The effects of message framing on communication from Local Administrations to the Public

Abstract Local administrations and governments communicate with the public in both obligatory and voluntary ways. In all cases, they aim to ensure that their messages reach their recipients, are understandable, memorable and enter the citizens’ decision-making process. This paper reports the results of an eye-tracking experiment combined with a structured questionnaire that tested whether positive versus negative message framing in text and images affects how well readers recall information, and how long they focus on webpage elements. Key findings show no significant effect of message framing on correct recall of either textual or visual information (p = 0,52 for text recall; p = 0,48 for picture recall) and no significant effect on time spent viewing the message itself. These results suggest that in the context of municipal website communication, positive or negative framing alone does not meaningfully enhance citizens´ recall. This implies that other factors (e. g. content clarity, relevance) may be more decisive.