Youngrim Kim

Hello!

I am an assistant professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University's School of Communication & Information. I earned my Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in the Department of Communication and Media, with graduate certificates in Digital Studies and Science, Technology, and Society (STS). 

My research broadly centers around understanding the role of digital platforms and data-driven systems in relation to state institutions and governance. Bringing perspectives from critical data studies, science and technology studies, and digital media studies, I examine the social implications of digital platforms and data systems as they emerge from, and collide with, existing institutions, infrastructures, and cultural practices. My work has been published in Big Data & Society, New Media & Society, Information, Communication & Society, Journalism, and International Journal of Communication, to name a few, and received the Top Student Paper Award from the International Communication Association (ICA). 

My current book project, tentatively titled, Infrastructures of Vilification: Pandemic Surveillance, Data Publics, and Coded Injustice in South Korea, critically examines South Korea’s data-driven governance of public health crisis through the cases of two infectious disease outbreaks – the 2015 MERS epidemic and COVID-19. Drawing from 18 months of fieldwork in Seoul, South Korea, my project illustrates how these crisis response technologies become contested sites of nation-building where different ideas about citizenship, belonging, and national futures are negotiated. This project has been supported by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship, and the Digital Studies Institute at the University of Michigan. 

My doctoral dissertation, on which this book is based, received three dissertation awards: the Best Dissertation Award from the International Communication Association's Global Communication & Social Change division, the ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award, and the Mark Foote Distinguished Dissertation Award from the University of Michigan.

I received B.A. in Media Studies from UC Berkeley and M.A. in Communication Studies from Seoul National University.

• Fields of Interest

  • Digital Platforms and Infrastructures

  • Critical Data Studies

  • Science, Technology, and Society (STS)

Email: youngrim.kim@rutgers.edu

Twitter: @youngrim__kim

Google Scholar: Link