign served as the keystone of the effort to prepare Germany and Germans to host the men’s 2006 FIFA World Cup. The Du bist Deutschland (You Are Germany) campaign reveals essential aspects of the assemblage of political and economic interests mobilized by global sports spectacles. It serves, thus, as a locus for the examination of the dialectical relationship between the nation-making and global-marketing capacity of sport.

This paper examines how political and industrial stakeholders leveraged the particular liminality of the global sporting spectacle to normalize banal nationalism and promote a form of national identity suited to a globalized economy.

Using the case of the first Du bist Deutschland (DbD) campaign, this study traces the form and function of the social marketing and nation branding efforts leading up to the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. Through a textual analysis of the advertisements, and the news media coverage of the campaign, this study analyzes the relationships of the campaign’s stakeholders as well as reports produced by the various marketing firms involved with the campaign.
With the rise of the European Union and of the globalized economy, the nation has become an increasingly important source of symbolic value. Far from obliterating the power of the nation for the state, globalization with its attendant forms of soft power has arguably fortified the value of national differentiation for international negotiation. Global sporting spectacles provide an ideal forum for the construction of the symbolic power of the nation brand, particularly for the host nation. The DbD campaign focuses on the internal component of nation branding which follows from the imperative to secure the buy-in of citizens for the success of national projects of self-representation on the global stage. In the case of Germany, this required the neutralization or at least the suspension of complicated domestic politics of memory around national symbols and sentiments. Hosting the World Cup provided an ostensibly apolitical imperative for establishing a naturalized and “relaxed” form of collective national pride. In this way, the global sporting spectacle of the World Cup provided both the means and the justification for remaking German national pride. In the context of the economic slump of the early 2000s in Germany, the campaign promised economic and social wellbeing through collective association with and support of the nation.

In 2010, Germany’s oldest media prize, the Bambi, added a new category. They awarded the first Bambi prize for “Integration” to the German-born national soccer team midfielder Mesut Özil. This study investigates the power of celebrity in the media’s negotiation of new regimes of social representation. In particular, it analyzes the use of the cultural prize as a social and political representation. Entertainment-focused cultural prizes mobilize the symbolic value of the celebrity for political, social, and economic purposes. Popular prizes such as the Bambi are built explicitly on the logic of celebrity, which consists of a virtuous circle in which media presence creates celebrity and celebrity, in turn, legitimates the media. Through the examination of 60 news articles related to the 2010, 2011, and 2012 Bambi ceremonies, as well as footage from the ceremonies and promotional materials, this study investigates the nature of the public sphere created by this prize. It also examines the history, structure, and function of the Bambi prize and considers how it fits in the landscape of the media and of cultural awards more broadly.

This case illuminates the media’s investment in the definition of national identity and, in particular, the role and definition of the concept of culture in this national project. The Integration Bambi is emblematic of attempts by the German media to define an acceptable place in the nation for minority identities, while still holding strong to a normative core concept of a German culture independent of and distinct from that of minority cultures. While the Bambi for Integration ostensibly celebrates the presence of minority identities in Germany, it simultaneously circumscribes those identities, cultivating the conception of distinct cultural sources. Successful integration is defined as the acquisition of distinctly German cultural traits and traditions, while simultaneously maintaining a pure connection to what is described as one’s “cultural roots.” Despite the problematics raised by the proscriptive qualifications for belonging inherent in a cultural prize rewarding successful integration by minorities, the German press generally failed to question the category itself. In part, this can be traced to the logic and structure of the cultural prize itself. The critical and deliberative press essential for complex cultural dialogue in the mediated public sphere is short circuited by the logic of the cultural prize which is not only resistant to critique, but actually requires critique to thrive.