par Zumofen, Raphael;Mabillard, Vincent 
Référence Transforming Government, page (1-20)
Publication Publié, 2026-08-18
Référence Transforming Government, page (1-20)
Publication Publié, 2026-08-18
Article révisé par les pairs
| Résumé : | This article examines how public administrations perceive and govern collaboration withsocial-media influencers (SMIs), conceptualizing these partnerships as public values trade-offsbetween platform logics and administrative norms.Drawing on 19 semi-structured interviews with social-media managers in four countries, thestudy explores the challenges encountered in collaborating with SMI and the governancemechanisms developed to cope with them. It interprets this type of collaboration as involvingpotential conflict between platform logics (such as authenticity, personalization, andimmediacy) and core public values (such as transparency, accountability, and integrity).The findings reveal recurring dilemmas related to influencer selection and reputational risk,loss of message control, tone and institutional image, legitimacy of public spending,administrative rigidity, and impact evaluation. Public administrations respond throughgovernance mechanisms including vetting procedures, contractual formalization, content co-construction, disclosure practices, adapted approval chains, and internal capacity-building.These mechanisms do not eliminate difficulties but seek to manage them.By conceptualizing SMI collaborations as public values trade-offs, the study advances thetheoretical understanding of digital public communication. It demonstrates how thesecollaborations compel public administrations to arbitrate between public values withinplatformized environments structured by commercial and algorithmic logics. In doing so, thestudy contributes to the literature on public values by empirically examining how such trade-offs are negotiated in practice and how governance mechanisms emerge as attempts to balance,rather than resolve, these tensions. |
