Information society
user, there is also the alluring potential for inter-
activity to the point where the user becomes the
producer.
Th e more enterprising traditional media have
already taken on board the need for diversifi ca-
tion of approaches, for nurturing feedback
and providing for interactivity, and professional
journalists these days operate their own blogs.
Further, the press off er free access to their own
online news, comment and information services.
Rather than fi ghting off the ‘blogger opposition’
they now scout the blogosphere for news
feeds and comment.
A problem for the future is whether news
organizations can continue to provide a slice of
their services for free. In 2010, Rupert Murdoch’s
News International decided that the online news
services of Th e Times would only be available on
subscription. Th e jury remains out on whether
users could be persuaded to pay for what they
formerly had for free.
Prevailing worries concerning information
surplus, audience fragmentation and competi-
tion for attention relate to such trends as the
switch of attention by online users – especially
among young people, for whom newspaper
reading in particular is in decline – from news
to entertainment.
Information technology (IT) Micro-electron-
ics plus computing plus telecommunications
equals IT. Its formal definition is framed as
follows in a UK Department of Industry publi-
cation (1981) for Information Technology Year
(1982): ‘Th e acquisition, processing, storage and
dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and
numerical information by a micro-electronics-
based combination of computing and telecom-
munications.’
Information Technology Advisory Panel
(ITAP) Report on Cable Systems See cable
television.
Infotainment Term used to describe the trend
towards enhancing the entertainment value of
factual programmes in order to increase their
popularity with audiences. Th ere are concerns,
expressed by a number of analysts, that news
and current aff airs coverage may become trivial-
ized by such an approach. See documentary.
▶Daya Kishan Th ussu, News as Entertainment: Th e
Rise of Global Infotainment (Sage, 2008).
Inheritance factor Th e TV programme which
captures a viewer’s attention paves the way for
those that follow.
Inner-outer directed See vals typology.
Inoculation eff ect In the processes of persua-
sion, a relative immunity in an audience mayj-curve; media imperialism; misinformed
society; mobilization.
Information society Th e Japanese were the fi rst
to apply the tag to this stage in the growth of the
industrial era in which information has become
the central and most significant ‘commodity’.
Through the development of computers and
associated electronic systems, such aspects of
national and international life as class relation-
ships, government, economics and diplomacy
are being visualized as functions of information
transfer. Indeed we are at the point when infor-
mation and wealth are practically one and the
same thing.
With the development of satellite surveillance
it is now possible for a country highly advanced
in informatics to know more about the topogra-
phy of, say, a developing nation than that coun-
try’s own government does. And information
is power that crosses national boundaries with
greater ease than invading armies.
Information is not only a commodity but also a
social and cultural resource, raising questions of
social allocation and control, with such associ-
ated problems as privacy, access, commercial
privilege and public interest.
Information suburbs See technological
determinism.
Information surplus Any situation in which
there is more information available than is
necessary, called-for or manageable, but most
relevantly for the study of communication, the
availability of information on the internet.
In the age of digital distribution and reception
of information, surplus is standard; often to
the point of being information overload. The
problem of over-abundant information is
compounded by the fact that online, it is gener-
ally free and fast.
What is in short supply – from the point of
view of traditional media communication and
equally of online communicators (bloggers,
contributors to youtube and websites across
the board) – is attention. Users may only amount
to scores or hundreds; they may also amount to
millions; but how can their attention be captured
and preferably retained? – this in the context of
dramatic reductions in newspaper readership
wherever online activity has increased.
A regular complaint concerning online news
and entertainment websites is that they under-
cut traditional mass media, draw off audiences,
subvert the market for information and threaten
professional standards (see journalism: citi-
zen journalism). Not only does much online
purveying of news and views come free to the