Breaking news: How push notifications alter the fourth estate

Abstract: News outlets increasingly capitalize on the potential of push notifications to drive engagement and enhance readership. Such changes in news reporting and consumptions offer a new, largely overlooked, research perspective into the competing narratives about the definition of news, their impact on political participation, entrenchment of political views, the ubiquity of media environments, and anxiety in media consumption. Situated within discussions about fake news, how new technologies have changed journalism, and the nature of news consumption overall, this paper and a larger ongoing empirical project seek to explore: 1) how push notifications and online “breaking news” phenomenon differ from traditional news reporting; 2) relationships between objectivity in journalism, reader affect and trust; and 3) what this means for participatory politics and its relationship to the fourth estate. This article illustrates patterns and key insights about the impact of push notifications on journalism and changes in sentiment in news communication through a case study comparing reporting on President Nixon firing Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in 1973 to the recent firing of FBI Director James Comey by President Trump. While headlines and push notifications vary significantly by news providers, push notifications are similar across platforms in distinguishing characteristics such as emotionally-loaded and subjective language. Both of these are defining elements of fake and deceptive news and may potentially account for some of the media mistrust in recent years.