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 so far published in New Media & Society, Information, Communication & Society, Journalism, and International Journal of Communication, and received top student paper award from International Communication Association (ICA).

My current book project, tentatively titled, “Databasing Latent Bodies: Disease 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 – 2015 MERS epidemic and COVID-19. Drawing from 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Seoul, South Korea, my project illustrates how these crisis response technologies should be considered contested sites of nation-building where different ideas about citizenship, belonging, and national futures are negotiated. This work has been so far supported by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship, and the Digital Studies Institute at the University of Michigan.

Before coming to Rutgers, 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)

    • Global Technoculture

    • Technologies of Governance


Email: youngrim.kim@rutgers.edu

Twitter: @youngrim__kim

Google Scholar: Link