Tues Nov 3 @ 11:30AM | The Visibility Dilemma | Posvar 3911
Government agencies increasingly rely on X, Instagram, and other commercial platforms to share information about public services, policies, and crises. But these platforms are not neutral channels. Proprietary algorithms designed to maximize attention, engagement, and monetization rather than public values shape which government messages become visible, to whom, and when. To reach citizens, agencies may therefore feel pressure to adjust their communication strategies to fit the affordances and logics of platforms, e.g., leveraging meme formats, emotional narratives, ephemeral trends, and pop culture. While these strategies may increase (algorithmic) visibility, they can also sit uneasily with expectations that government communication be neutral, professional, and trustworthy. Hence, the visibility dilemma. This 3-year comparative research project was recently funded by the NWO’s (Dutch Research Council) Veni grant (€ 320000) as part of the NWO Talent Programme to study how algorithmic intermediation is reshaping the relationship between citizens and the state. The project combines conceptual research, computational and qualitative analysis of government social media, and survey experiments across the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden. By comparing agencies operating on the same platforms but within different administrative traditions, the research aims to systematically examine the ways platform algorithms are influencing government communication strategies and whether broader institutional norms provide varying degrees of friction from such pressures.
Kayla Schwoerer, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Public Administration at Vrije Universiteit Administration and an Associate Research Professor at Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany, SUNY. She is also the founder of the Governance & Digital Experience (GovDX) Lab, a Research Fellow at the Center for Technology in Government (CTG), and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT). Her research explores how digital platforms and technologies are reshaping interactions between public and nonprofit institutions and the communities they serve, including how to design, implement, and manage new and emerging technologies responsibly. Dr. Schwoerer’s research has received awards from the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), American Political Science Association (APSA), NASPAA, and IBM’s Center for the Business of Government and been published in top journals, including the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (JPART), Public Administration, and Government Information Quarterly. She earned her Ph.D. from Rutgers University-Newark’s School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA) in December 2022.
Presented by CGM, Pitt Cyber, the Governing Technology Seminar, SPIA Dean’s Office, and Department of Communication.