With or without lifejacket : A discourse analysis of censorship in children's literature

Debates about suitable content in children's literature occur regularly. In spring 2010 such a debate took place in Sweden. The purpose of this Bachelor's thesis is to analyse the debate to identify ideas concerning the role of children's literature in society. A second aim is to examine how children's literature is described and which concepts are used by the debaters. The empirical material used for the analysis consists of ten articles, blog posts, radio- and TV- features published in March 2010. The combined theory and method applied is the discourse analysis described in Ernesto Laclau & Chantal Mouffe's discourse theory. In the theories of Laclau & Mouffe concepts like nodal points, equivalence chains, antagonism and subject positions play a dominant role in the production of objectivity. Three nodal points are identified in the analysis: 'censorship', 'children's needs' and 'parents of today'. The nodal points are connected to subject positions and acting space. They are also related to questions of power and the cumulative effects of media. It is my conclusion that there is a divergence between aesthetical and didactical outlooks in the debate. Another opposition in the debate concerns children's needs versus parents’ comprehension about children and childhood. The study also shows that authors and representatives from publishing houses are given particular acting space in comparison to representatives from the culture sphere and parents