Missouri House Wants to Defund Public Libraries
Gabrielle Hays
The media artifact that stood out to me this week was about Missouri wanting to defund public libraries. I only heard about/looked into this because of an Instagram post from Ibram X. Kendi and I couldn’t believe what I was reading, so I wanted to dig into it more. The article I am going to reference is from PBS.
What is the global/historical focus of this artifact?
Libraries are one of the places everyone can get access to information - especially those who don’t have the means to get it on their own. Recently, Missouri has banned over 300 titles from school libraries. The ACLU, the MIssouri Association of School Librarians, and the Missouri Library Association have teamed up for a lawsuit challenging the censorship. Now, the Missouri House is saying that they “can’t subsidize the attempts to overturn the laws that we also created”, saying that they would need to defund the public libraries. These book bans and threats to defund public libraries are going against freedom of speech and freedom of information.
What are the implications of these portrayals for the group(s) role in society?
There is the implication from some conservative lawmakers in Missouri that books and libraries are “dangerous”. There is also an implication from the opposing viewpoint that Missouri lawmakers are trying to control access to information, and control access to services. Libraries are used for much more than book circulation, especially in Missouri where 20% of the population doesn’t have access to high speed internet.
Are youth portrayed as powerful or weak in this message?
Youth are being portrayed as weak in this message. They are trying to say that children (up to high school) can not handle mention of sex, gender identities, or sexual identities - nor should they even be exposed to it. They are acting on the grounds that children need “protecting” from these dangerous books. By their definition of sexually explicit, the Bible would need to be banned.
What does this advertisement convey what people want?
This article does a nice job of showing what the constituents want. One librarian said “I think it makes community members feel like that who they elected don’t really care about what their needs are because it’s something they all know and use everyday. To suddenly have legislators say ‘no, we’re not going to provide any more money for you’ is very disappointing”. Legislators also said they are fielding a lot of calls from constituents who do not want the libraries to be defunded.
In terms of how I could use these questions/framework in my final project - I have a whole page on my website that explains what the 5 Questions are, and how you can use them to evaluate what you see/why you are seeing specific media artifacts.