Drawing upon the idea of “traveling theory” and the concept of “cultural intermediaries”, the current study seeks to understand the processes by which Chinese academic community introduces, incorporates, transplants and fnally domesticates media sociology. By analyzing empirical data derived from survey, in-depth interviews, as well as archival and textual sources, we argue that the domestication of media sociology unfolds along both a vision centering about classics and a set of practices oriented toward the present. In the end, the western media sociology has been transformed into a sociology of news, with its ideals and theories being mobilized as discursive resources and local knowledge for the emancipation of journalism studies and journalistic practices.