The Information Society as Frontier, as Utopia?

I'm currently reading The Information Society Reader edited by Frank Webster (Routledge, 2004). It is ideal for me at this stage as I try to explore different perspectives on the concept of the Information Society. It pulls together key readings on information society issues such as-

• post-industrialism and globalisation
• surveillance
• the network society
• democracy
• digital divisions

The thinkers whose work I have been interested in exploring all feature: Toffler, Roszak, Webster himself, Bell, Castells, Schiller, Foucault, Zuboff, Habermas, Poster.

I'm particularly interested in the scrutinizing the utopian visions of futurists such as Toffler. I find the tone of his piece with Dyson, Gilder and Keyworth, "Cyberspace and the American Dream" (The Information Society 12 1996), frighteningly neo-conservative in tone. In their piece they firmly plant the American flag in the virtual soil of cyberspace. The narrative has shades of the biblical, rousing "the people" to claim their (divine?) mission -

"It is time to embrace these challenges, to grasp the future and pull ourselves forward. If we do so, we will indeed renew the American Dream and enhance the promise of American life."

The tone is absolute, cyberspace is "literally universal". Of course it isn't, yet the writing does not look outwith the bounds of its own metaphors. The spirit of the pioneer is cited as motivation to "tame" this "bioelectronic environment". The frontier imagery is thematic throughout. There is an unashamedly deterministic tone to the narrative; cyberspace as "ecosystem", nature becomes the "nature of the marketplace" and "dynamic competition", which morphes into a discussion of the "nature of freedom". This sequence is presented as natural, an organic process, evolutionary even.

Information Society discourse as ideology?