Characteristics and social representation of ecstasy in Europe - Irefrea

In any case, it is true indeed that their approach requires a knowledge of their context,of the world in which young people move. It is important to understand the alwayschanging connection, at least superficially, which is being established between lifestylesand drug use, a process which feeds on itself.8.3. STUDY OF THE SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF ECSTASYPLANNING THE SURVEYDrug use has always been a phenomenon very closely linked to the cultural context.As we have seen, like the other designer drugs, ecstasy is a type of drug whose use isparticularly dependent on fashions and on the social representations which arise fromthem. They are substances which have created a grand complicity and interaction withthe juvenile culture. Their approach requires an in-depth survey of the socialrepresentation which they have generated and which sustains them. This survey isimportant in order to be able to understand the phenomenon and to be able to providepreventive strategies adapted to these drugs and to the culture that each supports. Basedon the analysis of social representations in different European cities, we would like tocontribute to studying to what extent the culture of each country influences its drug use.The base hypothesis of this survey would be that, in order to be effective, theinformation and the messages that are transmitted by the preventive campaigns need toconnect with the thought schema of consumers and non-consumers. These campaignsmay be rejected because they do not connect with the social representation held of themor because they are messages integrated in the representation without changing it andwhich, therefore, do not imply a significant change, capable of modifying behaviour. Oreven worse, they may reinforce inadequate social representations, in the sense that theyfavour the behaviour of drug use. All this is, obviously, very complicated and we canonly speak of a first approach to the subject.Thus, knowing the social representations of ecstasy will give us the key to getting toknow and understand the reason for its success and where it fits into the social practiceswhich frame its consumption, an understanding which will, at the same time, enableeffective preventive strategies to be drawn up.METHODOLOGY OF THE RESEARCH GROUP IN AIX-EN-PROVENCEThe methodology which we are using to discover these social representations wasdeveloped by a group of social psychologists -Flament, Abric, Verges and Guimelliamong others- researchers at the University in Aix-en-Provence, interested in an-depthknowledge of the purely cognitive activity through which the subject constructs hisrepresentation, its content and its structure. These researchers have contributed newcomponents to Moscovici’s Theory of Social Representation, components which, at the104