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This is a repository copy of Long waves of consumption or a unique social generation? Exploring recent declines in youth drinking.

In qualitative research interviewing we can use stimulus texts (such as photos, films, adverts, sketches, news, historical sources) as devices for encouraging our interviewees to speak about the research topic. In literature this subject has, however, received very minor analytical interest. This article proposes that there are at least three analytically separate strategies for selecting and using stimulus texts in the production and analysis of interview data. In qualitative research, stimulus objects may be used as clues, as microcosms or as provokers. The different strategies imply different research designs, interview procedures and ways of analyzing the data. When we use stimulus texts as clues, we build the interview session so that the texts, together with the interview questions, induce our interviewees to extrapolate how the texts stand for the whole (metonymy). When we use stimulus texts as microcosms, we pose the interview questions so that our interviewees compare their worlds and identity positions against those of the stimulus objects (mimesis, identification). When stimulus texts are used as provokers, the researcher chooses cultural products that challenge, with the aid of provocative questions, the interviewees to deal with the established meanings, conventions and practices (symbolic dimension, naturalness, normality) of the phenomenon under examination.

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A traditional heavy intoxication-oriented drinking style, "heroic drinking," is a central drinking practice in Denmark and Finland, especially among men. However, it seems that another drinking style leading to intoxication, "playful drinking," has become more prevalent in Denmark as well as in Finland. Playful drinking is characterized by self-presentations in diverse forms of game situations in which you need to play with different aspects of social and bodily styles. We approach the positions of heroic drinking and playful drinking among young adults (between 17 and 23 years) in Denmark and Finland by analyzing how they discuss these two drinking styles in focus groups (N = 16).