Regulating Cyberspace: Metaphor, Rhetoric, Reality, and the Framing of Legal Options

This Article argues that the "information superhighway" metaphor is a strategically chosen rhetorical device used to frame debate about Internet and telecommunications regulation, to implicitly suggest the particular legal choices are more viable-and valid-than others, and to guide the future of law in cyberspace. In particular, the metaphor embraces a commerce-based, marketplace model of regulation that emphasizes speed and quantity of information as a product or good rather than the content or quality of communication and its ability to sustain extant communities and cultures. Along the way, the Article traces the development of the "information superhighway" metaphor and explores some of its weaknesses for framing regulation of the Internet and telecommunications.