How are Risk Perceptions and Ripple Effects Amplified in the Digital Era? An Analysis of China's Digitally Underdeveloped Regions

ABSTRACT The evolving spatiotemporal landscape of the digital age profoundly shapes risk formation, perception and their ripple effects. However, the traditional social amplification of risk framework (SARF) has limitations in embodying this new amplification logic. We propose an upgraded version of the spatial‒temporal amplification of risk framework (STARF), emphasising that digital empowerment amplifies risk perception and that digital refraction amplifies the ripple effect, and focus on China's digitally underdeveloped regions for empirical analysis. We found the following: (1) In the digital age, overall social security risk perception has weakened, the focus of risk perception has changed, and information security risk perception has increased significantly, even in digitally underdeveloped areas. (2) Digital empowerment and traditional factors work together to play an amplifying role, and the digital empowerment of risk communication and risk governance will amplify risk perception, but the risk perception enhancement effect of digital empowerment is limited and has not surpassed the weakening effect of traditional factors such as government trust on risk perception. (3) There are differences in the amplification of digital empowerment, which is reflected in the fact that it significantly amplifies the perception of exogenous food and environmental security risks, but there is an amplification paradox in the perception of endogenous information security risks. (4) Digital refraction changes the direction, range and speed of the chain reaction of risk perception, making the ripples more complex, the spatiotemporal transmission more dispersed and rapid, and further promoting the cross‐domain superposition and interference of multiple space‒time ripples. These findings encourage authorities to adopt a more dynamic and integrated perspective in risk governance in the digital age.