Abstract
This paper systematizes the milestones in the studies on social communication and journalistic information of the past twenty-five years, during the transfer of (analogical) data transmission to (digital) production of transmedia contents. It reveals epistemological gaps in a context where communication is both private and public, widespread and storable, where a disruption of the usual schemes of measurement, representation and cultural control occur with a connivance of old and new hegemonies. The hypertext contrasts with the mass-mediation, necessary but not enough to understand that anyone with access to the technological production, reproduction and distribution tools is able to provide information, report and communicate. Exploring and describing is used to classify, hardly ever to theorize, define, model and argue. From where? Until when? Is it possible to develop unifying theories of information and communication regardless of the channels or means and, furthermore, legitimize them? The proposal for a new theory of communication is thus: to re-contextualize the contributions to the theory and the information and communication method; to synthesize universal principles and anthropological approaches; to delineate a theory of the causes of communication as a social process by means of categorems and heterological and discursive genres; and to define the current mega-concepts of Social and Humanistic Sciences over which a social media theory could be constructed.
Keywords
Communication Theory; Communication epistemology; Languages; Media; Journalism