Det demokratiska biblioteket : en diskursanalys av demokratibegreppet i Biblioteksbladet 1996–2019

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to examine how different perceptions of the public library’s democratic role are expressed in the library journal Biblioteksbladet during the years 1996–2019. The concept of democracy is understood as an ideological concept, used to legitimize an ideological stand. Thus, the study also aims to investigate what values the concept contains, as well as if these values are in conflict with each other. The theoretical and methodological framework are based on theories of discourse and democracy. The analysis identifies four discourses during the studied period – the participation discourse, the deliberative discourse, the including discourse and the democracy discourse. The first three discourses appear partly during the same time period, from the 1990s’ until the early 2010’s, when all discourses collide and give rise to a new discourse – the democracy discourse. The main finding is a discursive change in the debate where the concept of democracy previously aimed to legitimize a specific practice now aims to legitimize the whole library. Furthermore, the concept of demoracy has over time come to include more conflicting values that jointly aim to legitimize the library’s role in the democratic society regardless of context. The public library’s democratic mission can thus be understood as a discursive strategy.