Youngrim Kim

Hello!

I am an assistant professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University's School of Communication & Information. I study the politics of datafication and platform governance in the context of East Asia.

My work sits at the intersection of digital media studies, critical data studies, and science and technology studies. I use qualitative and interpretive methods to explore how digital platforms and data-driven systems shape statecraft and civic life. Specifically, I focus on how large-scale data practices—such as pandemic surveillance technologies or environmental monitoring systems—become instruments of governance that transform notions of public interest, citizenship, and belonging. I also explore the reverse dynamic by studying grassroots engagement with these data infrastructures. From providing routine consent in digital tracking tools to collecting marginalized data for political advocacy to organizing resistance against surveillance, different civic actors participate in and shape the contentious politics of data. 

Although these data-driven systems and infrastructures often appear at the local level, they carry significant global implications. Our data-saturated world depends on interconnected forms of labor and resource extraction, while geopolitical tensions over security and sovereignty shape transnational data flows. My work traces how these global forces merge with local histories and contexts, influencing the ways different societies build, interact with, and are reconfigured by evolving digital infrastructures.

Building on this perspective, my research program is organized into three key areas: 

1. Data politics and governance

2. The geopolitics of digital infrastructures

3. Global media cultures

For more details about my past and ongoing research, please visit the Research and Book Projects section.

• Fields of Interest

  • Digital Platforms and Infrastructures

  • Critical Data Studies

  • Science, Technology, and Society (STS)