Bibliotekarien i populärkultur : Framställningen av bibliotekarier och deras yrkesroll i nutida medier

Sammanfattning

There are plenty of studies investigating the representation of librarians in popular culture, but very few focusing on media released during recent years. This study therefore looks at 8 tv-series, released between 2016 and 2025, within the fantasy and adventure genre. It examines the depiction of librarians as people and within their professional role, focusing especially on the media’s depiction of looks, personality, task assignments and their relevance to the plot. To do this a qualitative, deductive approach is used, in the form of a content analysis. The data is collected by watching selected episodes and the data is coded and sorted into four presentational categories; “appearance”, “personality”, “task assignments” and “relevance to plot”. The characters are then categorized with the help of Seale’s categories of different representations of librarians in media and then compared with older representations of librarians in media. The results suggest that there has been progress towards the better when it comes to stereotypes concerning appearance and personality, but there is still a clear lack of representation concerning librarians’ task assignments. The total screen time of the character also has a significant impact on how the character is represented, which could be further explored. Seale’s categories are still useful, but could benefit from adjustments and an added category is suggested. Further studies are needed to fully compare the media of today with media released before 2016, by including other types of media than tv series and other genres than fantasy and adventure.