Prof. Dr. Matthias C. Kettemann, LL.M. (Harvard) heads Research Program 2, Regulatory Structures and the Emergence of Rule in Online Spaces, and the research group on Opinion Formation at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI). His team examines the rules under which new forums and practices of societal understanding and self-reflection emerge in digital communication spaces, particularly on social networks.
After studying law in Graz and Geneva, and at Harvard as a Fulbright and Boas scholar, he earned his doctorate with a thesis on the legal status of the individual in international law. In 2014, he was appointed as a postdoctoral researcher at the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders” at Goethe University Frankfurt, where he completed his habilitation under Prof. Kadelbach and Prof. Vesting at the Institute of Public Law at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main with a thesis on the normative order of the internet, receiving the venia legendi in international law, internet law, and legal theory. After visiting professorships in Heidelberg and Jena, he accepted an appointment in autumn 2021 to the Chair of Innovation, Theory and Philosophy of Law at the Institute for Theory and Future of Law at the University of Innsbruck.
Other Activities
In addition to his work at the HBI, Matthias C. Kettemann is Head of Research New Technologies and the Future of Law at the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG). He is also Director of the Innsbruck Quantum Ethics Lab; a member of the UNESCO World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST); a member of the board and research group leader for Platform and Content Governance” at the Sustainable Computing Lab at the Vienna University of Economics and Business; as well as an advisor and board member of various foundations and funding institutions in Germany and abroad.
