ABSTRACT
Local news media consumption is seen essential in practicing democracy. A transforming media structure changes news consumption practices on all levels. Previous research has put little emphasis on how local news media are consumed, and on people’s local news repertoires. In this analysis, local news consumption in the Swedish population is put in a context of national and other news media. Findings show that local and regional news media reach large audience shares and that the digitalization of news has not to any large extent affected the local news audience. The share of online users is comparatively low, and the contribution of web to the total local news audience is small. Not many people have, for instance, replaced local newspapers with their online equivalent. When putting local news – print and broadcast – in a larger consumption context, they do not correlate strongly to each other or to other news media. Nor do they fit in a multivariate factor model. Local news seems somewhat isolated both media-wise and platform-wise. Local news media are, to some extent, homeless in people’s news repertoires.
