Algorithmic Visibility and Climate Conflict: How Divergent Governance Shapes Environmental Mobilization on Social Media Platforms

The emergence of short-video platforms represents a significant shift in communication practices, but scholarship has insufficiently examined how the same platform architecture produces divergent discourses across different regulatory contexts. This research investigates TikTok and Douyin, two platforms created by ByteDance that share similar algorithmic infrastructures but operate under fundamentally different governance regimes. The comparison reveals how governance structures shape political or policy narratives despite technological similarities. How do visual framing strategies differ across these platforms? What types of narratives gain algorithmic visibility under engagement-driven versus state-regulated algorithmic curation? How do platform governance structures shape the emotional tone and affective dimensions of climate discourse? Through comparative visual and thematic analysis, this study examines platform governance and which narratives become visible and credible within different publics. While platforms promise to connect global audiences, governance models may fragment rather than unite public discourse. This comparison demonstrates how regulatory frameworks produce distinct understandings of social issues, individual responsibility, and collective solutions. To illustrate these processes, the research applies this framework to climate change communication, a domain requiring coordinated action across diverse publics. The analysis reveals how divergent algorithmic curation shapes audience perceptions of climate action and constrains or enables specific political responses. This research contributes methodologically and theoretically to understanding how digital infrastructures mediate climate change policy, with implications for algorithmic power and environmental communication.