This is about Mathias Klang. For a more formal curriculum vitae, click here.
Since September 2017, I have worked as an Associate Professor in Digital Technologies and Emerging Media in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University.
Prior to this, I was an Associate Professor in Political Communication and Social Media at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, and before that, I was a Docent at the University of Göteborg and the University of Borås.
My research explores the ways in which we attempt to control technology and the ways in which our technology regulates us. In particular, I am fascinated as to how technology impacts on civil rights. My work looks at the ways in which our desire for convenient technology have led us to a slow but steady deterioration of many of our fundamental rights. The point of this work is not to avoid technology, but to imagine the legal protections and social norms needed in a technological society.
Between 2014-2015 I was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School of Communications, University of Pennsylvania.
Before 2013 I lived in Sweden and worked as a researcher and Associate Professor at the Dept. of Applied IT at the University of Göteborg and The Swedish School of Information and Library Science at the University of Borås. I retain ties with both institutions but now live in Philadelphia and Boston.
My research career began in 1998 when I joined the Viktoria Research Institute at the University of Göteborg where I researched and published on virtual communities and the question of online trust. This area, while fruitful, was very wide and I focused more on rights based questions. During the period 2001 – 2006, my work was focused on copyright, open access, free speech and privacy. Aside from numerous articles this work culminated in the edited work “Human Rights in the Digital Age” and my PhD thesis “Disruptive Technology: Effects of Technology Regulation on Democracy”. This work studied the unintended consequences to democratic principles that arise when states attempt to regulate technology.
Following my thesis I worked for a year as a legal council in open access questions and working to facilitate the introduction of an open access requirement in the Swedish Research Council application process. During this period I maintained a publication rate focused within copyright licensing (both software and content), open access in addition to questions of privacy and online free speech.
Upon returning to research, my work has become more focused in two areas: open content and software licensing and digital rights in social media social media. The latter studies the ways in which human rights are affected when social media becomes a fundamental communications infrastructure. Most of my more recent conference and journal publications are to be found in this area.
Until 2013 I divided my time between the University of Göteborg and the Swedish School of Library and Information Science. My area of study has been heavily influenced by the increased mobility in technology and the expansion of social media. My latest publications include studies of social media regulation, free speech, ebooks, copyright and piracy.
In addition to this between 2005 – 2013 I was Project Lead for Creative Commons Sweden and I maintain a large network among the open content community and have provided advice and support for open knowledge and open license groups.
The goal of my work is to develop theory for understanding the ways in which our technology adoption disrupts and controls our everyday lives, simultaneously enabling great freedom and increased social and political control.
Extra stuff
