“Any text in spoken English is organized into what may be called 'information units'. (…) this is not determined (…) by constituent structure. Rather could it be said that the distribution of information specifies a distinct structure on a different plan. (…) Information structure is realized phonologically by 'tonality', the distribution of the text into tone groups.”

— Michael Halliday

Michael Halliday Notes on transitivity and theme in English: Part 2, 1967. p. 200 cited in: Klaus von Heusinger "Information Structure and the Partition of Sentence Meaning". In: Eva Hajičová (2002) Form, Meaning and Function. p. 287
1950s–1960s

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Michael Halliday23

Australian linguist 1925–2018

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

The Structure of Information Retrieval Systems (1959)

“Disintegration of structure equals information loss.”

Gregory Benford book In the Ocean of Night

The Snark, a member of a machine-intelligence civilization, p. 195
In the Ocean of Night (1977)

“"information" is not a substance or concrete entity but rather a relationship between sets or ensembles of structured variety.”

Walter F. Buckley (1922–2006) American sociologist

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 47.

“[This] is or should be our main scientific activity — studying the structure of information and the structure of problem solving processes independently of applications and independently of its realization in animals or humans.”

John McCarthy (1927–2011) American computer scientist and cognitive scientist

John McCarthy (1974), quoted in: Joscha Bach (2009) Principles of Synthetic Intelligence PSI, p. 233
1970s

“STRUCTURE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN CONTENT IN THE TRANSMISSION OF INFORMATION.”

Abbie Hoffman (1936–1989) American political and social activist

Source: Revolution for the Hell of It (1968), p. 109, quoting the famous statement of Marshall McLuhan.
Context: STRUCTURE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN CONTENT IN THE TRANSMISSION OF INFORMATION. It is the same as saying "the medium is the message."

“Organization structure must perform the major functions of facilitating the collection of information from external areas as well as permitting effective processing of information within and between subunits which make up the organization.”

David A. Nadler (1948–2015) American organizational theorist

Source: "Information Processing as an Integrating Concept in Organizational Design." 1978, p. 615