Communications: A special report

History records periods of great change with labels: Renaissance, Age of Reason, Industrial Revolution, and the like. The 20th century has ushered in the Electronic Revolution, and with it has come yet another label: the Information Society. Information management and exploitation, the experts say, will change the fabric of society. Manipulated by microelectronic, computer, radio, and other electronic disciplines, information has become a commodity on a par with pork bellies at the trade exchange. But unlike the prices of most commodities today, the price for exchange of information is decreasing because of electronics.