What is in a book? : A critical discourse analysis of the e-book debate between 2012 and 2016

Abstract: The main objective with this Master’s thesis is to, through a critical discourse analysis, explore the overall discourses on e-books appearing in general Swedish media. The texts chosen for analysis consist of articles and debate entries published in four of Sweden’s largest newspapers during a five-year period. The texts were examined using Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional conception of discourse, which means that language use as communicative events were analyzed on the three levels of text, discourse practice, and social practice. The results from the analysis show that three dominating discourses can be identified in the material; the comparison discourse, the financial discourse, and the availability discourse. Within the comparison discourse, the e-book is in many ways positioned in comparison to the paper book. This occurs in several contexts, for instance in the contexts of pricing, access, and e-lending. A recurrent issue within the financial discourse is conveyed as the concern that e-book lending will become too big of a threat towards e-book sales or that e-lending will become too expensive for libraries. Within the availability discourse, the e-book is constructed in connection to democracy and free access to e-books is viewed as a condition for libraries as democratic institutions. The different discourses use different strategies to legitimize their point of views, and accordingly, achieve or maintain a hegemonic status. To achieve hegemony in this situation means gaining power over the presentation of the discussion about e-books, that is the power over the order of discourse.