Local Climate Change Reporting: Do Locality Framing and Interactive Maps Impact Risk Perception and Memory?

Considering the impact of local journalism in the context of climate change, this research investigates how locality framing and interactive features as important elements of digital local journalism affect news audiences. We used an article on heavy rainfall with a map visualizing data to test how local versus national framing and interactive versus static maps influence risk perception, responsibility attribution, article memory, and enjoyment in a 2 × 2 between-subjects online experiment with 632 German participants. We found that locality framing had no significant influence on risk perception or responsibility attribution, nor did it interact with place attachment. Unexpectedly, interactive maps heightened risk exposure perceptions but had minimal effect on enjoyment and memory retention. These findings question assumptions about the effectiveness of localizing global issues like climate change in digital local journalism.