Abstract:

M. De Alba (2004).
El Método ALCESTE y su Aplicación als Estudio de las Representaciones
Sociales del Espacio Urbano: El Caso de la Ciudad de México.
Papers on Social Representations, 13, pages 1.1-1.20
[http://www.psr.jku.at/]

The objective of this work is twofold: on the one hand, we present Alceste
as a method of text analysis (in French: Analyse des Lexèmes Coocurrents
dans les Enoncés Simples d’un Texte), whose utility and interest can be
attested by its rapid diffusion and application in different fields, not only
within the social sciences but in all the different disciplines that deal with
discursive materials. On the other hand we express the reasons why this
program is an adequate analytical tool in the study of social representations.
The utility of Alceste will be exemplified through the examination of results
obtained from a survey on social representations of Mexico City. The results
show that Alceste is not only a method of textual data analysis that aids in the
understanding of the structure and organization of discourse, but it also allows
the detection of relationships between lexical worlds that would be difficult to
find by traditional methods of content analysis.