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Novel use patterns of Salvia divinorum: Unobtrusive observation using YouTube™
Journal of Ethnopharmacology 138 (2011) 662–667
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Journal of Ethnopharmacology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jethpharm
Novel use patterns of Salvia divinorum: Unobtrusive observation using YouTubeTM Ivan Casselman a,∗ , Michael Heinrich a,b a b
Southern Cross Plant Science, Centre for Phytochemistry and Pharmacology, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia Center for Pharmacognosy and Phytotherapy, The School of Pharmacy (University of London), 29-39 Brunswick Sq., London WC1N 1AX, UK
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Article history: Received 12 May 2011 Accepted 30 July 2011 Available online 6 August 2011 JEL classification: 1.04: Central nervous system 2.136: botany 2.232: diterpenoids 2.312: hallucinogenic Keywords: Salvia divinorum Epling & Játiva (Lamiaceae) YouTubeTM Mazatecs Traditional medicine Psychoactive drugs User generated content
a b s t r a c t Ethnopharmacological relevance and Aims: The traditional use of the Hallucinogenic sage, Salvia divinorum has been of ethnopharmalogical interest for some time. This plant, endemic to Oaxaca Mexico and traditionally used by the Mazatec, is now utilized worldwide for its psychoactive effects. This use demonstrates a novel use pattern which is distinctly different from Mazatec use. This study offers a new methodology to study emerging global plant use and assesses the users’ experience with it. The aim of this research was to develop a new methodology to collect and analyze archived data on the World Wide Web, specifically videos which depict Salvia divinorum use. Methods: The basis of the methodology for this project was unobtrusive observation which allows the researcher to observe without influencing the event which is being observed. Qualitative, ethnographic data was used in conjunction with quantitative meta data collected by a customized web crawler programed to archive YouTubeTM data. Results: Using this methodology enabled us to understand reported uses and the users’ experiences as expressed on the World Wide Web. The main result of this research was the documentation of a distinct, novel use pattern of Salvia divinorum which has developed outside of Oaxaca; a use pattern which differs in a number of ways from traditional, Mazatec use. The majority of the YouTubeTM videos analyzed were found to present indications of a positive Salvia divinorum experience. This result highlighted the contradiction between ethnographic data and what is reported by the media. Finally the representation of Salvia divinorum on YouTubeTM (and by inference the WWW as a whole) is a growing phenomena. Conclusions: While anthropological and more specifically medico-anthropological research has, for many years, embraced the dynamics of cultures, until recently, ethnopharmalogical research has generally focused on ‘traditional’ plant use, failing to capture the dynamic elements of plant/human interaction and framing research in the past or as decontextualized largely descriptive reports. Global migration and urban environments formed a basis for looking at the interplay of continuity and change. Such cultural dynamics are exacerbated by the opportunities which the WWW offers. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.
1. Introduction While historically, ethnopharmacology has focused on what has been classed as ‘traditional’ plant use; recent decades have seen a faster and faster spread and exchange of useful plants and their products. What has been termed ‘globalization’ has in fact enabled people in diverse cultures to use products derived from ‘exotic’ sources like Native American medicine (e.g. Echinaceae spp., or Serenoa repens Hook. f.), Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurvedic Medicines or ‘rainforest foods’ (Wohlmuth et al., 1997; Schultes
∗ Corresponding author at: Southern Cross University, Southern Cross Plant Science, Centre for Phytochemistry and Pharmacology, Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia. Tel.: +61 2 6620 3356; fax: +61 2 6622 2080. E-mail address: [email protected] (I. Casselman). 0378-8741/$ – see front matter © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.jep.2011.07.065
et al., 2001; Prance and Nesbitt, 2004) These modern uses generally differ from the local and traditional ones. While this is in no way a new phenomenon (Heinrich, 2010) diverse sociocultural, technological and political developments have dramatically accelerated this process. Some of these products have now become poster children of the power of the internet (Heinrich et al., 2010). A unique case are psychoactive species, which generally attract considerable attention in diverse cultures. When a ‘new’ psychoactive species is incorporated into a culture and in the absence of cultural or legal (regulatory) restrictions, different modes of utilization are developed (Rios, 1984). An example of such a development is the use of Salvia divinorum, a Mexican sage endemic to a small region of Oaxaca, Mexico, which is a well known Mazatec medicinal and hallucinogenic plant. It is now utilized throughout the world for its psychoactive effects; a use pattern which is distinctly different from the Mazatec. This novel, World Wide Web (WWW) based, use pattern can be linked specifically to the video sharing site
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YouTubeTM . as such the example demonstrates how the internet creates new cultural uses and links. To date limited methodologies on how to study the distribution of such knowledge and usage via the internet is available. Here we describe a methodology that allows for the collection of ethnopharmalogical data from the internet using digital trace, an unobtrusive data collection method. YouTubeTM is a the world’s largest video-sharing community used by millions to upload material they want to share openly and globally. We also demonstrate what can be achieved with this methodology. The use of Salvia divinorum, its novel use patterns and its representation on the internet, specifically YouTubeTM highlight the scientific potential of such an approach. 1.1. Salvia divinorum Over the past decade the use of the psychoactive Labiatae, Salvia divinorum (Epling and Jativa, 1962), a sage endemic to Oaxaca Mexico, has increased outside Mexico. This novel use pattern is distinctly different from the Mazatec use of the plant and has integrated itself into recreational use in both North America and Europe. Salvia divinorum was first botanically described in 1963 (Epling and Jativa, 1962; Reisfield, 1993; Siebert, 2003), the active compound, salvinorin A, was isolated in 1982 (Ortega et al., 1982; Prisinzano, 2005) and determined to be psychoactive in the early 1990s (Siebert, 1994, 2003; Vortherms and Roth, 2006; Appel and Kim-Appel, 2007). As the identification of this species’ psychoactive compound and the spread of the public use of the WWW in the early 1990s coincide, there is a strong, perceived link between this plant and the WWW (Bucheler et al., 2005). Over the last five years the WWW, specifically User Generated Content interfaces has been predominant in the dissemination of Salvia divinorum information (Griffin et al., 2008; Hoover et al., 2008; Psychonaut Web Mapping Project Final Report, 2010). 1.2. World Wide Web It is clear that over the last decade the WWW has come to dominate the global exchange of information. As technology continues to develop, each global citizen has a growing number of options to share their knowledge and opinions with an international audience. Currently one of the quickest growing category of web content is User Generated Content, commonly known as Web 2.0 (Riva, 2002; Ochoa and Duval, 2008; Blythe and Cairns, 2009). The term Web 2.0 first came into wider use around 2004 and its use is linked to a conference hosted by O’Reilly publishing in San Francisco in October of that year (O’Reilly and Battelle, 2004; Schroeder and Bailenson, 2008). It is now used as a descriptive term for a range of User Generated Content interfaces which allow users to easily develop and post multi-media content to the WWW (Clever et al., 2009). Examples include podcasts, blogs, social networking, wikis, social bookmarking, photo sharing, and video sharing. Prior to the development of Web 2.0 interfaces, generating and displaying content on the WWW required some working knowledge of Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) and WWW network infrastructure. Now, with the advent of User Generated Content interfaces, little if any of this knowledge is required. By using a WWW-enabled computer or mobile device it is now possible for anyone to upload a variety of multimedia quickly and easily (Clever et al., 2009). 1.3. Unobtrusive measures Unobtrusive measures, or non-reactive data collection has been used since the 1960s to collect and interpret archived
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human activity (Kazdin, 1979; Rathje, 1979; Webb et al., 1999). There is a wide array of evidence which human culture leaves behind. Archaeological artifacts, national and institutional records, garbage and digital artifacts on the WWW have the potential to tell rich cultural stories (Rathje and Psihoyos, 1991; Bernard, 2006; Wakeford and Cohen, 2008; Brown, 2009). Digital trace (Janetzko, 2008), an unobtrusive measure derived from behavioural trace (Bernard, 2006), is a methodology which attempts to elicit cultural information archived on digital sources. In the emerging field of online research, digital trace is an effective way to collect the cultural text developed by contributors to User Generated Content sites (Hindmarsh, 2008; Lee et al., 2008; Snee, 2008; Welser et al., 2008). Advantages to this method are the elimination of the observer effect (Brown, 2009) and long-term data access for longitudinal analysis (Cole et al., 2008; Crouchley and Allan, 2008; Lee et al., 2008). The digital trace methodology described herein has been developed specifically to research Salvia divinorum videos posted on YouTubeTM . There are over four hundred videos (June, 2009) which depict people smoking Salvia divinorum and the resulting effects from this psychoactive plant. Over the last 5 years the video sharing site YouTubeTM has been a predominant example of a Web 2.0, User Generated Content interfaces. Their slogan “Broadcast Yourself” embodies a new, online, social paradigm which users can easily share videos, up to 10 min long, with the rest of the world (Burgess and Green, 2008; Snee, 2008; Santos et al., 2010). YouTubeTM is a vast digital archive of human behaviour (Milliken et al., 2008; Blythe and Cairns, 2009). It is the fourth-most accessed web site on the WWW and is responsible for nearly 10% of total online traffic (Cheng et al., 2007). Since 2006 there have been a growing number of videos posted on YouTubeTM showing people experiencing the effects of smoking Salvia divinorum (Lange et al., 2009). This novel use of Salvia divinorum, as represented on YouTubeTM , lends itself well to digital trace for a variety of reasons (Wesch, 2009). When smoked, the effects of Salvia divinorum dissipate within 10 min, which is also the maximum video length for YouTubeTM clips. The average user of Salvia divinorum is 23.4 ± 8.7 years old (Baggott et al., 2004), which is similar to the average age range of YouTubeTM participants (23–26; Wesch, 2009). The novel use of Salvia divinorum does not have a specific geographic location; therefore YouTubeTM based research provides access to informants which would otherwise be unavailable in standard ethnographic research. 2. Methods To conduct this study, data collection methods had to be adapted and modified and data collection tools used in new ways to fulfill the data content. Data on Salvia divinorum as represented on YouTubeTM was collected from January to July 2009. The data from YouTubeTM was collected in two ways, first direct, ethnographic, observations was made of 100 YouTubeTM videos which showed experiences of people smoking Salvia divinorum. Second, ContextMiner (Shah, 2010), a User Generated Content crawler, was programmed to crawl and archive YouTubeTM meta-data: “ContextMiner is a framework to collect, analyse, and present the contextual information along with the data. It is based on an idea that while describing or archiving an object, contextual information helps to make sense of that object or to preserve it better. This website provides tools to collect data, meta-data, and contextual information off the Web by automated crawls. At present, ContextMiner supports automated crawls from blogs, YouTubeTM , Flickr, Twitter, and open Web. It also collects inlinks information for YouTubeTM videos from the Web” (Shah, 2010).
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Fig. 1. Illustration of the number of views over time for five Salvia divinorum videos on YouTubeTM . The two cases with the highest number of views are shown in (a), while the lowest three are graphed in (b). Data was collected between January and June of 2009.
Videos were chosen using the YouTubeTM search engine and the search term “Salvia divinorum”. The results of this search were then organized by number of views (from most to least) to elucidate the most popular videos. Owing to the duplication of videos in this search, ContextMiner data was important to eliminate duplicate videos. In the second quarter of 2009, 100 of the most-viewed Salvia divinorum YouTubeTM videos were watched and ethnographic data was recorded for each video. These observations were recorded as field notes in a custom-made, online database. The use of this interface was important as it stored all observations on a secure, password protected server which restricted viewing of the data to the primary researcher. There were 40 elements which were recorded for each video. These elements fell into three categories, cinematography elements, participants’ actions and YouTubeTM meta-data. Camera angle, lighting, and post-production were some of the cinematography which were observed and recorded. Actions, facial expressions, and dialogue of participants in the videos were recorded as participant action. Finally meta-data including URL, user-name and upload date was collected and used to link this data with the data collected by ContextMiner. During the observation of YouTubeTM videos, each experience was classified as negative, neutral or positive. This subjective classification was based on the visual appearances of those observed in the YouTubeTM video. A negative coding was used if the participant showed physical agitation, erratic or uncontrollable or dangerous behaviour or verbally indicated distress. If the participant sustained injuries or was negatively influenced by other people present the experience was also coded negative. In a neutral experience, the subject showed no indication of physical or mental stress, while positive experiences were interpreted as those including laughing or presenting positive verbal or physical indications. ContextMiner was scheduled to crawl once a week for six months from January 2009 to July 2009. The data which ContextMiner collected from YouTubeTM includes Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and user-name, which were used to link this data with field notes, as well as dynamic meta-data: number of views, number of comments, number of times favourite etc.
3. Results and discussion Three main findings arose from this research. First, Salvia divinorum specifically on YouTubeTM and more generally on the WWW, is a growing phenomenon. Second, there is a contrast between how Mazatec indigenous people use Salvia divinorum and the emerging
novel use patterns of the plant outside of Mexico. Third, experiences portrayed on YouTubeTM , are rarely negative. 3.1. YouTubeTM —a growing phenomena By using ContextMiner data, the overall increase in views from January to July 2009 was calculated to be 3,530,875 views. During the six months over which this data was collected, the average number of views that each video increased by 19,014. YouTubeTM is a very high-volume website with millions of hits each day. Nonetheless, an increase of over three million views in six months for a specific topic and limited number of videos is significant. From this data, it can also be estimated that a total of 267,757 h were spent watching Salvia divinorum videos on YouTubeTM during the 6-month duration of this study. Fig. 1(a) shows the two YouTubeTM videos with the highest number of views (873,290 and 2,544,951) and Fig. 1(b) illustrates three cases with the lowest number of views (3376, 4605 and 11,438). This growth on YouTubeTM is only one of many growth areas of Salvia divinorum on the WWW, from this it can be extrapolated that there is a growing public awareness of and interest in this plant. This growing public awareness has led to the development and dissemination of new and novel use patterns of Salvia divinorum which differ from how Mazatec peoples use this plant. 3.2. Novel use patterns of Salvia divinorum Through the comparison of ethnographic reports with data collected during the course of this research, it was found that there are five main differences between how Mazatecs employ Salvia divinorum and the novel use employed by those observed on YouTubeTM (Table 1).
Table 1 The novel vs. mazatec use of Salvia divinorum. Mazatec use
Novel use
Large number of leaves chewed
Leaves (usually fortified) are smoked Used outside of any unified practice Used throughout North America and Europe No such control
Used as a part of a unified spiritual practice Geographically restricted to parts of Oaxaca, Mexico Strict sociocultural control of the species, its production and use Administered by a Curandero or Curandera
Self administered
I. Casselman, M. Heinrich / Journal of Ethnopharmacology 138 (2011) 662–667 Table 2 Observed experiences with Salvia divinorum on YouTubeTM . One hundred cases were classified according to positive, negative and neutral experiences. Video characterisation
Frequency (%) n = 100
Positive Negative Neutral
65 (65.0) 12 (12.0) 23 (23.0)
Firstly, the Mazatecs typically chew large numbers of fresh Salvia divinorum leaves during a single experience. Absorption of the plant juice through the lining of the mouth and stomach causes the effects of the plant to last up to 2 h. In contrast, users observed on YouTubeTM always smoked dried plant leaves, which in most cases had been fortified with salvinorin A. In the YouTubeTM clips which the smoking apparatus was observable (43 of 100 videos), 51% of participants used a water pipe, while 49% used a pipe. Second, Salvia divinorum is used by Mazatecs for shamanic training, divination (Schleiffer, 1973) and in healing ceremonies, and these practices are integrated into their spiritual beliefs. The novel use of Salvia divinorum is mainly used to generate a unique consciousness experience. Data does not suggest that the novel use of Salvia divinorum is a part of a unified spiritual belief system. Third, Salvia divinorum is endemic to a very small geographical region in Mexico, until it was brought to California in the 1960s (Siebert, 2003) it was not grown anywhere else in the world. Today, Salvia divinorum is available worldwide in many forms, including live plants, dried leaves and salvinorin A-fortified leaves. Apart from countries where it is illegal, Salvia divinorum can be purchased in shops or through the WWW. Finally, Mazatec shamans administer Salvia divinorum and guide those using the plant as part of a set ritual. Whereas in cases observed on YouTubeTM , self-administration was most common. 3.3. Salvia divinorum: a positive experience? A commonly held perception is that YouTubeTM is a repository for sensational videos and quick bits of entertainment; however, the videos analyzed for this research contrast this. Instead, these videos show a mosaic of YouTubeTM contributors who use videos to share with, and inform each other, to have their voice heard. The most watched videos which depict the use of Salvia divinorum are, for the majority, not sensational, but a collective of users who are leveraging the technology of User Generated Content to develop and share their Salvia divinorum experiences with other, like minded people. Using global communication technology to connect and create. What is distinct about these videos is that a large majority of the experiences are positive. Observations of YouTubeTM videos showed that sixty five percent of the videos analyzed displayed positive indications, people having good experiences, while only twelve percent of the videos revealed negative indications (Table 2). There are few negative Salvia divinorum experiences documented on YouTubeTM . While the minority, these videos play an import role in this emerging use pattern and show the full spectrum of experience possible with Salvia divinorum. The following quotes, feedback received during this research, convey informants view and its (novel) use “There are.. videos of people using Salvia [divinorum] responsibly and safely with a sitter and a good set and setting, seeking insight and spiritual growth, they respect the plant. [But some] use it as a laugh and a joke, they do not meditate.. some have bad trips.. they are responsible for laws banning Salvia [divinorum] and a negative media image. Salvia [divinorum] is a wonderful plant used by Indians as a medicinal plant for thousands of years perfectly safe. It is not a party drug, it should be respected and used as an entheogen”.
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“Having used Salvia divinorum I realize that outwardly it appears like I am just giggling and rolling around [on the ground], this could put a lot of people off and create negative media ideas about this plant. But what happened in my mind was astonishing, it was a really important experience, I just hope that the few kids tripping on YouTube won’t wreck it”. Overall user-generated content conveys a generally positive view about the use of Salvia divinorum. One could argue that such self-representations are more likely in case of positive experiences, but we have no evidence to support or contradict this hypothesis. Importantly, the high visibility of this species has drawn multiple media sources to report on Salvia divinorum videos on YouTubeTM , and this in turn influences the perception people have of this plant. 3.4. Salvia divinorum & media representation The growing popularity and emerging novel use patterns of Salvia divinorum has, in the last few years, attracted the attention of mainstream media corporations. These corporations control, and are largely responsible for, developing public perception of current events (Chomsky and Marr, 1996; Soderlund, 2007; Paspalanova, 2008). Although this control has been somewhat eroded by User Generated Content the balance of influence still lies with traditional media sources. As is often the case, political and corporate ideologies factor heavily in the presentation of current event through mainstream media sources such as television, radio and print media (Chomsky and Marr, 1996; Soderlund, 2007; Paspalanova, 2008) An important question arises in light of the ethnographic data presented. What is the reason for media’s negative reaction to Salvia divinorum, rested so heavily on “evidence” from YouTubeTM videos? The information presented in media reports regarding Salvia divinorum have, to date, been drawn from very limited, non - academic sources. The pattern which emerged from media reports, as is seen in from the following four quotes, implicate that the Salvia divinorum YouTubeTM videos displayed irresponsible and dangerous behaviour: “Watching young people out of their minds on salvia [sic] is the latest YouTube sensation and is fuelling the popularity of the herb. But, for those with a clear head, the films – some of which have been viewed more than a million times – are deeply disturbing. Users are reduced to mumbling wrecks, giggling and screaming, gasping and muttering, waving their hands around as they sink into a sofa or crumple to the floor. What we don’t see are the visions, lights, swirls and hallucinations that many say they have experienced. Or the nightmarish sense that they are close to death, going insane or under attack.. ‘What we are witnessing is no less than the world’s first internet-driven drugs explosion,’ says Dr John Mendelson..” (Sherwell, 2009). “In many of the [YouTube] videos, the smokers often start laughing uncontrollably, then are rendered incoherent by a forceful high that users describe as much shorter than LSD, but often more intense.” (Simerman, 2009) “There are concerns among a powerful network of US broadcasters that what the Aztecs [sic] started the YouTube generation is now appropriating for a more sinister intent. Exploiting the drug’s legality, videos promoting salvia[sic]..have appeared on the web, spawning its own glamorous subculture.” (Doward and Shah, 2009) “I’m concerned about the youngsters that do not know it’s a hallucinogen,” Anderson said. “We have a responsibility to educate parents and youngsters.” State Rep. Armando Martinez, D-Weslaco.. He said he is concerned by the plant’s availability and videos glorifying its use on YouTube. Hundreds of videos
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can be seen of individuals smoking the plant under different circumstances.. “Even if it doesn’t last a long time, it only takes a couple seconds to hurt yourself,” Martinez said. “When it gets into the hands of a child is when we have a problem.” (Bertrand, 2009) In contrast to these media reports, the ethnographic data from this research indicate that only a small minority of the YouTubeTM videos actually display negative, dangerous or irresponsible behaviour. Conversely, a community of YouTubeTM contributors are using new communication technology to share experiences and knowledge. This contrast demonstrates the need to better understand User Generated Content sites, like YouTubeTM , more fully, in ethnographic terms and to continue to document the WWW as an emerging cultural phenomena. 4. Conclusion: Web 2.0 as an ethnopharmalocial topic The WWW has added a completely new dimension to the exchange of information and the mutual interdependencies of cultures. Today, the rate and volume of information that is shared and the potential connections that can be made is exponentially larger than any other time in human history. The question is, how do we begin to make sense of this dominant cultural force? More specifically, how does this rate of information exchange influence the way people develop and share new uses of plants? To answer this question we have to adapt and develop new methods to capture this data (Snee, 2008). While anthropological and more specifically medicoanthropological research has, for many years, embraced the dynamics of cultures, until recently, ethnopharmalogical research has generally focused on ‘traditional’ plant use, failing to capture the dynamic elements of plant/human interaction (Cocks, 2006) and framing research in the past or as decontextualized largely descriptive reports (Etkin and Elisbetsky, 2005). Global migration and urban environments formed a basis for looking at the interplay of continuity and change (Balick et al., 2000; Sandhu and Heinrich, 2005). Such cultural dynamics are exacerbated by the opportunities which the WWW offers. The adaptation and the development of new ways to use plants are of importance for the conceptual and methodological development of ethnopharmacology. When a new and useful plant is encountered, in the absence of cultural or legal restrictions, novel modes of utilization are developed (Rios, 1984). The study of these new modes of utilization in respect to Salvia divinorum has shown how, outside any predefined cultural norms, humans seek, develop and share the positive benefits of new plant uses. While information regarding psychoactive plants is very prevalent on the WWW (Dennehy et al., 2005; Psychonaut Web Mapping Project Final Report, 2010) so too is information regarding horticultural and agricultural crops as well as a growing body of information on natural products (Heinrich et al., 2010). As this data demonstrates, investigating human, plant interaction using User Generated Content holds great potential in many areas of ethnopharmacutical research. Appendix A. Supplementary data Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.jep.2011.07.065. References Appel, J., Kim-Appel, D., 2007. The rise of a new psychoactive agent: Salvia divinorum. International Journal of Mental Health Addiction 5, 248–253.
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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Ethnopharmacology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jethpharm
Novel use patterns of Salvia divinorum: Unobtrusive observation using YouTubeTM Ivan Casselman a,∗ , Michael Heinrich a,b a b
Southern Cross Plant Science, Centre for Phytochemistry and Pharmacology, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia Center for Pharmacognosy and Phytotherapy, The School of Pharmacy (University of London), 29-39 Brunswick Sq., London WC1N 1AX, UK
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 12 May 2011 Accepted 30 July 2011 Available online 6 August 2011 JEL classification: 1.04: Central nervous system 2.136: botany 2.232: diterpenoids 2.312: hallucinogenic Keywords: Salvia divinorum Epling & Játiva (Lamiaceae) YouTubeTM Mazatecs Traditional medicine Psychoactive drugs User generated content
a b s t r a c t Ethnopharmacological relevance and Aims: The traditional use of the Hallucinogenic sage, Salvia divinorum has been of ethnopharmalogical interest for some time. This plant, endemic to Oaxaca Mexico and traditionally used by the Mazatec, is now utilized worldwide for its psychoactive effects. This use demonstrates a novel use pattern which is distinctly different from Mazatec use. This study offers a new methodology to study emerging global plant use and assesses the users’ experience with it. The aim of this research was to develop a new methodology to collect and analyze archived data on the World Wide Web, specifically videos which depict Salvia divinorum use. Methods: The basis of the methodology for this project was unobtrusive observation which allows the researcher to observe without influencing the event which is being observed. Qualitative, ethnographic data was used in conjunction with quantitative meta data collected by a customized web crawler programed to archive YouTubeTM data. Results: Using this methodology enabled us to understand reported uses and the users’ experiences as expressed on the World Wide Web. The main result of this research was the documentation of a distinct, novel use pattern of Salvia divinorum which has developed outside of Oaxaca; a use pattern which differs in a number of ways from traditional, Mazatec use. The majority of the YouTubeTM videos analyzed were found to present indications of a positive Salvia divinorum experience. This result highlighted the contradiction between ethnographic data and what is reported by the media. Finally the representation of Salvia divinorum on YouTubeTM (and by inference the WWW as a whole) is a growing phenomena. Conclusions: While anthropological and more specifically medico-anthropological research has, for many years, embraced the dynamics of cultures, until recently, ethnopharmalogical research has generally focused on ‘traditional’ plant use, failing to capture the dynamic elements of plant/human interaction and framing research in the past or as decontextualized largely descriptive reports. Global migration and urban environments formed a basis for looking at the interplay of continuity and change. Such cultural dynamics are exacerbated by the opportunities which the WWW offers. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.
1. Introduction While historically, ethnopharmacology has focused on what has been classed as ‘traditional’ plant use; recent decades have seen a faster and faster spread and exchange of useful plants and their products. What has been termed ‘globalization’ has in fact enabled people in diverse cultures to use products derived from ‘exotic’ sources like Native American medicine (e.g. Echinaceae spp., or Serenoa repens Hook. f.), Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurvedic Medicines or ‘rainforest foods’ (Wohlmuth et al., 1997; Schultes
∗ Corresponding author at: Southern Cross University, Southern Cross Plant Science, Centre for Phytochemistry and Pharmacology, Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia. Tel.: +61 2 6620 3356; fax: +61 2 6622 2080. E-mail address: [email protected] (I. Casselman). 0378-8741/$ – see front matter © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.jep.2011.07.065
et al., 2001; Prance and Nesbitt, 2004) These modern uses generally differ from the local and traditional ones. While this is in no way a new phenomenon (Heinrich, 2010) diverse sociocultural, technological and political developments have dramatically accelerated this process. Some of these products have now become poster children of the power of the internet (Heinrich et al., 2010). A unique case are psychoactive species, which generally attract considerable attention in diverse cultures. When a ‘new’ psychoactive species is incorporated into a culture and in the absence of cultural or legal (regulatory) restrictions, different modes of utilization are developed (Rios, 1984). An example of such a development is the use of Salvia divinorum, a Mexican sage endemic to a small region of Oaxaca, Mexico, which is a well known Mazatec medicinal and hallucinogenic plant. It is now utilized throughout the world for its psychoactive effects; a use pattern which is distinctly different from the Mazatec. This novel, World Wide Web (WWW) based, use pattern can be linked specifically to the video sharing site
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YouTubeTM . as such the example demonstrates how the internet creates new cultural uses and links. To date limited methodologies on how to study the distribution of such knowledge and usage via the internet is available. Here we describe a methodology that allows for the collection of ethnopharmalogical data from the internet using digital trace, an unobtrusive data collection method. YouTubeTM is a the world’s largest video-sharing community used by millions to upload material they want to share openly and globally. We also demonstrate what can be achieved with this methodology. The use of Salvia divinorum, its novel use patterns and its representation on the internet, specifically YouTubeTM highlight the scientific potential of such an approach. 1.1. Salvia divinorum Over the past decade the use of the psychoactive Labiatae, Salvia divinorum (Epling and Jativa, 1962), a sage endemic to Oaxaca Mexico, has increased outside Mexico. This novel use pattern is distinctly different from the Mazatec use of the plant and has integrated itself into recreational use in both North America and Europe. Salvia divinorum was first botanically described in 1963 (Epling and Jativa, 1962; Reisfield, 1993; Siebert, 2003), the active compound, salvinorin A, was isolated in 1982 (Ortega et al., 1982; Prisinzano, 2005) and determined to be psychoactive in the early 1990s (Siebert, 1994, 2003; Vortherms and Roth, 2006; Appel and Kim-Appel, 2007). As the identification of this species’ psychoactive compound and the spread of the public use of the WWW in the early 1990s coincide, there is a strong, perceived link between this plant and the WWW (Bucheler et al., 2005). Over the last five years the WWW, specifically User Generated Content interfaces has been predominant in the dissemination of Salvia divinorum information (Griffin et al., 2008; Hoover et al., 2008; Psychonaut Web Mapping Project Final Report, 2010). 1.2. World Wide Web It is clear that over the last decade the WWW has come to dominate the global exchange of information. As technology continues to develop, each global citizen has a growing number of options to share their knowledge and opinions with an international audience. Currently one of the quickest growing category of web content is User Generated Content, commonly known as Web 2.0 (Riva, 2002; Ochoa and Duval, 2008; Blythe and Cairns, 2009). The term Web 2.0 first came into wider use around 2004 and its use is linked to a conference hosted by O’Reilly publishing in San Francisco in October of that year (O’Reilly and Battelle, 2004; Schroeder and Bailenson, 2008). It is now used as a descriptive term for a range of User Generated Content interfaces which allow users to easily develop and post multi-media content to the WWW (Clever et al., 2009). Examples include podcasts, blogs, social networking, wikis, social bookmarking, photo sharing, and video sharing. Prior to the development of Web 2.0 interfaces, generating and displaying content on the WWW required some working knowledge of Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) and WWW network infrastructure. Now, with the advent of User Generated Content interfaces, little if any of this knowledge is required. By using a WWW-enabled computer or mobile device it is now possible for anyone to upload a variety of multimedia quickly and easily (Clever et al., 2009). 1.3. Unobtrusive measures Unobtrusive measures, or non-reactive data collection has been used since the 1960s to collect and interpret archived
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human activity (Kazdin, 1979; Rathje, 1979; Webb et al., 1999). There is a wide array of evidence which human culture leaves behind. Archaeological artifacts, national and institutional records, garbage and digital artifacts on the WWW have the potential to tell rich cultural stories (Rathje and Psihoyos, 1991; Bernard, 2006; Wakeford and Cohen, 2008; Brown, 2009). Digital trace (Janetzko, 2008), an unobtrusive measure derived from behavioural trace (Bernard, 2006), is a methodology which attempts to elicit cultural information archived on digital sources. In the emerging field of online research, digital trace is an effective way to collect the cultural text developed by contributors to User Generated Content sites (Hindmarsh, 2008; Lee et al., 2008; Snee, 2008; Welser et al., 2008). Advantages to this method are the elimination of the observer effect (Brown, 2009) and long-term data access for longitudinal analysis (Cole et al., 2008; Crouchley and Allan, 2008; Lee et al., 2008). The digital trace methodology described herein has been developed specifically to research Salvia divinorum videos posted on YouTubeTM . There are over four hundred videos (June, 2009) which depict people smoking Salvia divinorum and the resulting effects from this psychoactive plant. Over the last 5 years the video sharing site YouTubeTM has been a predominant example of a Web 2.0, User Generated Content interfaces. Their slogan “Broadcast Yourself” embodies a new, online, social paradigm which users can easily share videos, up to 10 min long, with the rest of the world (Burgess and Green, 2008; Snee, 2008; Santos et al., 2010). YouTubeTM is a vast digital archive of human behaviour (Milliken et al., 2008; Blythe and Cairns, 2009). It is the fourth-most accessed web site on the WWW and is responsible for nearly 10% of total online traffic (Cheng et al., 2007). Since 2006 there have been a growing number of videos posted on YouTubeTM showing people experiencing the effects of smoking Salvia divinorum (Lange et al., 2009). This novel use of Salvia divinorum, as represented on YouTubeTM , lends itself well to digital trace for a variety of reasons (Wesch, 2009). When smoked, the effects of Salvia divinorum dissipate within 10 min, which is also the maximum video length for YouTubeTM clips. The average user of Salvia divinorum is 23.4 ± 8.7 years old (Baggott et al., 2004), which is similar to the average age range of YouTubeTM participants (23–26; Wesch, 2009). The novel use of Salvia divinorum does not have a specific geographic location; therefore YouTubeTM based research provides access to informants which would otherwise be unavailable in standard ethnographic research. 2. Methods To conduct this study, data collection methods had to be adapted and modified and data collection tools used in new ways to fulfill the data content. Data on Salvia divinorum as represented on YouTubeTM was collected from January to July 2009. The data from YouTubeTM was collected in two ways, first direct, ethnographic, observations was made of 100 YouTubeTM videos which showed experiences of people smoking Salvia divinorum. Second, ContextMiner (Shah, 2010), a User Generated Content crawler, was programmed to crawl and archive YouTubeTM meta-data: “ContextMiner is a framework to collect, analyse, and present the contextual information along with the data. It is based on an idea that while describing or archiving an object, contextual information helps to make sense of that object or to preserve it better. This website provides tools to collect data, meta-data, and contextual information off the Web by automated crawls. At present, ContextMiner supports automated crawls from blogs, YouTubeTM , Flickr, Twitter, and open Web. It also collects inlinks information for YouTubeTM videos from the Web” (Shah, 2010).
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Fig. 1. Illustration of the number of views over time for five Salvia divinorum videos on YouTubeTM . The two cases with the highest number of views are shown in (a), while the lowest three are graphed in (b). Data was collected between January and June of 2009.
Videos were chosen using the YouTubeTM search engine and the search term “Salvia divinorum”. The results of this search were then organized by number of views (from most to least) to elucidate the most popular videos. Owing to the duplication of videos in this search, ContextMiner data was important to eliminate duplicate videos. In the second quarter of 2009, 100 of the most-viewed Salvia divinorum YouTubeTM videos were watched and ethnographic data was recorded for each video. These observations were recorded as field notes in a custom-made, online database. The use of this interface was important as it stored all observations on a secure, password protected server which restricted viewing of the data to the primary researcher. There were 40 elements which were recorded for each video. These elements fell into three categories, cinematography elements, participants’ actions and YouTubeTM meta-data. Camera angle, lighting, and post-production were some of the cinematography which were observed and recorded. Actions, facial expressions, and dialogue of participants in the videos were recorded as participant action. Finally meta-data including URL, user-name and upload date was collected and used to link this data with the data collected by ContextMiner. During the observation of YouTubeTM videos, each experience was classified as negative, neutral or positive. This subjective classification was based on the visual appearances of those observed in the YouTubeTM video. A negative coding was used if the participant showed physical agitation, erratic or uncontrollable or dangerous behaviour or verbally indicated distress. If the participant sustained injuries or was negatively influenced by other people present the experience was also coded negative. In a neutral experience, the subject showed no indication of physical or mental stress, while positive experiences were interpreted as those including laughing or presenting positive verbal or physical indications. ContextMiner was scheduled to crawl once a week for six months from January 2009 to July 2009. The data which ContextMiner collected from YouTubeTM includes Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and user-name, which were used to link this data with field notes, as well as dynamic meta-data: number of views, number of comments, number of times favourite etc.
3. Results and discussion Three main findings arose from this research. First, Salvia divinorum specifically on YouTubeTM and more generally on the WWW, is a growing phenomenon. Second, there is a contrast between how Mazatec indigenous people use Salvia divinorum and the emerging
novel use patterns of the plant outside of Mexico. Third, experiences portrayed on YouTubeTM , are rarely negative. 3.1. YouTubeTM —a growing phenomena By using ContextMiner data, the overall increase in views from January to July 2009 was calculated to be 3,530,875 views. During the six months over which this data was collected, the average number of views that each video increased by 19,014. YouTubeTM is a very high-volume website with millions of hits each day. Nonetheless, an increase of over three million views in six months for a specific topic and limited number of videos is significant. From this data, it can also be estimated that a total of 267,757 h were spent watching Salvia divinorum videos on YouTubeTM during the 6-month duration of this study. Fig. 1(a) shows the two YouTubeTM videos with the highest number of views (873,290 and 2,544,951) and Fig. 1(b) illustrates three cases with the lowest number of views (3376, 4605 and 11,438). This growth on YouTubeTM is only one of many growth areas of Salvia divinorum on the WWW, from this it can be extrapolated that there is a growing public awareness of and interest in this plant. This growing public awareness has led to the development and dissemination of new and novel use patterns of Salvia divinorum which differ from how Mazatec peoples use this plant. 3.2. Novel use patterns of Salvia divinorum Through the comparison of ethnographic reports with data collected during the course of this research, it was found that there are five main differences between how Mazatecs employ Salvia divinorum and the novel use employed by those observed on YouTubeTM (Table 1).
Table 1 The novel vs. mazatec use of Salvia divinorum. Mazatec use
Novel use
Large number of leaves chewed
Leaves (usually fortified) are smoked Used outside of any unified practice Used throughout North America and Europe No such control
Used as a part of a unified spiritual practice Geographically restricted to parts of Oaxaca, Mexico Strict sociocultural control of the species, its production and use Administered by a Curandero or Curandera
Self administered
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Frequency (%) n = 100
Positive Negative Neutral
65 (65.0) 12 (12.0) 23 (23.0)
Firstly, the Mazatecs typically chew large numbers of fresh Salvia divinorum leaves during a single experience. Absorption of the plant juice through the lining of the mouth and stomach causes the effects of the plant to last up to 2 h. In contrast, users observed on YouTubeTM always smoked dried plant leaves, which in most cases had been fortified with salvinorin A. In the YouTubeTM clips which the smoking apparatus was observable (43 of 100 videos), 51% of participants used a water pipe, while 49% used a pipe. Second, Salvia divinorum is used by Mazatecs for shamanic training, divination (Schleiffer, 1973) and in healing ceremonies, and these practices are integrated into their spiritual beliefs. The novel use of Salvia divinorum is mainly used to generate a unique consciousness experience. Data does not suggest that the novel use of Salvia divinorum is a part of a unified spiritual belief system. Third, Salvia divinorum is endemic to a very small geographical region in Mexico, until it was brought to California in the 1960s (Siebert, 2003) it was not grown anywhere else in the world. Today, Salvia divinorum is available worldwide in many forms, including live plants, dried leaves and salvinorin A-fortified leaves. Apart from countries where it is illegal, Salvia divinorum can be purchased in shops or through the WWW. Finally, Mazatec shamans administer Salvia divinorum and guide those using the plant as part of a set ritual. Whereas in cases observed on YouTubeTM , self-administration was most common. 3.3. Salvia divinorum: a positive experience? A commonly held perception is that YouTubeTM is a repository for sensational videos and quick bits of entertainment; however, the videos analyzed for this research contrast this. Instead, these videos show a mosaic of YouTubeTM contributors who use videos to share with, and inform each other, to have their voice heard. The most watched videos which depict the use of Salvia divinorum are, for the majority, not sensational, but a collective of users who are leveraging the technology of User Generated Content to develop and share their Salvia divinorum experiences with other, like minded people. Using global communication technology to connect and create. What is distinct about these videos is that a large majority of the experiences are positive. Observations of YouTubeTM videos showed that sixty five percent of the videos analyzed displayed positive indications, people having good experiences, while only twelve percent of the videos revealed negative indications (Table 2). There are few negative Salvia divinorum experiences documented on YouTubeTM . While the minority, these videos play an import role in this emerging use pattern and show the full spectrum of experience possible with Salvia divinorum. The following quotes, feedback received during this research, convey informants view and its (novel) use “There are.. videos of people using Salvia [divinorum] responsibly and safely with a sitter and a good set and setting, seeking insight and spiritual growth, they respect the plant. [But some] use it as a laugh and a joke, they do not meditate.. some have bad trips.. they are responsible for laws banning Salvia [divinorum] and a negative media image. Salvia [divinorum] is a wonderful plant used by Indians as a medicinal plant for thousands of years perfectly safe. It is not a party drug, it should be respected and used as an entheogen”.
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“Having used Salvia divinorum I realize that outwardly it appears like I am just giggling and rolling around [on the ground], this could put a lot of people off and create negative media ideas about this plant. But what happened in my mind was astonishing, it was a really important experience, I just hope that the few kids tripping on YouTube won’t wreck it”. Overall user-generated content conveys a generally positive view about the use of Salvia divinorum. One could argue that such self-representations are more likely in case of positive experiences, but we have no evidence to support or contradict this hypothesis. Importantly, the high visibility of this species has drawn multiple media sources to report on Salvia divinorum videos on YouTubeTM , and this in turn influences the perception people have of this plant. 3.4. Salvia divinorum & media representation The growing popularity and emerging novel use patterns of Salvia divinorum has, in the last few years, attracted the attention of mainstream media corporations. These corporations control, and are largely responsible for, developing public perception of current events (Chomsky and Marr, 1996; Soderlund, 2007; Paspalanova, 2008). Although this control has been somewhat eroded by User Generated Content the balance of influence still lies with traditional media sources. As is often the case, political and corporate ideologies factor heavily in the presentation of current event through mainstream media sources such as television, radio and print media (Chomsky and Marr, 1996; Soderlund, 2007; Paspalanova, 2008) An important question arises in light of the ethnographic data presented. What is the reason for media’s negative reaction to Salvia divinorum, rested so heavily on “evidence” from YouTubeTM videos? The information presented in media reports regarding Salvia divinorum have, to date, been drawn from very limited, non - academic sources. The pattern which emerged from media reports, as is seen in from the following four quotes, implicate that the Salvia divinorum YouTubeTM videos displayed irresponsible and dangerous behaviour: “Watching young people out of their minds on salvia [sic] is the latest YouTube sensation and is fuelling the popularity of the herb. But, for those with a clear head, the films – some of which have been viewed more than a million times – are deeply disturbing. Users are reduced to mumbling wrecks, giggling and screaming, gasping and muttering, waving their hands around as they sink into a sofa or crumple to the floor. What we don’t see are the visions, lights, swirls and hallucinations that many say they have experienced. Or the nightmarish sense that they are close to death, going insane or under attack.. ‘What we are witnessing is no less than the world’s first internet-driven drugs explosion,’ says Dr John Mendelson..” (Sherwell, 2009). “In many of the [YouTube] videos, the smokers often start laughing uncontrollably, then are rendered incoherent by a forceful high that users describe as much shorter than LSD, but often more intense.” (Simerman, 2009) “There are concerns among a powerful network of US broadcasters that what the Aztecs [sic] started the YouTube generation is now appropriating for a more sinister intent. Exploiting the drug’s legality, videos promoting salvia[sic]..have appeared on the web, spawning its own glamorous subculture.” (Doward and Shah, 2009) “I’m concerned about the youngsters that do not know it’s a hallucinogen,” Anderson said. “We have a responsibility to educate parents and youngsters.” State Rep. Armando Martinez, D-Weslaco.. He said he is concerned by the plant’s availability and videos glorifying its use on YouTube. Hundreds of videos
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can be seen of individuals smoking the plant under different circumstances.. “Even if it doesn’t last a long time, it only takes a couple seconds to hurt yourself,” Martinez said. “When it gets into the hands of a child is when we have a problem.” (Bertrand, 2009) In contrast to these media reports, the ethnographic data from this research indicate that only a small minority of the YouTubeTM videos actually display negative, dangerous or irresponsible behaviour. Conversely, a community of YouTubeTM contributors are using new communication technology to share experiences and knowledge. This contrast demonstrates the need to better understand User Generated Content sites, like YouTubeTM , more fully, in ethnographic terms and to continue to document the WWW as an emerging cultural phenomena. 4. Conclusion: Web 2.0 as an ethnopharmalocial topic The WWW has added a completely new dimension to the exchange of information and the mutual interdependencies of cultures. Today, the rate and volume of information that is shared and the potential connections that can be made is exponentially larger than any other time in human history. The question is, how do we begin to make sense of this dominant cultural force? More specifically, how does this rate of information exchange influence the way people develop and share new uses of plants? To answer this question we have to adapt and develop new methods to capture this data (Snee, 2008). While anthropological and more specifically medicoanthropological research has, for many years, embraced the dynamics of cultures, until recently, ethnopharmalogical research has generally focused on ‘traditional’ plant use, failing to capture the dynamic elements of plant/human interaction (Cocks, 2006) and framing research in the past or as decontextualized largely descriptive reports (Etkin and Elisbetsky, 2005). Global migration and urban environments formed a basis for looking at the interplay of continuity and change (Balick et al., 2000; Sandhu and Heinrich, 2005). Such cultural dynamics are exacerbated by the opportunities which the WWW offers. The adaptation and the development of new ways to use plants are of importance for the conceptual and methodological development of ethnopharmacology. When a new and useful plant is encountered, in the absence of cultural or legal restrictions, novel modes of utilization are developed (Rios, 1984). The study of these new modes of utilization in respect to Salvia divinorum has shown how, outside any predefined cultural norms, humans seek, develop and share the positive benefits of new plant uses. While information regarding psychoactive plants is very prevalent on the WWW (Dennehy et al., 2005; Psychonaut Web Mapping Project Final Report, 2010) so too is information regarding horticultural and agricultural crops as well as a growing body of information on natural products (Heinrich et al., 2010). As this data demonstrates, investigating human, plant interaction using User Generated Content holds great potential in many areas of ethnopharmacutical research. Appendix A. Supplementary data Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.jep.2011.07.065. References Appel, J., Kim-Appel, D., 2007. The rise of a new psychoactive agent: Salvia divinorum. International Journal of Mental Health Addiction 5, 248–253.
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