From George Orwell and Aldus Huxley in the middle of the last century, to Herbert Schiller and Alvin Toffler in the 1960's and '70's, theories, critical analyses and commentary on the geopolitics of information heralded the new Information Society. "Johoka Shakai" was the term used by the Japanese to describe what Harvard's Professor Anthony Otteinger called "compunications", or the study of the impact of ubiquitous communications technology on society.

Communication is becoming compunications — the linking of computers, fiber optics, satellites and newly emerging items that will enter — ready or not — our homes, classrooms and offices. All the world will no longer be a stage. It will be a shopping center.

Barry Jagoda quietly wound up a two-year assignment on the Carter White House staff yesterday… and today starts a new career… opening an office in Georgetown that will specialize in the burgeoning field of what they're calling "compunications".

That's the business of "information exchange" involving the use of computers, which is attracting so much attention among overburdened Hill and Executive branch staffers these days.