About

Kelley Cotter is a faculty member associated with the Media Effects Research Lab at Penn State. The provided page text does not include specific details about her research focus, background, or key contributions. Therefore, a detailed biography cannot be generated from the available information.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Security
• World Wide Web
• Internet privacy
• Data science
• Public relations
• Law
• Economics
• Medicine
• Epistemology
• Business
• Algorithm

Selected publications

• The Infrastructure of Transphobic Feminism: A Digital Ethnography of an Anti-Trans Forum

  AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research · 2026-01-02

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The rise in anti-transgender legislation and violence over the 2020s has made addressing transphobic ideologies increasingly pertinent. This paper outlines an on-going digital ethnography of the anti-trans feminist forum Ovarit, asking what affects, discourses, and desires are produced through the socio-technical relations infrastructured on the forum? We are specifically interested in how anti-trans feminists routinize and legitimize their worldview through the relations and interactions afforded by the sites material design. This study is framed through a Black feminist theoretical lens to remain attentive to the ways race structures gender within anti-trans feminist discourse. Methodologically we first employed a walkthrough of the site to gather data on the structural design and ideological positioning of the forum as constructed by its creators. Following this we are conducting an on-going digital ethnography. This involves engaging with the forum as a non-participatory lurker, i.e., as someone who is heavily engaged with the forum on a daily basis but does not post or comment. Our preliminary findings indicate users posts are primarily interested in sharing instances of alleged trans misdeeds, either by linking to news articles or sharing anecdotes. The repetition and volume of these trans-antagonistic posts creates an environment where trans lives are deemed unlivable in public or private life. Future work will extend these initial findings, plotting out the particular patterns of user interactions. This research will contribute to existing studies exploring online bigotry and explore how anti-trans feminist rhetoric becomes materialized online.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• God(bots) and Authority: Trust and Faith in the Age of AI

  AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research · 2026-01-02

  articleOpen access

  In this paper we systematically survey emergent religious and spiritual (R/S) AI chatbot applications and outline our plans to conduct application walkthroughs to collect and analyze developer discourses. Our research asks: 1) How is authority, through trust and/or faith, discursively constructed around R/S chatbots? 2) How do developers synthesize Silicon Valley worldviews with existent R/S beliefs within the discursive construction of their applications? We sought to answer these questions by first conducting a systematic survey of existing R/S AI integrated applications on DuckDuckGo, iOS App Store, and Google Play Store. Through this we found that applications were framed in three primary ways by their creators as assistants, tools to be used, avatars, mentors embodying a particular R/S figure, and/or angels, beings with access to higher knowledge. These framings will inevitably shape how these tools are received and interpreted by their users, influencing the perceived R/S authority of an AI chatbot. Future work will conduct walkthroughs of a selection of applications from each data collection site. This will generate richer data detailing the material and discursive elements of R/S chatbots to be analyzed through discourse analysis. Our work will highlight how developers frame their creations and explore the potential complications that emerge when blending R/S belief and technological practice. We contribute to existing work on the intersection of R/S and technology and push the field forward by examining the under-explored and emergent development of AI integration into R/S practices.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Taxonomy for Rapidly Changing Social Media Platforms

  AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research · 2026-01-02

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Social media platforms (SMPs) evolve rapidly and continually, impacting their affordances, user experiences, and societal interactions. Existing research has often analyzed these changes from organizational or technological innovation perspectives or examined SMPs and their policies in isolation, rather than within broader patterns. SMPs, however, are distinct in their logics, relevance, practices, and user engagement. Thus, we propose a taxonomy of SMP change, grounded in sensitizing concepts from literature on platform and technological evolution alongside an analysis of 400 public communication documents from Meta, YouTube, X, and TikTok. Our aim is to theorize SMP evolution and critically reassess its broader implications. Our taxonomy categorizes SMP change into three interdependent dimensions: material, algorithmic, and ideological. Material changes involve modifications to platform features, interfaces, and user experiences. Algorithmic changes refer to backend modifications that are often less transparent and largely invisible, yet they significantly shape user interactions and content visibility. Ideological changes reflect shifts in governance priorities and policy frameworks, often driven by political and economic pressures. These dimensions are not mutually exclusive but intersect in ways that redefine SMP values, affordances, impacts, and potential harms. By theorising SMP change, our taxonomy highlights the embedded politics of digital platforms and their role in shaping contemporary information ecosystems as infrastructures. This hopes to provide researchers with lens and language to critically examine how platform changes influence societal structures. We also emphasise the importance of such a language to study their growing relevance, particularly as corporate-state collaborations within SMP industries expand in unprecedented ways.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Volunteer Moderation as Situated Civic Labor in Local Information Infrastructures

  2026-04-13 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Local information is essential for civic engagement, community belonging and well-being, and collective action. As more U.S. communities become "news deserts" without local newspapers or broadcast media, neighborhood- and municipality-level groups on platforms like Facebook, Nextdoor, and Reddit have become key nodes in local information infrastructure. This paper examines how volunteer moderators of these local online groups contribute to sustaining local information infrastructure, focusing on how they understand their groups’ informational function, the roles they assume to realize this function, and the skills they mobilize to fulfill perceived roles. Drawing on an Asynchronous Remote Community study and in-depth interviews with U.S.-based moderators, we conceptualize local volunteer moderation as situated civic labor, emphasizing the interpretive, relational, and context-contingent nature of their work. We offer design implications for platforms to support local knowledge and discretion and sustain democratic practices to strengthen the civic potential of online spaces to serve their local communities.

  PublisherDOI

• The discursive flexibility of changecraft: Platform change discourse in Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and X

  Platforms & Society · 2026-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Social media platforms evolve rapidly. While platform studies have often analyzed specific policy or feature changes, there remains a lack of shared language to conceptualize how platforms themselves represent such changes. In this article, we analyze public communications from Meta, YouTube, X, and TikTok to examine how platforms construct and justify change. We explicate platform evolution as a technical but also deeply discursive process. Platforms frame their transformations in interesting ways, especially if these shifts consolidate power or deepen user dependence. We introduce the concept of changecraft : the strategic discursive practices through which platforms manage, legitimize, and normalize change. Changecraft encompasses the rendering of infrastructural shifts as visible, the framing of ideological pivots as continuity, and the deployment of patchworked updates to subtly reorient platform futures. This framework provides scholars a way to interrogate platform change not just by what changes but by how platforms seek to make change meaningful and acceptable to their publics.

  PublisherDOI

• Who Is a Good Digital Activist? Exploring Social Justice Activists' Adaptation to Instagram's Algorithmic Changes

  Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · 2025-10-16 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Through interviews with 16 social justice activists, we explore their challenges of adapting to Instagram, particularly in light of the platform's evolving algorithm. Our findings reveal that the frequent changes in these algorithms significantly impact their ability to engage effectively- and disproportionately impact visibility, especially for those with fewer resources and less algorithmic expertise. Our contributions encompass discussions on activists' challenges in adapting to platform changes, and the strategic shifts towards gaining broader visibility. We also address the expectations of being a '' good digital activist '' amidst algorithmic mediation on Instagram, emphasizing participants' need for navigating platform mediated complexities and maintaining authenticity. Finally, we suggest design implications, advocating features- for both existing platforms and alternative systems exclusively for activism that reduce activists' concerns about quantitative metrics, promote selective privacy, tie amplification to thoughtful engagement, and foster community building through contextual moderation and communication.

  PublisherDOI

• EPISTEMIC-DEMOCRATIC TENSION IN THE BOTTOM-UP GOVERNANCE OF ALGORITHMS

  AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research · 2025-01-02

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The governance of platform algorithms presents a critical challenge as these technologies increasingly pose threats to privacy, agency, fairness, and equity, often reenacting and mediating existing power systems. Traditional governance models, primarily top-down approaches led by policymakers and private corporations, are essential yet insufficient. This paper argues for the incorporation of "bottom-up governance," focusing on the "epistemic-democratic tension" (Krick, 2022) between inclusive participation and expertise-based decision-making. I argue that to ensure that algorithms function fairly and justly for all, bottom-up governance requires involving and taking seriously “lay” experts. Bottom-up governance extends beyond merely soliciting input from citizens on algorithms; it necessitates recognizing the authority of non-technical knowers and privileging subjugated standpoints.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Disrupting echo chambers? How social media is related to social tolerance through network diversity: linked lives over a major life course event

  Information Communication & Society · 2025-01-02 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• TikTok’s new owner puts app’s algorithm in the spotlight – a social media expert explains how the ‘For You’ page works

  2025-09-22

  preprint1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• TikTok as a Tool for Identity Work Among the Hoa Ethnic Community

  Social Media + Society · 2025-07-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Popular discourse around race tends to categorize people in static ethnic and racial categories, overlooking the complexity of people with multi-ethnicities. To understand how ethnic communities resist the described practice, this article explores how Hoa communities in English-speaking countries use TikTok for identity work purposes. Using an inductive approach to qualitative content analysis, we identified two prominent themes: hybridization of a multi-ethnic identity and counter-hegemonic identity. Although the findings are particular to the Hoa community, we believe they merit attention from scholars interested in studying intra-ethnic populations and their social media usage for identity work.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Julia R. DeCook

  6 shared

• Kjerstin Thorson

  Michigan State University

  6 shared

• Shaheen Kanthawala

  University of Alabama

  6 shared

• Chankyung Pak

  4 shared

• Ankolika De

  Pennsylvania State University

  4 shared

• Mel Medeiros

  Michigan State University

  3 shared

• Kali Foyle

  The University of Texas at Austin

  3 shared

• Emilee Rader

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  3 shared

Labs

• Media Effects Research LabPI

  Investigates social and psychological effects of technological elements unique to web-based mass-communication.

Education

• Ph.D., Mass Communications

  Pennsylvania State University

  2015

• M.A., Communication Studies

  University of California, Los Angeles

  2010

• B.A., Communication Studies

  University of California, Los Angeles

  2008