Högljudda och tystade ungdomsgäng : En diskursanalys av debatten om stökiga bibliotek

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to examine a debate about the public library that took place in Swedish newspapers and other media channels during the summer and autumn 2015. The debate centered around questions regarding what the public library is, what it should be and to whom it should be for. A main concern formulated within the debate was that there is an increasing problem with noisy, threatening and violent groups of adolescents in the nations libraries – especially libraries situated in deprived areas. The main questions posed in this study are: which images of the public library can be found in the debate, who are given the possibility to express these images and in which ways are discursively discriminating structures established within the debate. The purpose of the study is also to consider which implications the result of the analysis may have for library services. The theoretical and methodological framework is based on Ernesto Laclau’s and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse theory. Additional theoretical concepts include stereotyping, exclusion and the concept of the Other. The empirical material consists of 34 articles derived from a number of media platforms, including newspapers and social media. The analysis shows that certain relations of power permeate the debate. While librarians and journalists are offered great possibilities to express and control their own views, other groups are primarily spoken of and their perspectives are mediated through others. Furthermore, adolescent gangs are constructed as a stereotype and is continually associated with problems. Their perspectives are largely excluded and/or considered unimportant. The stereotyping and exclusion of adolescents, especially those belonging to racial minorities, stand at risk to result in the normalisation of discriminating practices. This concern also applies to the library practice since negative stereotypes may affect the way certain adolescents are though about and treated by librarians and other library visitors. This is a tho years master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies.