The emergence of new information and communication technologies and new social communication practices has called for the transformation of communication studies. Communication researchers have been asking a number of questions: Can the new information and communication technologies lead to a paradigm shift in communication theories? Are classic communication theories still applicable to the new media environment? What are the new research questions that emerge in the new media age? What are the interactions between the new information and communication technologies and new media research? How do the new media studies transform the current communication research? How should Chinese new media research be developed under the background of globalization and unique context of Chinese society and culture? Based on the review of previous research, this study analyzes three approaches to new media studies, namely social scientific, critical, and interpretive paradigms, and reveals three findings. First, it is the changing communication activities and practices in which people engage that lead to the changing views of communication, such as a shift from ''mediaaudience'' study to ''new mediauser'' study. Moreover, the development of new media industry not only generates new research objects and theories, but offers new perspectives and methods to test classic theories. Second, in examining the relationship between new media technologies and social change, this study concludes that technological determinism is usually a dominant paradigm in the early phase of new media technologies. As these new technologies diffuse, researchers will turn to a social shaping perspective that focuses on how new media technologies are shaped by various social forces on the one hand, and are shaping social life in sociohistorical contexts on the other. Third, the emergence of new media events has become a unique and influential communication phenomenon that attracts the attention of a large number of Chinese communication researchers. Nevertheless, most of these studies are case studies and are limited to the application of western theories to the Chinese society, thus failing to provide any insight into the communication mechanism in the Chinese new media environment. Against such a backdrop, this study suggests a possible direction for Chinese scholars to facilitate a ''cultural shift'' of new media research, to adopt the ''thick description'' method of cultural sociology to reveal the specific implications of new media events, and to uncover the sociopsychological consequences of these events and their associated social factors in the Chinese context. The goal is to highlight the interplay of different social forces in new media studies in transitional China. Meanwhile, scholars should take advantage of new media technologies to develop new research methods and procedures, to explore unique research questions in the Chinese social and cultural context, and to generate new theories that can facilitate the development of communication research.