Schiffrin describes government use of influencers for public information
Schiffrin explains governments must communicate policies to citizens amid AI slop and fragmented news habits, citing France, Canada, and the U.S. paying influencers for health, voting, and climate messaging, Health and Hospitals' pandemic work, MTA celebrity announcements, and new pilot programs under the Mamdani administration.
Anyway, because of my concern about information,
and public information, I decided to spend the summer researching influencers who provide information to New Yorkers about city services, laws, and policies.
As we know well in the communications field, it's not enough for governments to pass laws and implement policies.
It's necessary to communicate those policies to citizens.
And this task has gotten ever harder in a world of AI slop, information overload, and fragmented habits of news consumption.
I note in my paper that government agencies have long tried to provide trusted information to citizens about the services that governments provide.
In France, Canada, and the U.S., social media influencers are sometimes paid to disseminate information about health care, voting, climate change, and to reach young audiences.
I also talked about the pandemic when health and hospitals began using influencers to remind people to get tested and then to get vaccines when they were available.
The MTA has used celebrities to record public announcements about the subways.
And we just heard from the Campaign Finance Board about some of their efforts.
I'm happy to talk about my research project.
The Campaign Finance Board were the only agency using influencers that was willing to give me extensive on-the-record discussion.
And I really appreciated the comments made by the previous person.
The sanitation department hired a marketing firm, Karen Pace, to work with New York Nico as part of its campaign to remind New Yorkers not to litter.
They received a grant, the sanitation department, to spread the word about composting.
And since Mamdani's taken office, there's started to be pilot programs aimed at using influencers on Instagram and TikTok to promote city services such as pre-K, public budgeting processes, which we talked about earlier, and tenants'rights, which also came up.
And the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs recently announced a new information campaign that will include content creators and influencers.