Förslaget, reaktionen, konflikten : En diskursanalytisk undersökning av Demokratins skattkammare och reaktionerna i två branschtidningar

The aim of this thesis is to examine discourses that surround the role of libraries as democratic institutions. This is done by studying the proposal for a National Strategy for Libraries, The Treasure Trove of Democracy. and the reactions to that document in two library journals. The questions asked are the following: how is the democratic role depicted in the proposal for a national library strategy? What were the reactions and what discourses characterized the relationship between the two library journals and the proposal for a national strategy? Are there any lines of conflict or tension within the identified discourses? Four discourses were identified: the library-democracy discourse, the children discourse, the political-administrative discourse and judiciary-argumentative discourse. Three out of the four discourses were present in both the library journals and the proposed strategy except the library- democratic discourse which was only explicitly found in the latter. The results indicate that the tension within the child discourse concerned means rather than objectives. The political-administrative discourse concerned demarcation questions regarding the municipal self-government. The judiciary- argumentative discourse permeated the entire empirical material and was rarely contested. The library-democratic discourse was the only discourse identified which was clearly present in the proposal for a National Strategy for Libraries and not in the two library journals. We suggest that this omission could be explained against the background of that the democratic role often is taken for granted