Author: Rich Ling

Rich Ling is a professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark and has a position as a sociologist at the Telenor research institute located near Oslo, Norway. He has been the Pohs visiting professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan and now he holds an adjunct position in that department. He is the author of the soon to be published book: New Tech, New Ties: How mobile communication is reshaping social cohesion (MIT). He is also the author of a book on the social consequences of mobile telephony entitled The Mobile Connection: The cell phone's impact on society (Morgan Kaufmann) and along with Per E. Pederson the editor of the book Mobile Communications: Renegotiation of the Social Sphere (Springer). Along with Scott Campbell he is the editor of The Mobile Communication Research Series and he is an associate editor for The Information Society. as well as Norsk Medietidsskrift .

Rich Ling received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Colorado, Boulder in his native US. Upon completion of his doctorate, he taught at the University of Wyoming in Laramie before coming to Norway on a Marshall Foundation grant. Since that time he has worked at the Gruppen for Ressursstudier (The resource study group) and he has been a partner in a consulting firm, Ressurskonsult, which focused on studies of energy, technology and society. For the past thirteen years, he has worked at Telenor R&D and has been active in researching issues associated with new information communication technology and society with a particular focus on mobile telephony. He has led projects in Norway and participated in projects at the European level.

Ling has published numerous articles, held posts at and lectured at universities in Europe and the US and has participated in academic conferences in Europe, Asia, Australia and in the US. He has been responsible for organizing scholarly meetings and editing both academic journals and proceedings from academic conferences. He has received recognition as an outstanding scholar from Rutgers University and Telenor (most recently with the Telenor research award for 250 000 Norske Kroner). In addition he has received the Goffman Award from the Media Ecology Society. His analysis has appeared in Norwegian newspapers. He has been interviewed on The Discovery Channel, National Public radio and Norwegian TV as well as for periodicals such as the New York Times, The Economist, The Los Angeles Times, Der Speigel, Newsweek, Época (Brazil), The Toronto Globe and Mail, and Norwegian publications such as Aftenposten, VG, and Dagbladet.