Mytbildningen kring bibliotekslagen : en diskursanalys av bibliotekspropaganda och folkbibliotekets relation till politisk makt och lagstiftning

Sammanfattning: The subject of this paper concerns propaganda, articulated in the daily press and various publications, debating questions of the Swedish public libraries, library politics and the library act that was enforced in January 1997. It is a discourse analysis, focusing on the ideological, emotional and political viewpoints of writers representing the interests of the public libraries, which aims to study the identity of the library establishment and its ambiguous position in public administration, in relation to political authority and legal power. This analysis of narratives and public opinions is especially concentrated on statements clustered around the library act; statements evaluating the legal document as well as statements demanding a more extensive and powerful legislation. A remarkable thing with the library act is the impact it has on the discourse at hand. It marks a nerve for the complicated relationship between the library and both the regional and national government; for the economic and executive dependency that the library has to the authorities. The library act has come to symbolize the library agents’ desire for control and power, their weaknesses and disappointments of governmental policy in the field of library politics. Library interest organizations had for a long time been lobbying for legislation, longing for legal protection and the possibility of putting legal pressure on local decision-makers. Much prestige and affection had been invested in demands of a legislation that would recognize the importance of the public libraries, but surprisingly the final passing of the law was met with a disproportionately negative response from library representatives, exposing how overestimated the idea of a law had been in their propaganda. This is the background for this study. The main thesis of this paper is that the propaganda distorts the meaning of the library act, through a mythological use of language. The theoretical foundation for this claim is the analytical approach of Roland Barthes, which provides the angle of how ideological opinions and preconceptions influence the descriptions of the library act, creating false images that reflect on the social character of the library community. In analyzing the narratives of library representatives this study highlights some aspects of their political strivings and particularly how they relate to the force of the law, to the legal power that is at stake. This fixation on strength produces exaggerated, mythic images of the actual legal document as toothless and without positive contents, discarding it for the demands of a new legislation. The analysis regarding the matter of the Law is rooted in the legal philosophy of Jacques Derrida. This part of the study emphasizes the complex nature of law and the legitimacy problems of jurisprudence in democratic society. By placing the debate of the library act in a broader legal context and applying a deeper understanding of the concept of the Law a lot of the curiosities in the discourse are explained.