Today's German word is a compound of Information (information, knowledge) and Gesellschaft (society).
The reason why we write about this term is a certain ambiguity, which we nefariously call a serious lack of information or knowledge about its meaning.
On the face of it, what could be more correct than translating Informationsgesellschaft as information society and knowldege society as Wissensgesellschaft? What's more, that is exactly what you find in the vast majority of German to English dictionaries.
Yet, when you look at usage of the terms in their respective native language environments, you will find the Germans using Informationsgesellschaft where the English speaking world uses knowledge society.
Why is this a problem?
Because sociology and philosophy majors as well as derived politicians insist that there is a difference in English between knowledge society and information society, the latter being not much more than a society focused on the acquisition and dissemination of data, the former being one that generates, processes, shares and makes available knowledge.
You can find this differentiation of terms in the German Wikipedia, too.
Specialist German publications, for example, Gabler's German dictionary of economics, emphasize the dominance of "information and communication services" over "traditional industrial production". You can consider this as blurring the neat lines between knowledge society and information society or as a pretty good match with this United Nations definition "Knowledge Societies are identified as societies based on the creation, dissemination and utilization of information and knowledge."
The same source says:
Knowledge Society or Information
Society?
Information Society emphasizes amount of information available and accessible.
It emphasizes technology (ICT).
The issue does not get any easier because, as you noticed, the knowledge society definition includes information and knowledge. And to top it off, haven't all human societies throughout history been based on the creation, dissemination and utilization of information and knowledge?
Let philosophers debate the most def crucial differences between information and knowledge, we will stick with the meaning of the terms as they evolved.
That evolution pre-dates the wide spread use of computers, which the Germans tend to put into the category of "Informationstechnologie" while the English speaking world goes with computer science.
So, blame it on those early days when smart people woke up one morning and said, we need to find a term to describe the vast increase in human knowledge and its implications for mankind, what shall we call this?
Knowledge society, spoke the folks of the language of Shakespeare.
Informationsgesellschaft, said the Germans.
Matter does it not, Yoda said.
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