CMC in a hyper-globalized age

Welcome to this issue of CMC. It is an honor as new editor to be able to address you, the readers of CMC. I am also honored to head the editorial office after Jonathan Schroeder's magnificent editorial leadership. A huge debt of gratitude goes to Jonathan for having served the journal for such an extended period of time and with demonstrable results not only in terms of breadth of disciplinary scope, but also of quality, impact and reputation. Jonathan will remain on the editorial team as Editor at Large to complete some of the planned special issues and innovative Marketplace Icons pieces and as an advisor to me.

My perspective is that to improve the journal further we must ensure anchoring and ownership in disciplinary as well as geographical scope. To that end, I have worked with Jonathan to establish a strong group of Associate Editors (AEs). The AE's will assist in running and further professionalizing the review process as well as acting as ambassadors of the journal in their respective networks. Several of the AE's have published in CMC or in other ways served the journal in significant ways. Over time more might be added to reflect other disciplinary and geographic cornerstones of the journal.

The AE's are:

• Associate Professor Zeynep Arsel, Research Chair in Consumption and Markets, John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Canada

• Professor Franck Cochoy, University of Toulouse, France

• Associate Professor, Mehita Iqani, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa

• Associate Professor Elif Izberk-Bilgin, University of Michigan – Dearborn College of Business, USA

• Associate Professor Karen Fernandez, University of Auckland, New Zealand

• Associate Professor Timothy Malefyt, Fordham University, USA

• Professor John Schouten, Aalto University, Finland

• Professor Rohit Varman, Deakin University, Australia

• Associate Professor Ian Woodward, University of Southern Denmark

CMC has since its inception been a global as well as cross-disciplinary journal (Fırat 1997; Peñaloza and Schroeder 2008). The journal has a strong tradition of dealing with issues of globalization – from conceptual discussions to providing voices and representations of empirical contexts outside of affluent/Western contexts. At no other point in time has a global perspective been more needed: contemporary humanity is facing challenges that can only be understood – and ultimately addressed – if we take a global perspective and engage in generating a deeper understanding of these issues. The themes of consumption, markets and culture are at the core of the big challenges humanity faces, from climate change to global mobility (economic refugees and migrants; economic inequality) and digitalization of social life. With its tradition of fostering global cross-disciplinary dialogue CMC is in a unique position, thematically, institutionally and conceptually, to generate incisive understanding. I would therefore like to encourage high quality submissions that empirically and conceptually contribute to this initiative.

In addition to research articles on themes and conceptual questions of traditional interest to CMC scholars, Marketplace Icon pieces, special issues and the occasional alternative article format (e.g. poetry, short stories), I would like to encourage submissions of review articles in the domains of the journal's aims and scope. Review articles offer opportunities to map out specific theoretical or substantial domains that relate to the journal. Such pieces will provide valuable resources for other scholars and be key reference points for future dialogue on those topics as well as for developing future research agendas (for examples, see, Izberk-Bilgin 2010; Luedicke 2011; Tadajewski 2015).

I look forward to be working with the AE's, Jonathan and the rest of the community of scholars around CMC.