The purpose of this study was to investigate the underlying meaning of the concept of freedom of speech in Swedish media debate in context of Swedish public libraries. The analysis was done by discourse analysis based on Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory.

The analyzed material consisted of newspaper articles, chronicles and leaders from four different newspapers:Göteborgs Posten, Svenska Dagbladet, Dagens Nyheter and Biblioteksbladet. In total, the material consisted of 9 articles.

During the analysis, we noted two discourses, a cultivating discourse and a selection discourse.

Thru out the debate, there is a common assessment that the citizens of society should have access to the information they desire. The librarians also have a desire to maintain a good quality of material and the best solution is to decide together with the users how to develop the collections. The skills of librarians are needed and trusted, but the user’s need should have more influence when it comes to purchasing.