compunications

(kawm.PYOO.nuh.kay.shun)

n.

Any form of computer-based communication, including e-mail, fax, and voice mail. Also: compunication.

Example Citations:

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.

— "Bridging the Digital Divide And Creating Digital Multipliers," Africa News, August 16, 2002

Communication is becoming compunication — 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.

— Marshall Fishwick, "This is big," Roanoke Times & World News, August 11, 1995

Earliest Citation:

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.

— John Carmody, "Now Here's the News," The Washington Post, January 23, 1979

Categories:

Communications

E-mail

Cell Phones

Telephones