Youna Kim

Professor

Biography

Youna Kim is Professor of Global Communications at the American University of Paris, joined from the London School of Economics and Political Science where she had taught since 2004, after completing her PhD at the University of London, Goldsmiths College. Previously she had worked as a journalist in the USA and taught at Goldsmiths College during the four years of her PhD study before joining the faculty of the LSE and AUP. Her books are Women, Television and Everyday Life in Korea: Journeys of Hope (2005, Routledge); Media Consumption and Everyday Life in Asia (2008, Routledge); Transnational Migration, Media and Identity of Asian Women: Diasporic Daughters (2011, Routledge); Women and the Media in Asia: The Precarious Self (2012, Palgrave Macmillan); The Korean Wave: Korean Media Go Global (2013, Routledge); Routledge Handbook of Korean Culture and Society (2016, Routledge); Childcare Workers, Global Migration and Digital Media (2017, Routledge); South Korean Popular Culture and North Korea (2019, Routledge); The Soft Power of the Korean Wave: Parasite, BTS and Drama (2021, Routledge); Media in Asia: Global, Digital, Gendered and Mobile (2022, Routledge); Introducing Korean Popular Culture (2023, Routledge). 

Kim's books have been reviewed in various academic journals including Media, Culture & Society, Feminist Media Studies, Journal of Communication Inquiry, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Discourse & Society, Women's Studies International Forum, Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, Political Studies Review, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Asian Journal of Communication, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Journal of East Asian Studies and the Review of Korean Studies.

Education/Degrees

  • PhD, Goldsmiths College, University of London
  • MA, University of Colorado, Boulder
  • BA, Ewha Woman's University, Seoul

Publications

Books Kim, Youna (2005) Women, Television and Everyday Life in Korea: Journeys of Hope. London and New York: Routledge. This book has been reviewed in various academic journals including Media, Culture & Society (2007) Vol. 29(1) 170-171, Feminist Media Studies (2006) Vol. 6(4) 559-561, Political Studies Review (2006) Vol. 4(3) 360-361, and the Review of Korean Studies (2010) Vol. 13(2) 227-231.   Kim, Youna (ed) (2008) Media Consumption and Everyday Life in Asia. London and New York: Routledge. This book considers the emerging consequences of media consumption in people's everyday life at a time when the political, socio-economic, and cultural forces by which the media operate are rapidly globalizing in Asia. The book has been reviewed and introduced in various sites including Asian Journal of Communication (2010) Vol. 20(4) 496-497, and the Guardian newspaper, UK.   Kim, Youna (2011) Transnational Migration, Media and Identity of Asian Women: Diasporic Daughters. London and New York: Routledge. This book explores the unstudied nature of diaspora among young Korean, Japanese and Chinese women in the West and challenges the general assumptions of cosmopolitan identity formation as intersected with the media. The book has been reviewed in various academic journals including Journal of Communication Inquiry (2012) Vol. 36(3) 265-268, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (2013) Vol. 14(3): 468-475, Discourse & Society (2013) Vol. 24(1) 141-143, and Journal of Women, Politics & Policy (2015) Vol. 36(1): 128-131.  Kim, Youna (ed) (2012) Women and the Media in Asia: The Precarious Self. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. At a time of significant changes in women’s lives entering a much larger but precarious world of female individualization, this book explores such phenomena by critically incorporating the parameters of popular media culture into the overarching paradigm of gender relations, economics and politics of everyday life. The book has been reviewed in various academic journals including Women's Studies International Forum (2013) Vol. 38(1) 147-149.   Kim, Youna (ed) (2013) The Korean Wave: Korean Media Go Global. London and New York: Routledge. This book argues for the Korean Wave’s double capacity in the creation of new and complex spaces of identity that are both enabling and disabling cultural diversity in a digital cosmopolitan world.  This book has been reviewed in various sites including Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (2014) Vol. 77(3): 644-646.   Kim, Youna (ed) (2016) Routledge Handbook of Korean Culture and Society. London and New York: Routledge. This interdisciplinary book explores the formation and transformation of Korean culture and society; major social phenomena and cultural trends in contemporary Korea.     Kim, Youna (2017) Childcare Workers, Global Migration and Digital Media. London and New York: Routledge. This book explores the transnational mobility, everyday life and digital media use of childcare workers living and working abroad, and reveals the ways in which digital media empower them but also continue to reinforce existing power relations and inequalities.   Kim, Youna (ed) (2019) South Korean Popular Culture and North Korea. London and New York: Routledge. This book explores the influence of South Korean popular culture (known as the "Korean Wave" or "Hallyu") in North Korea and demonstrates that the soft power of South Korean popular culture is having an undermining impact on the hard, constraining cultural climate of North Korea. This book has been reviewed in various sites including Journal of East Asian Studies (2019) Vol. 19: 397-398.    Kim, Youna (ed) (2021) The Soft Power of the Korean Wave: Parasite, BTS and Drama. London and New York: Routledge. Focusing on the most recent phenomenon of Korean popular culture, Parasite, BTS and drama at an unprecedented historic moment, this book explores the multifaceted meaning of the Korean Wave at micro and macro levels and the process of media production, representation, circulation and consumption in a global context as a distinctive and complex form of soft power. This book has been reviewed in Asian Journal of Communication (2022) Vol. 32(6): 551-554.   Kim, Youna (ed) (2022) Media in Asia: Global, Digital, Gendered and Mobile. London and New York: Routledge. This book demonstrates the media’s centrality to the transforming of contemporary self, culture and society within their unique social contexts of Asia.  This book has been reviewed in Quarterly Review of Film and Video (2023) 27 January.      Kim, Youna (ed) (2023) Introducing Korean Popular Culture. London and New York: Routledge. This book explores Korean popular culture and its historical underpinnings, changing roles and dynamic meanings in the present moment of the digital social media age, by including a wide variety of topics such as K-pop music, cinema, television, webtoon, animation, digital games, esports, the social media, celebrity, fashion, food and lifestyles.      Articles
  • Kim, Youna (2005) ‘Experiencing Globalization: Global TV, Reflexivity and the Lives of Young Korean Women’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 8(4) 445-463.
  • Kim, Youna (2006) ‘How TV Mediates the Husband-Wife Relationship: A Korean Generation/Class/Emotion Analysis’, Feminist Media Studies, Vol. 6(2) 126-143.
  • Kim, Youna (2006) ‘The Body, TV Talk and Emotion: Methodological Reflections’, Cultural Studies/Critical Methodologies, Vol. 6(2) 226-244. This article has been ranked in The 50 Most-Frequently Read Articles for the journal (updated monthly).
  • Kim, Youna (2007) ‘The Rising East Asian ‘Wave’: Korean Media Go Global’, in Daya Thussu (ed) Media on the Move: Global Flow and Contra-Flow. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Kim, Youna (2008) ‘The Media and Asian Transformations’, in Youna Kim (ed) Media Consumption and Everyday Life in Asia. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Kim, Youna (2010) 'Female Individualization?: Transnational Mobility and Media Consumption of Asian Women', Media, Culture & Society, Vol. 32(1): 25-43. This article has been ranked in The 50 Most-Frequently Read Articles for the journal (updated monthly).
  • Kim, Youna (2011) 'Diasporic Nationalism and the Media: Asian Women on the Move', International Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 14(2): 133-151. 
  • Kim, Youna (2011) 'Female Cosmopolitanism?: Media Talk and Identity of Transnational Asian Women', Communication Theory, Vol. 21(3): 279-298.
  • Kim, Youna (2011) 'Globalization of Korean Media: Meanings and Significance', in Do Kyun Kim and Min Sun Kim (eds) Hallyu: Influence of Korean Popular Culture in Asia and Beyond. Seoul: Seoul National University Press.
  • Kim, Youna (2012) 'Female Individualization and Popular Media Culture in Asia', in Youna Kim (ed) Women and the Media in Asia: The Precarious Self. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Kim, Youna (2012) 'Gender and Asia: Why Study Media Culture?', Inter Asia, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain. This article is based on four public talks that Kim has delivered at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain in 2012.
  • Kim, Youna (2013) ‘Korean Media in a Digital Cosmopolitan World’, in Youna Kim (ed) The Korean Wave: Korean Media Go Global. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Kim, Youna (with Joseph Nye) (2013) ‘Soft Power and the Korean Wave’, in Youna Kim (ed) The Korean Wave: Korean Media Go Global. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Kim, Youna (2013) ‘Korean Wave Pop Culture in the Global Internet Age: Why Popular? Why Now?’, in Youna Kim (ed) The Korean Wave: Korean Media Go Global. London and New York: Routledge. 
  • Kim, Youna (2014) ‘Asian Women Audiences, Asian Popular Culture, and Media Globalization’, in Cynthia Carter, Linda Steiner and Lisa McLaughlin (eds) Routledge Companion to Media and Gender. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Kim, Youna (2014) 'Soft Power and Cultural Nationalism: The Korean Wave' ('Soft Power et Nationalisme Culturel: La Vague Coréenne'), Outre-Terre (French-language) European Journal of Geopolitics, Paris, Vol. 39: 331-337. 
  • Kim, Youna (2014) 'The Korean Wave (Hallyu)', Anthropology News (AN), and Society for East Asian Anthropology (SEAA), USA.
  • Kim, Youna (2016) ‘Mobile Phone for Empowerment?: Global Nannies in Paris’, Media, Culture & Society, Vol. 38(4): 525-539.
  • Kim, Youna (2016) ‘Diasporic Daughters and Digital Media: Willing to Go Anywhere for a While’, Cultural Studies, Vol. 30(3): 532-547.
  • Kim, Youna (2016) 'Media and Cultural Cosmopolitanism: Asian Women in Transnational Flows', in Fran Martin and Tania Lewis (eds) Lifestyle Media in Asia: Consumption, Aspiration and Identity. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Kim, Youna (2016) 'Digital Diaspora, Mobility and Home', in Koichi Iwabuchi, Chris Berry and Eva Tsai (eds) Routledge Handbook for East Asian Pop Culture. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Kim, Youna (2016) 'Korean Culture and Society: A Global Approach', in Youna Kim (ed) Routledge Handbook of Korean Culture and Society. London and New York: Routledge. 
  • Kim, Youna (2017) ‘Digital Media and Intergenerational Migration: Nannies from the Global South’, Communication Review, Vol. 20(2): 122-141
  • Kim, Youna (2017) 'Digital Media for Intimacy?: Asian Nannies' Transnational Mothering in Paris', Journal of International Communication, Vol. 23(2): 1-18. 
  • Kim, Youna (2017) 'Reception', in Patrick Roessler (ed) The International Encyclopedia of Media Effects. Wiley-Blackwell and the International Communication Association (ICA).
  • Kim, Youna (2018) ‘Hallyu: Korean Wave Media Culture in a Digital Age’, in Dal Yong Jin and Nojin Kwak (eds) Communication, Digital Media and Popular Culture in Korea. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. 
  • Kim, Youna (2019) 'Hallyu and North Korea: Soft Power of Popular Culture', in Youna Kim (ed) South Korean Popular Culture and North Korea. London and New York: Routledge. 
  • Kim, Youna (2019) 'Media and Transnational Mobility of Korean Women', in Yonson Ahn (ed)Transnational Mobility and Identity In and Out of Korea. Lanham: Lexington Books.
  • Kim, Youna (2020) ‘Digital Media and East Asian Diaspora’, in Ajaya Sahoo (ed) Routledge Handbook of Asian Diaspora and Development. London and New York: Routledge. 
  • Kim, Youna (2020) ‘Study Abroad, Media and Digital Diaspora of Korean Women’, in Yoko Kobayashi (ed) Attitudes to Study Abroad among Japanese, Chinese and Korean Women: Motivations, Expectations and Identity. London and New York: Routledge. 
  • Kim, Youna (2021) ‘Popular Culture and Soft Power in the Social Media Age’, in Youna Kim (ed) The Soft Power of the Korean Wave: Parasite, BTS and Drama. London and New York: Routledge. 
  • Kim, Youna (2021) ‘North Korea and South Korean Popular Culture in the Digital Age’, in Youna Kim (ed) The Soft Power of the Korean Wave: Parasite, BTS and Drama. London and New York: Routledge. 
  • Kim, Youna (2022) ‘Introduction: Media in Asia’, in Youna Kim (ed) Media in Asia: Global, Digital, Gendered and Mobile. London and New York: Routledge. 
  • Kim, Youna (2022) ‘Soft Power and Cultural Nationalism: Globalization of the Korean Wave’, in Youna Kim (ed) Media in Asia: Global, Digital, Gendered and Mobile. London and New York: Routledge. 
  • Kim, Youna (2022) ‘Transnational Popular Culture’, in Francis Collins and Brenda Yeoh (eds) Handbook on Transnationalism. London: Edward Elgar Publishing. 
  • Kim, Youna (2022) ‘Hallyu’s Soft Power and Politics’, in Rosalie Kim (ed) Hallyu! The Korean Wave. London: Victoria and Albert Museum. 
  • Kim, Youna (2023) ‘Situating Korean Popular Culture in the Global Culture Landscape’, in Youna Kim (ed) Introducing Korean Popular Culture. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Kim, Youna (2023) ‘The Korean Wave Television: From Winter Sonata to Squid Game’, in Youna Kim (ed) Introducing Korean Popular Culture. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Kim, Youna (2024) ‘The Korean Wave: Soft Power in a Digital Age’, forthcoming in Daya Thussu and Sudeshna Roy (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Communication and Media in the Global South. London and New York: Routledge. 
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Affiliations

Professor Kim has been invited to join the International Editorial Board of the International Journal of Cultural Studies, Communication Yearbook (ICA), Global Media and Communication, and Feminist Media Studies, and the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Social and Political Thought (International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory). She reviews book proposals for publishers Routledge and SAGE and serves as a referee for academic journals in the field of media, communications, sociology, cultural and gender studies.