"Information society" is a broad term used to describe the social, economic, technological, and cultural changes associated with the rapid development and widespread use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in modern nations societies, especially since World War II. Information societies are thought to differ from industrial societies because they treat information as a commodity, especially scientific and technical information; because they employ large numbers of "information workers" in their economies; because information and communication technologies and channels are prolific and are widely used; and because using those technologies and channels has given people a sense of "interconnectedness."

The term is somewhat controversial. Some experts believe that new media and computing technologies have produced a fundamentally new kind of society; others think that the technologies may have changed but that the basic social, cultural, and economic arrangements continue to look much as...