<p> </p><p>The aim of this thesis is to examine men's attitudes towards literature, and how social norms affect their book reading, in order to contribute to the knowledge of why men's book reading is decreasing. This is realized through a discourse analysis of literature recommendations in men's lifestyle magazines.</p><p><em>Two magazines, </em><em><em>King of Sweden</em></em><em> and </em><em><em>Magazine Café</em></em><em>, </em><em>are examined </em><em>through critical discourse analysis. Theories of discourse are combined with theories of gender to explore how gender stereotypes affect men's reading habits.</em></p><p><em>The analysis shows that ideals of masculinity have a great influence on the book recommendations. Social norms, associated with gender, also seem to have significance to whether or not a book is considered suitable for men to read. These are, inter alia, norms of heterosexuality and violence. In addition to that, a homosocial structure is found in the magazines, regarding the authors of the recommended books. The majority of the authors are men, and women are rarely mentioned at all in the book recommendations. </em><em>Also, non-fiction books are much more frequent than fiction in the recommendations.</em><em> </em></p><p><em>Not much prior research has been done in the field. The research, that however has been done, correspond with the results of the analysis in this thesis. Therefore the conclusion is drawn that the results of the analysis show structures of social norms that are valid even outside the examined material. Knowledge of men's reading habits is concluded to be very important, in order to increase men's book reading.</em></p><p><em>This is a two years master's thesis in library and information science.</em></p>

The aim of this thesis is to examine men's attitudes towards literature, and how social norms affect their book reading, in order to contribute to the knowledge of why men's book reading is decreasing. This is realized through a discourse analysis of literature recommendations in men's lifestyle magazines. Two magazines, King of Sweden and Magazine Café, are examined through critical discourse analysis. Theories of discourse are combined with theories of gender to explore how gender stereotypes affect men's reading habits. The analysis shows that ideals of masculinity have a great influence on the book recommendations. Social norms, associated with gender, also seem to have significance to whether or not a book is considered suitable for men to read. These are, inter alia, norms of heterosexuality and violence. In addition to that, a homosocial structure is found in the magazines, regarding the authors of the recommended books. The majority of the authors are men, and women are rarely mentioned at all in the book recommendations. Also, non-fiction books are much more frequent than fiction in the recommendations. Not much prior research has been done in the field. The research, that however has been done, correspond with the results of the analysis in this thesis. Therefore the conclusion is drawn that the results of the analysis show structures of social norms that are valid even outside the examined material. Knowledge of men's reading habits is concluded to be very important, in order to increase men's book reading. This is a two years master's thesis in library and information science.