From hushing lady to activist giant : A discourse analysis of librarians in daily newspapers

The image of the librarian has been a fascination to information professionals for many years. The way that newspapers portray librarians is part of creating that image and may have an impact on the way people think about librarians. The aim of this thesis is to illustrate how librarians are being portrayed in Swedish newspapers and in this way contribute to increased knowledge about these images. The research questions are: How are librarians being portrayed in the studied articles? In what contexts are librarians mentioned? What positions do the participants in the examined discussions hold? Which discourses can be identified? Discourse analysis was chosen as theory and method. The material studied consisted of 72 articles published in 2017 in four major daily newspapers in Sweden: Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Aftonbladet and Expressen. Four discourses were identified: Discourse about librarians and books; Discourse about librarians and censorship; Discourse about librarians being a vulnerable group and Discourse about librarians being important to society. The conclusion drawn from this study is that the way librarians are being portrayed, as a person or as a professional, is varied. In some statements the librarian is depicted as an old hushing lady and in others as a political activist. The contexts in which librarians were mentioned also varies, with only two articles having librarians as the main topic. Other topics covered were, for example, book reviews and violence in libraries. The subject position that stands for most of the statements, turned out to be persons that do not belong to the library and information profession