Jakob Demant & Anne Marie Lyager Kaae CRF, Aarhus university

1. Drug discourses in Danish media How cocaine becomes hip and amphetamines and ecstasies become connected with problem use Jakob Demant & Anne Marie Lyager Kaae CRF, Aarhus university

2. research question • The paper analyses how different kinds of recreational drugs are portrayed in Danish media. Excluding cannabis and heroin. • A discursive analytical approach is applied in order to investigate how different discourses are fragmented and intersect with each other very differently according to the drug in question. The qualitative analysis is combined with a descriptive quantitative analysis of the newspaper contents where it becomes evident that the distribution of newspaper stories on the different drugs does not represent the factual distribution of the drugs in real life.

3. Discourseanalysis • Discourse analysis is a method for identifying specific meanings in empirical, textual data by searching for the cultural or normative context for a given utterance or perception. • Theoreticallybasedon: • Norman Fairclough - critical discourse analysis • Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe - discourse theory • We research which signs or understandings that are associated with each other, thereby constituting a “chain of equivalence”. In addition, we look for how each discourse is also defined by what is not; by what cannot be included in the discourse. • Explorative mixed methodstategy

4. Data & Overview Data concists of 603 newspaper stories from the 8 largest Danish nationwide newspapers. (Berlinske Tidende, Politiken, Jyllandsposten, Bt, Ekstrabladet, Information, Børsen & Kristeligt dagblad) Period: 01.01.2009 – 30.06.2009 Cocaine: 401 articles Amphetamine: 118 articles Ecstasy: 67 articles Methamphetamine: 7 articles Ketamine: 7 articles Fantasy: 3 articles

5. Coding Percentage of the codedthemeswithineach drug: Cocaine • Crime: 43 % • Famouspeople: 38 % • Abuse/abusers : 11 % • Young people’s parties: 9 % Amphetamine Crime: 63 % Abuse/abusers: 17 % Famous people: 14 % Young people’s parties: 7 % Ecstasy Crime: 46 % Young people’s parties: 30 % Famous people: 13 % Abuse/abusers: 11 %

6. Cocaine 67 % of the total number of articlesinvestigatedconcernedcocaine Eventhough the majority of the articlesaredealingwithcrimestorticles, storiesoncelebrityusersmake up 38% of the articles Among the investigated drugs, the discourseoncocainewithholds the greatestvariety of meanings

7. CELEBRITY discourse “ A lot of things can be said about the members of MötleyCrüe – but “boring” isn’t one of them! Tommy Lee is famous for his severe cocaine-abuse and sex-escapades with Hollywood blondes” (Svendsen, Emil Møller: “Sex, drugs and Rock n’ roll”, BT 10/6 2009).

8. ”Last year Hugh Jackmannwasappointed ”The World’sSexiest Man” by PeopleMagazine. Today, he’sannoying the international tabloid press. Not only is the man insultinglyhappy. Hugh doesn’tcheaton his wifeeither, who is 8 years his senior. He doesn’t do cocainewith Jack Osborne” (Høegh, Henning: ”Verdens lykkeligste X-.man”, BT 29/4 2009).

9. Ordinarycitizens and cocaine ”The amount of youngcocaineaddicts has doubbledsince the year of 2000 – from 2,7% to 5,6 % according to The Ministry of Health (…) The problem with the drugs are so widespread, that the chairman of the highschools’ headmasterunion, Peter Kuhlman, encourageparents to gettheir kids drugtested at home” (Zand, Nilo: ”Test dine børn for narko” Berlingske Tidende 18/2 2009)

10. Amphetamine • Amphetaminebecomes a part of a crimediscourse • Amphetamine as a low status drug compared to cocaine • The discourseonamphetamine as lessversatilethan the discourseoncocaine

11. Provincial amphetamine ”When Brian Sandberg, at an earlier age, went ”off the rails” in the nightlife of small town Slagelse, hedidn’twantanyone to doubtwhohewere. The Hells Angels Biker, whowasalmostassasined in Copenhagen, wastrying to put himself above the crowd as a ”great” man”. (Vedsmand, Kasper: ”Raketmanden Sandberg”, BT 30/1 2009),

12. Ecstasy as a subculturalpractice • Ecstasy is onlyconnected to subculturalsettings • The discourseon ecstasy is limited and one-sided • Ecstasy becomes a solution for problem ridden and insecure teenagers

13. Problem: TeenagelifeSolution: Ecstasy “Line was at a big techno party in London with her new, Australian travel mates. She didn’t like the music and had a hard time identifying herself with all the people in weird clothing, who jumped up and down like crazy to the monotonous music. But the pill in her hand would make her fit in with the group. That’s what her travel mates told her. And Line Risberg wanted to fit in so terribly that she swallowed the pill” • (Petersen, Tea: “Et livpåpiller”, JyllandsPosten 15/2 2009) After the dead of his mom, Jean entered the techno-scene wearing poulaines and blue spikes in his hair. He began using ecstasy and gyrated as a go-go dancer at the podium of the nightclub X-ray” (Glanowski, Maria: “Overleveren”, Politiken 15/2 2009)

14. Discussion • Very different discourses on the three drugs: • Cocaine partly positive and contradictonary, • Amphetamine more onesided negative and connected with crime and abuse • Esctasy primarly related to problems. • Very different representation in media compared to prevalence of lifetime use with nightclubbers (Järvinen, Demant & Østergaard 2010 nov). • Cocaine 32%, Amphetamine 32%, Estascy 24% lifetime prevalence with noght clubbers vs. • Cocaine 67%, Amphetamine 20%. Estascy 11% in media representration. • Cociane media discoruse reflects cocaine discourse among young adults (Demant & Ravn 2010. Durgs. Education, Prevention & Policy). • Danísh young adults consider cociane the second least risky drug next after cannabis. • Discourse among young adults show more acceptance of cocaine in everyday life • Cocaine has the possibility to take on even higher prevalence

15. Thankyou for your attention Anne Marie Lyager Kaae, Bac. Soc. Email: Annemarie.kaae@gmail.com & Jakob Demant, Ph.D, Assistant professor Centre for Alcohol and Drug ResearchAarhus UniversityDenmarkE-mail:jd@crf.au.dk