Characteristics and social representation of ecstasy in Europe - Irefrea

Well aware that these interpretations could be improved upon and completed, we areleaving the door open for future surveys which will enable us to establish the structureof these representations with greater precision, in other words, to find out which of thecomponents are the central nucleus and which the peripheral system.QUESTIONNAIREWe used the Similitude Analysis developed by Flament, Professor at the Universityof Aix-en-Provence for the survey on Social Representations. Using this method, weendeavoured to find out how the different components which form the socialrepresentation of ecstasy in the studied sample were related to each other.The basis of the Similitude Analysis is the construction of a questionnaire on socialrepresentations comprising twenty sentences which contain ideas, beliefs and attitudespertaining to ecstasy. We would remind you (see 2.3.3.) when we described thequestionnaires used in this study, that the questionnaire on representations should beconstructed ex profess on each occasion. In the exploratory phase, what constitutedcomponents of social representation had to be investigated. This search was made bymeans of a qualitative research collecting the commentaries by the communicationsmedia and individuals. Thus, the components which form the questionnaire wereextracted from the comments of consumers and non-consumers of ecstasy in a series ofsemi-structured interviews, and from the commentaries in the communications media,the scientific literature, etc. by means of a documentary analysis (both analyses willform part of the exploratory phase of the research).We would remind you that 20 sentences are chosen and that they form part of thefinal questionnaire. These sentences would be the components constituting the socialrepresentation, leaving the most important aspect to be discovered -the way in whichthey inter-relate. For this, each individual first has to choose the 4 sentences closest tohis/her way of thinking, and later chose another four which would be the most opposite.Subsequently, this operation is repeated with the remaining sentences so that in this way4 sentences remain which have not been chosen in either one way or the other. It isprecisely these coincidences between the various sentences or components of socialrepresentation that we are interested in studying.To analyse the data, we used the Simic programme designed specifically for thistype of analysis by those same professors in Aix-en-Provence. The similitude analysis,using the Kendal Tau-b Index tells us of the proximity of each item to the others,leading to observation of the different chains or associations which are establishedbetween the components of social representation. This analysis can be presentedgraphically, as we will see belowOn the basis of studying these diagrams with the preferred positions chosen by eachof these sentences or components in each sample (countries, consumer group and nonconsumergroup), we proceed to draw up our report on social representation. In otherwords, we will learn what associations of representation there are in each sample and106