《从“十字路口”到“中间地带”》可以被视为对英美学界围绕媒介社会学的“反思式话语实践”的元话语分析，这项聚焦“实然”的研究却被姚文苑和胡翼青在“应然”层面误读为文章作者“失效”的边界工作。与这一根本性的误读相呼应，他们还对过往的媒介社会学传统予以传播学本位的、“去历史化”的评判，并力倡以“媒介化理论”为核心的“真正的媒介社会学”。在回应商榷的基础上，本文强调，媒介社会学乃是一项历史性的事业，不宜定于一尊，而应被置于“连续统”的观念中加以考察，以便批判地继承或创造性地转化传统，并在数字时代激发出跨学科的想象力，理解“媒介的社会逻辑”与“社会的媒介逻辑”之间的交错与渗透。此外，本文还利用调查数据，示例性地检视了中国媒介社会学者围绕媒介社会学的“定义”与“议题”等问题之“诠释社群”面貌。

The article entitled “From ‘Crossroad’ to ‘Middle Zone’” can be understood as a meta-discourse analysis of the “reflexive discursive practice” by Anglo-American scholars around media sociology, and is a study focusing on what media sociology “is.” However, it is misread by Yao Wenyuan and Hu Yiqing, in the sense of what media sociology “ought to be,” as our “failure” in boundary work. Echoing this fundamental misreading, they also make a communication-centered and “de-historictized” judgment to the past traditions of media sociology, and attempt to advocate a “true media sociology” with mediatization theory as its core. After responding to their criticism and misreading, we insist that media sociology is not a given but a historical cause, and that it should be examined by being placed into the “continuum” notion, in order for us to critically inherit or creatively transform established traditions, to stimulate the interdisciplinary imaginations in the digital age, and to better understand the intersection and penetration between “the social logic of the media” and “the media logic of the society.” In addition, for the purposes of illustration, the article examines interpretive communities of Chinese media sociologists in terms of such issues as the “definition” and “topics” of media sociology.