This bachelor thesis examines the construction of young people in relation to reading and literacy, as expressed in a public debate that took place in Swedish daily press during the autumn of 2020. The empirical material consists of 21 articles from four major Swedish newspapers. Using a discourse analytical approach based on the conceptual framework developed by Laclau and Mouffe, this study identifies four different discourses about what constituted reading and literacy among children and adolescents: the instrumental discourse, the moralising discourse, the book discourse and the progressive discourse. These four discourses had a major impact on the debate and the construction of young people in relation to literacy and reading. One conclusion is how dominating moralising and instrumental discourses constrains and polarizes public debate. This also includes the consequences of the book discourse, implying that print literacy is more desirable than digital literacy, which creates negative attitudes towards the digital habits of children and adolescents which is expressed in the debate.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-181190 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Sannsell, Ida |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Sociologiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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