Assistant Professor

School of Communication
The Ohio State University
3127 Derby Hall
154 N. Oval Mall
Phone: 614-247-8120
Fax: 614-292-2055
kim.1996@osu.edu

B.A., Seoul National University
M.A., Seoul National University
Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

My enduring research concern has centered on how media contributes to citizens’ competence and participation in a democratic system. For the past fifty years, traditional media (particularly newspaper and television) have received much scholarly attention given that media disseminate information essential for citizens’ decision-making and provide a venue that mediates citizens and elites. However, the exponential growth and the adoption of new communication technologies, including the Internet, have dramatically changed the landscape of political communication. My recent program of research has been shaped around “political communication and new media.”

My two recent projects are good examples of my recent program of research on new media and political communication, especially concerning the development of new communication technologies. My first project, Acquiring Political Information on the Web (funded by the National Science Foundation, SBE-Political Science Division) examines why and how ordinary citizens use the Web for political information consumption and decision-making. The second project, The Logic of Collective Action in the Internet Age (funded by the Ohio State University, School of Communication), sheds light on other important political actors who have been relatively neglected in previous political communication research---issue advocacy groups and grassroots organizations and explores how issue advocacy groups and grassroots organizations use new communication technologies in lobbying legislators and mobilizing citizens.

At a more general level, I am also concerned with advancing theories and methods in mass communication and political communication by reassessing existing media effect theories. My studies regarding news media priming effects are instantiations of my research interests in this regard.

My teaching interests are consistent with but considerably broader than my research interests. I teach political communication, political communication and e-democracy, social impact of new communication technologies, and mass communication and society at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Personally, I put much value in mentoring and advising students as a responsibility of a teacher in a higher education institution. Through the mutual respect, honesty, trust, and caring that may develop as a result of mentoring relationships, we can establish scholars’ emotional well-being and sustain healthy and wholesome networks in the field.