Alex took a different approach to his research on gaming and game culture. While he also makes use of the focus group method, he supplements the information in these sessions with ad hoc chats with people in their gaming environment. Going to places where people engage in their everyday activities to not only observe their behaviour and ask questions about what they are doing, but also join in, is similar to what social scientists call ‘participant observation’. Conducting participant observation gives researchers a chance to ‘feel’ what it is like to be a member of a particular group, or to experience first-hand the pleasures or pains of a particular activity.

Of course, each of these researchers is investigating social and cultural change: what is happening today and what might happen tomorrow. Interestingly, what they have identified in their research, whether they are looking at men’s grooming products, gaming or children’s use of ICTs, is a series of wider cultural, social, economic and technological patterns.

These researchers used ...