Tolerants versus traditionalists: making sense of online conversations on the new Finnish flagship library Oodi

Riie Lotta Solveig Heikkilä · Ossi Sirkka

6 citations0/0 files storedInternational Journal of Cultural Policy

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Library Science and Administration Information Science and Libraries Social and Cultural Dynamics

Abstract

Public libraries play a unique role in preserving, maintaining, and distributing cultural capital freely. Currently, public libraries are said to be undergoing a change: from public spheres offering culture selected and curated by legitimated experts, libraries are seen to have shifted more towards social hubs. However, little is known about how potential library users perceive these alleged changes. In this article, we explore which topics emerge in online conversations about Oodi, Helsinki’s new central library, and what kinds of symbolic boundaries are drawn in them. Our data consist of tweets and comments on newspaper articles (N = 2,342). Using structural topic modelling and a qualitative thematic analysis, we identify eight different topics that appear to be highly polarised. We interpret the online conversations on Oodi as negotiations of the ownership of publicly funded culture and cultural capital. These negotiations are organised around two opposing poles: tolerant, cosmopolitan views versus traditional, conservative attitudes.

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References

1985Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste.2002The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences 1996Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore 2014Structural Topic Models for Open‐Ended Survey Responses 1988Cultural Capital: Allusions, Gaps and Glissandos in Recent Theoretical Developments 2015Interpreting qualitative data 2017Determinants of Internet skills, uses and outcomes. A systematic review of the second- and third-level digital divide 2018The first-level digital divide shifts from inequalities in physical access to inequalities in material access

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2025Infrastructuring the policymaking, funding and positioning of libraries: unpacking tensions in public library policies in three European cities 2025Cultural capital and public libraries in the era of algorithmic collection management

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