The Visibility Dilemma: Investigating the Intermediating Role of Platform Algorithms in Government Communication, Kayla Schwoerer, Ph.D.

Join SPIA and Pitt Cyber as we welcome Kayla Schwoerer, Ph.D., to share with us her research on how 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.