The purpose of this study is to examine how the work in reading promotion is legitimized by examining manuals written by professionals in the field. A need for this has been located in the recent years discussions about literature’s status in society.

The study was conducted by qualitative text analysis in two steps. The first concentrated on how the manuals describe the importance of literature and also their chosen method for reading promotion. The second analysis used theoretical themes from the Swedish researcher Magnus Persson who has studied the legitimation of literature himself.

The results of the study have shown that the manuals do not actively motivate the reading of literature in general. This can partly be explained by the mythologizing of literature that Persson explains as a deep rooted concept of culture as something naturally good that thus does not “need” motivation. The manuals did however show a great deal more arguments for using the different methods which have been condensed into six categories.

The thematic analysis showed that the manuals primarily used democracy as a way to legitimate reading. This way of interconnecting democracy and literature can be understood by the concept of culturalisation which refers to the process in which culture has become a much broader term that is used to explain many parts of today’s society.