Push-notifications as journalistic micro-narratives: language and professional practices
Abstract
Push-notifications are not just vehicles to distribute content or increase traffic to applications and web pages; they can also be seen as journalistic micro-narratives, or a unique form of storytelling. This study explores how alerts contribute to the journalistic story through mobile journalism. It examines the written-visual language and the production routines of news push-notifications in Puerto Rico. Through content analysis and interviews with producers of alerts, the study found that the majority of notifications communicated newsworthy information, in the third person, in the style of the news. They prioritized text with photographs over other media elements. Although most were concise and adopted a simple vocabulary, they lacked clarity and accuracy. The journalists acknowledged that they do not have standardized guidelines to produce notifications. The study indicates that push-alerts contribute to the news narrative, but the media have not fully explored its written or multimedia possibilities.
Keywords
push-notifications, mobile journalism, digital journalism, mobile apps, Puerto RicoReferences
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