Which term refers to reducing the size of data during storage or transmission?

Compression is the process of reducing the size of data so that it requires less storage space or can be transmitted more quickly. This technique is essential in managing the large volumes of data generated today, allowing for more efficient use of bandwidth and reducing costs associated with storage.

When data is compressed, it may use various algorithms to eliminate redundancy or to shorten the representation of data, making it more compact without losing essential information. By reducing the data size, compression facilitates faster uploading and downloading, and is widely used in file formats such as JPEG for images and MP3 for audio.

The other terms relate to different processes: encoding typically refers to converting data into a different format using a scheme that is publicly available or understood; packaging involves combining multiple files into a single format or archive, but not necessarily reducing their size; and normalization is a database design process to minimize redundancy and dependency among data. Each of these serves a distinct purpose and is not primarily aimed at reducing data size.