Focusing particularly on communication as a discipline, this paper is a review and synthesis of literature about scholarly communication in the social sciences. Drawing from literature about ferment in the communication discipline, from information science, the sociology of knowledge, and the philosophy of social science, the paper argues that social theories do not and need not fall within disciplinary boundaries. The paper observes that many of the reasons why disciplines come to be defined as they do is more related to historical accident than to conceptual rigor. Institutional inertia exerts a powerful restraint against interdisciplinary social research through the maintenance of academic departments, associations and journals and the reward structures they impose. However, the mere fact of the existence of these forces is not a conceptually defensible basis for discouraging interdisciplinary research. The paper also argues that the ubiquity of human communication demands a theoretical perspective that is not subject to rigid boundaries of specialization. The felt need to develop a paradigm of communication is evidenced in the recent literature about intellectual ferment among communication scholars. The paper notes that communication theory has begun to be equated with social theory in general through the work of scholars such as Habermas. In that light, human communication can be seen as a central element in all social research. This is a unique feature that sets communication apart as an interdisciplinary "discipline." (A four-page bibliography and 15 notes are attached.) (Author/JK)