Pluralism eller propaganda? En ideologianalys av franska Front nationals folkbibliotekspolitik och debatten kring denna

Abstract

The focus of this master thesis is the library politics of the French Right wing party the National Front and the debate that followed the application of this politics. This qualitative study is divided into two parts where the critics to this politics represents one side and the adherents the other. The critics are composed by representatives from the French, Swedish and – to some extent – international library sector, while the adherent side is made up of politicians from the National Front and their adherents. The empiric material mostly consists of articles published in library, Right wing and daily press. The aim is to investigate to what extent the ideas proposed by opponents and adherents correspond to basic ideological elements of deliberative democracy respectively populism. The documents have been interpreted with an ideology analysis formulated by Herbert Tingsten and developed by Sven-Erik Liedman. In the analysis the results are also associated with the history and the role of the public library as well as the cultural politics of the National Front. The result of this study discloses that the ideas of the critics as well as those of the adherents correspond to a large extent to respective ideology, thou certain aspects contradict them. The opinions of the critic side are also shown to be closely related to those presented in documents concerning the role of the public library. Seen in a broader context, the library politics of the National Front could be considered as part of a cultural strategy.