Doing Mobile Media and Communication scholarship in different keys: Sounding out structure and integration in the field

Abstract

This special issue marks an important milestone in the maturation of the growing field of Mobile Media and Communication (MMC). When this journal was launched a decade ago, some were still trying to make sense of what this field entails, what to call it, and whether it even exists (Campbell, 2013). Although there was no question as to the growth in this new area of scholarship, the field’s coherence was highly questionable. When this journal was launched, the editors echoed concerns that: although mobile media scholarship has begun to grow, it is by no means a coherent field of scholarship, and there are still many areas in need of elaboration and differentiation [...] mobile media in an age of smart-phones requires that we not only attempt to articulate the field but also to more systematically understand its various dimensions. (Hjorth et al., 2012, p. 1, cited in Jones et al., 2013). If the last decade has provided us with anything, it is perspective on where MMC scholarship has come from and how it is growing. A short article is no place to fully