The media image of social unrest in Swedish public libraries: : An analysis of news articles

The problem area in this thesis is that harassments, violence, vandalism, etc. caused by problematic users in Swedish public libraries are not particularly studied in the scientific community. This study’s purpose is to gain knowledge about the media image of social unrest in Swedish libraries and study which types of social unrest that happen according to the media and the narrative techniques that are used in these articles. The research questions are: What problems regarding social unrest in Swedish libraries are lifted in news articles from 2015? Which narrative techniques are used in news articles to report about social unrest in public libraries during 2015? How can research of the articles, together with the narrative techniques, contribute to a further developed understanding about the studied problems? As theoretical framework I used Strömbäck’s (1998, 2009) theory of media logic. For method I used qualitative content analysis. 27 articles were found relevant. Social unrest by library users has become common in many libraries in Sweden. It’s affecting many users, libraries user-frequencies, work environment and personnel. All the articles use one or more of the narrative techniques within the media logic theory, and all the techniques are used in the 27 articles. By studying the two together I have reached another dimension for understanding the studied problems. Among other things it was concluded that some articles mostly blame the problems on adolescents and gangs, whilst other articles say that it’s in fact grown-ups that cause most of the problems