Sungyong Ahn

Dr. Sungyong Ahn is a Lecturer in Digital Media and Cultures in the School of Communication and Arts at the University of Queensland, Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. He is also an affiliate of the Centre for Digital Cultures & Societies. Ahn holds a Bachelor of Philosophy from Yonsei University, a Masters (Research) of Film and Television from Chung-Ang University, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Media Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He joined the University of Queensland as Lecturer in May 2021. His research examines smart technologies and the ontological challenges they pose, particularly how machines surpass human perception in interpreting realities within and around us. Focusing on the Internet of Things (IoT), Ahn explores hidden arrangements that induce normalized paranoia, leading to acceptance of IoT as advanced self-governance techniques.

Ahn's academic interests include digital ontology, new materialism, speculative capitalist realism, quantum physics as cultural imagination, science and technology studies, actor-network theory, French philosophy (Foucault, Deleuze, Badiou), eco- and geo-philosophy, and new materialist film and videogame studies. Fields of research span ecocriticism, language, communication and culture, literary studies, sociology, and sociology of science and technology. Key publications feature his monograph Internet-ontologies-Things: Smart Objects, Hidden Problems, and Their Symmetries (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023), co-authored textbook Media & Society: Power, Platforms and Participation (Sage Publications, 2025), book chapter 'Digital Ontology' (De Gruyter Handbook of Digital Cultures, 2025), and articles such as 'Affordance of Generative AI: For a Posthuman Tool Analysis' (Convergence, 2025), 'Quantum Physics in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: New Capitalist Realism for the Anthropocene' (Postmodern Culture, 2024), ''Take Care of Stray Cats': Biopolitical Life Ethics and Its Cosmopolitical Countermethod' (Journal of Cultural Economy, 2022), 'Stream Your Brain! Speculative Economy of the IoT and Its Pan-Kinetic Dataveillance' (Big Data & Society, 2021), and 'Symmetrifying Smart Home: Topological Power and the New Governmentality of the Internet of Things' (Media Theory, 2021). Ahn supervises doctoral students on platformization and digital media impacts and teaches courses including Digital Media Industries.

Professional Email: sungyong.ahn@uq.edu.au