Content management or CM is a set of processes and technologies that support the evolutionary life cycle of digital information. This digital information is often referred to as content or, to be precise, digital content.

The digital content life cycle consists of six primary phases: create, update, publish, translate, archive and retire. For example, an instance of digital content is created by one or more authors. Over time that content may be edited. One or more individuals may provide some editorial oversight thereby approving the content for publication. Later that content may be superseded by another form of content and thus retired or removed from use.

Content management is an inherently collaborative process. It often consists of the following basic roles and responsibilities:

A critical aspect of content management is the ability to manage versions of content as it evolves ( see also version control). Authors and editors often need to restore older versions of edited products due to a process failure or an undesirable series of edits.

A content management system is a set of automated processes that may support the following features:

Content management systems take the following forms:

*a web content management system is computer software for web site management - which is often what is implicitly meant by this term *the work of a newspaper editorial staff organization *a workflow for article publication *a document management system *a Single source publishing content management system - where content is stored in chunks within a relational database.

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