Norman Cowie's short clip is a wry commentary on Newt Gingrich's retro-vision of the Information Age. The title of the video is borrowed from Alvin Toffler's eponymous book from 1980, which describes the transition in developed countries from industrial society, which the author calls the "Second Wave", to today's communication and information society. The Third Wave was produced for Signal to Noise: Life with Television, a series for the Independent Television Service (ITVS).