The TV programme Trend Trackers introduces three cultural researchers, each working for companies interested in contemporary change and future trends. These researchers are not all social scientists, but they use many of the same kinds of techniques that social scientists use when they research contemporary society and culture. Moreover, they ask similar questions and try to find out about some of the same things social scientists are keen to explore: contemporary cultures, new media and how people use ICTs in their everyday lives.

So, how do trend trackers find out about today’s Brave New World? The simple answer is ‘they conduct research’. What this means in practice is that they use a whole series of techniques, or methods, to help them identify certain patterns of behaviour, to help them notice when changes occur, and to get a good sense of what activities, objects or cultural changes mean to the people they research.

When Barbie and her team held ...