(O)möjligheternas plats? En diskursstudie av Garaget
Public librariesDiscourse analysisPostmodern librariesMalmöNew Public ManagementService marketing discourseHumanitiesHumanioraSocial sciencesSamhällsvetenskaperSocial Sciences
A general topic underlying this master thesis is how the public library is being transformed through the subversion and re-articualtion of meaning according to different discourses. The aim of the study can be divided in to levels of analysis. At the first level, the aim is to investigate how categories such as users, needs and vision are articulated in a specific case ?the visionary project Garaget in Malmö, a project which in part include a public library inspired by Idea Store. The next level of analysis sets out to explore how the case of Garaget is related to a totalizing discursive struggle over meaning within the element the public library. Another intention is to challenge the assumed dichotomy democracy/market within some LIS theory. The purpose of the study is obtained through the analysis of several data types within the framework of discourse theory; mainly theoretical concepts elaborated by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe inform the analysis. The concept of discourse is here understood as a practise that struggles to create a centre and establish a totality. This operates through the intertwining of both linguistic and other practices.A main conclusion is that the concept of opportunities is a floating signifier which organizes the discourse of Garaget in a manner that blurs the dichotomy democracy/market and establishes the discourse of Garaget as compatible with a New Public Management-discourse as well as with a social equality project. According to this, the floating signifier the public library comes to inhabit an ?impossible space? in the discourse, where the status is highly contested. Garaget simultaneously oppositions and strives to incorporate the public library in to new systems of meaning.