My name ist Eric Mülling. The title of my doctoral thesis is „Big Data and Digital Disobedience“. My thesis advisors are Professor Dr. Heinz Kleger and Dr. Ansgar Klein. The project is supported by a scholarship from the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation.
Research project
Big Data does not only stand for new data processing possibilities, it also represents a threat to civil liberties. Edward Snowden’s exposure of the surveillance programs PRISM and Tempora showed for which purposes Big Data can be used. The intelligence service’s huge database systems store dozens of Petabytes of communication flows. Public institutions collect the data of millions of people – without their knowledge and consent. Internet enterprises do the same in the interest of their advertising customers. While protest in different countries remains restrained, net activists try to change these circumstances. My doctoral thesis’ point of origin is the normative appreciation that justified civil disobedience is an option for resistance. Accordingly, Digital Disobedience would be an internet-focused version of the same phenomenon and therefore a justifiable form of opposition within a liberal democracy. In this regard, Snowden’s actions would be justified and could not be criminalized – not even in reference to security.
My doctoral thesis deals with Big Data techniques, shows their potential risk for actors of digital disobedience and examines the social tension between security and freedom in the network. I aim to answer the following question: How does hegemonic data processing (Big Data) threaten net activists and their digital disobedience?
- ResearchGate
- ORCID ID 0000-0003-0552-6450
Publications
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Mülling, Eric, 2017: Big Data als Anreiz und Risiko für digitales Protestverhalten, in: Gralher, Kerstin (Hrsg.): Gefährdet Big Data unsere Demokratie?, Schwerte, 91–107.
- Makswitat, Eric, 2016: Die Kraft der Kopie: Das Urheberrecht, Working Paper.
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Winkler, Katrin/Makswitat, Eric, 2015: Digitale Demokratie als neue Machtform des Bürgers?, in: Jakobs, Jann/Kleger, Heinz (Hrsg.): Bürgerbeteiligung zwischen Regierungskunst und Basisaktivierung, Norderstedt, 31–42.
- Kleger, Heinz/Makswitat, Eric, 2014b: Digitaler Ungehorsam. Wie das Netz den zivilen Ungehorsam verändert, in: Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen, 8–17.
- Kleger, Heinz/Makswitat, Eric, 2014a: Der Snowden-Effekt. Warum eine Zivilgesellschaft digitalen Ungehorsam braucht, in: Neue Gesellschaft / Frankfurter Hefte, 44–49.
Conferences
- re:publica 2017
- 33C3
- VDW: Gefährdet Big Data unsere Demokratie?
- IPSA 24th World Congress of Political Science
- re:publica 2016
- Fachtagung des Projekts „ABIDA“ 2016
- DVPW Kongress 2015
- #DigiKon15
- digitising europe initiative 2015
- Staat, Internet und digitale Gouvernementalität
- M100taz.lab 2014
Own events
- 2016: Vorhersagende Polizeiarbeit in Brandenburg
- 2016: Freiheit in Zeiten geheimdienstlicher Überwachung
- 2015: Freie vs. gesellschaftlich gebundene Wissenschaft
- 2015: Tal der Ahnungslosen? – Digitale Partizipation und Breitbandausbau in Brandenburg
- 2015: Social Media und Politik in Brandenburg – Digitale Oberfläche oder Zukunft der Demokratie?