the new term 'information society' gave form to a cluster of hitherto more loosely related aspects of communication -- knowledge, news, literature, entertainment, all exchanged through different media and different media materials -- paper, ink, canvas, paint, celluloid, cinema, radio, television and computers.

From the 1960s onwards, all messages, public and private, verbal and visual, began to be considered as 'data', information that could be transmitted, collected, recorded, whatever their point of origin, most effective through electronic technology.