“på digital drift i okända vatten” : – En diskursanalys av debatten om e-boken ochfolkbiblioteket i svensk media 2011-2012

The question of the provision of electronic books in Swedish public libraries has lately evolved into a lively debate in Swedish media, where the public library‟s identity and itsexpected role as a democratic institution is an underlying topic. The aim of this bachelorthesis is to examine the idea of the public library‟s identity as expressed in newspaperand journal articles by writers connected to the library sector. The aim is achieved byexamining the language-use and identifying discourses in the debate. We use adiscourse analysis inspired by Norman Faircloughs critical discourse analysis, focusingon linguistic aspects of the text as well as the surrounding context which the texts bothinfluence and are influenced by. By applying linguistic tools, two main discourses areidentified on a superior level, of which one, the information technology discourse, isconsiderably more dominant than the other and has obtained a hegemonic position overa far less distinguishable, yet present counter-discourse. Furthermore, three internaldiscourses are identified on a subordinated level, as constituting the informationtechnology discourse. These three discourses, the market discourse, the technologicaldiscourse and the provision discourse are not to be seen as contrary to each other butrather as three aspects together constructing the superior information technologydiscourse