ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the theory-building process itself, placing emphasis on four key concepts: theory, concepts, models, and metaphors. It continuous with a reflection on creating theories in a world where Media and Communication Studies have reached high levels of specialization and fragmentation. Finally, the chapter introduces a first circle of scientific interlocutors, that is, disciplines that deal with media, technology, and social change and that participate in the same conversational network of Media Evolution. If theories are made of statements, then statements are made of concepts. Models are key elements of any theory-building process. For centuries, scientists have been working with both physical (scale) and conceptual models. For several decades, media and communication theories set the objective of finding a shared definition for their object of study and a model that faithfully represented the communication process.
