Characteristics and use of notications on mobile applications: the
case of the European public media
Características y utilización de las noticaciones en las aplicaciones móviles: el
caso de los medios públicos europeos
doxa.comunicación |
nº 36, pp. 107-123
| 107
January-June of 2023
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
How to cite this article:
de Sola Pueyo, J. (2023). Characteristics and use of notications on mobile applications: the case of the European public media.
Doxa
Comunicación
, 36, pp. 107-123.
https://doi.org/10.31921/doxacom.n36a1684
Javier de Sola Pueyo
.
PhD in Communication, Master in Marketing and Corporate Communication, Bachelor’s degree
in Journalism. Associate Professor at the University of Zaragoza, where he teaches Radio News Production and Radio
reporting, and the presenter of the morning news programme
“Despierta Aragón”
on Aragón Radio, the Aragonese
regional radio station. Researcher at GICID (Communication and Digital Information Research Group). His research
focuses on dierent aspects of radio and its presence on social networks. He also investigates journalistic coverage of
topics related to climate change, scientic communication and social processes.
University of Zaragoza, Spain
[email protected]
ORCID: 0000-0003-3006-8236
Abstract
:
e media have incorporated mobile applications as another
information channel for their audiences. is research analyses the
features and use of public radio and television app notications from
Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Spain. e study reveals
that although features and possibilities are similar, notications
are not used equally, both from a quantitative perspective (number
of notications per day and the time each media sends them) and
qualitatively (subject matter, elaboration, use of image, etc.)
Keywords:
Audio-visual media; public broadcasting networks; content analysis;
mobile alerts; news apps.
Resumen:
Los medios de comunicación han incorporado las aplicaciones móvi
-
les como un canal de información más para con sus audiencias. Esta
investigación analiza cuáles son las características y utilización de las
noticaciones de las apps de la radiotelevisión pública de Alemania,
Francia, Reino Unido y España. El estudio revela que, aunque las carac
-
terísticas y posibilidades son similares, el empleo de las noticaciones
es muy desigual, tanto desde el punto de vista cuantitativo (número de
noticaciones por día y horas que envía cada medio) como en lo cuali
-
tativo (temática, elaboración, uso de la imagen, etc.).
Palabras clave:
Medios audiovisuales; cadenas de radiodifusión públicas; análisis de
contenido; alertas móviles; apps informativas.
Received: 14/05/2022 - Accepted: 09/07/2022 - Early access: 25/07/2022 - Published: 01-01-2023
Recibido: 14/05/2022 - Aceptado: 09/07/2022 - En edicións: 25/07/2022 - Publicado: 01-01-2023
1. Introduction
“God, why did you bring this upon me? Pain and despair in a Ukrainian hospital” (Davies, 2022). “Russia gives Ukraine an
ultimatum for the city of Mariupol to surrender in the next few hours” (RTVE, 2022). e
BBC
and
Radio Television Española
chose the headlines above to report on developments in the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the evening of 20 March 2022.
<p>[Enlace de URL / hc (has AS)]</p>
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<p>[Enlace de URL / hc (has AS)]</p>
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Neither of the headlines refers to the news on their respective television channels or the openings of their digital editions but
to the pop-up notications sent to smartphone users who installed a media app.
Due to their geopolitical dimension, recent events of particular relevance such as the war in Ukraine, the takeover of the
United States Congress after the presidential elections and even other issues of lesser global importance, although they impact
citizens’ daily lives, extreme meteorological phenomena or sports, or the coronavirus pandemic itself have contributed to
the media’s rapidly evolving relationship between the media and its users, to the extent that recent studies identify that
notications increase the self-reported use of apps by people who install them (Stroud, Peacock and Curry, 2019).
Authors such as Dimmick, Feaster and Hoplamazian (2011) have concluded that mobile phone news has replaced other
types of news in the media. However, other theories suggest that mobile phone news and traditional media news coexist
and complement each other because they are aimed at dierent audiences. Nguyen and Western’s (2006) studies follow this
second current.
Hill and Bradshaw highlight that although we are in the early stages of the app revolution, app development ideas should
focus on the unique functionality of smartphones (2018: 186-209). Moreover, the media are aware of the need to renew their
communication channels due to their readers’ ever-evolving consumption habits, which the digital business development
director of the
Times
pointed out almost a decade ago
:
“People stay on the website for ve minutes if you’re lucky and go from
one story straight to the home page. ey can spend 10 to 20 minutes on a particular page or section on an iPad”
(Boyle, 2013).
1.1. Mobile notications as a media information channel
Wheatly and Ferrer-Conil believe that the distribution of news on mobile notications, pop-up alerts, or push notications
–we understand these three concepts as synonymous in this study– is relevant for three reasons:
“Because (a.) it bypasses social networks and news aggregators, reaching readers directly; (b) it alters the agency and control
of the temporal personalisation of news; and (c.) it reinforces mobiles as the locus of contact between news organisations and
audiences” (2021: 694).
Moreover, Memon and Otho also highlight that one of the benets of mobile alerts is that “people get the rst information on
any news everywhere through news alerts. And they don’t need to wait for hourly news updates” (2017:192).
In this way, the media’s evolution when transferring
contents they produce to their audiences has rst resulted in the rise
of mobile media applications, among other issues (Schmitz, 2013; Westlund, 2013) and, more recently, in advances in these
apps’ specicities.
is evolution is linked to a positive perspective of notications, identied by authors such as Licoppe:
“e transformation of the meaning of interruptions and notication devices. Initially perceived as interrupting tasks, the
interruptions have gradually acquired a positive value as “notication” devices, and they are meant to be more subtle and
incorporate some degree of “intelligence” to the recipient’s context” (2010: 288).
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Despite the timeliness of the subject matter, or possibly as a consequence of it, there are few studies about the app experiences
of specic pop-up notications. Authors such as Fortunati and O’Sullivan (2020) have recently highlighted the need to
explore even more general issues such as how news is consumed on mobile devices or the spaces and times of consumption.
In any case, Fidalgo’s research (2009) on the Portuguese media is noteworthy; Brown (2018) detects an increase in the sending
of mobile notications in two comparative studies on the mobile media alert model in the United States and points to two
possible reasons:
“e growing consensus that [notication] delivery should not only be seen as a platform for breaking news, but also as a means
to promote stronger newsroom journalism and build brand loyalty around exclusive stories […]. More people in the newsroom
“thinking digitally”, recognising the power of mobile alerts and getting involved in the process by submitting stories” (2018).
In the United States, 55% of citizens received mobile alerts about news content as early as 2016, although only 13% reported
receiving them often (Lu and Matsa, 2016)
As Van Damme et al. report, mobile technology facilitates the consumption of news and, in the case of mobile notications,
even provokes responses from users to questions that had not been previously requested (2020). erefore, there is an
alteration in the relationship between the media and user since it is the media that approaches the user, not the latter who
seeks the media’s content. erefore, professionals must acquire specic competencies in mobile notications, ash news,
and other formats (Rom and Reich, 2017).
1.2. Research objectives
However, the research aims to understand the uses and possibilities of pop-up notications on mobile media apps in four
European countries, given that the use of mobile phones for news consumption varies according to social and cultural
context (Westlund, 2010).
is has two general objectives: on the one hand, to characterise how pop-up notications are congured and can be used
in public media’s mobile apps from Spain, France, Germany and the United Kingdom (O-1); in other words, to describe the
possibilities oered by each app in terms of activating/deactivating notications in general, whether these notications can
be activated/deactivated depending on the topics they address or the sections where they are found, whether it is possible
to activate/deactivate a sound and/or vibration when receiving alerts, and nally, where the user can customise all these
features on the app.
On the other hand, the research aims to determine how these media use these notications- and whether they notify users
of news media content correctly from the outset (O-2). is second objective is specied through other more specic ones,
which are: to identify each public corporation’s use of notications quantitively (O-3); to establish the topics of the media’s
contents, and their journalistic genres (O-4); taking into account the time slots each media outlet sends notications and
how quickly they send alerts compared to the rest of the media when the news item is not of its own making, but arises from
a news event (O-5).
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2. Method
Content analysis was the methodology used to achieve the research objectives. Firstly, as mentioned above, each mobile
media app was analysed to characterise how the notications are congured. Subsequently, a quantitative content analysis
of all the notications received in the analysis period was carried out.
e public media studied were from Germany (
ARD
-
Tagesschau
), France (
France Info
), e United Kingdom (
BBC
) and
Spain (
Radio Televisión Española, RTVE
). Initially, it was relevant to include the channel
RAI
(Italy). It was later discarded
after the pre-test phase showed that the notications were not received correctly.
Regardless of the technical inability to study the Italian case, these ve countries and their respective public media were
chosen based on three main criteria: rstly, because they represent the ve European states with the largest populations;
secondly, because they have the highest nominal GDP on the continent (International Monetary Fund, 2022); and because
they represent dierent public media budget and nancing models (Peinado and Alameda, 2018; Campos, 2009) as to the
credibility of their audiences (Pew Research Centre, 2018) or, as previous research has pointed out, each country’s historical
context and the ways of understanding how to do public journalism (Walzer and Retis 2008), which is also interesting in the
search for similarities and dierences in the results.
It should be highlighted that these ve countries’ journalistic models have already been studied and compared in previous
reference research such as Fortunati et al.’s (2014), which was also related to mobile phone journalism, among other issues.
Regarding the dates, three observation periods were determined and randomly selected to avoid the researcher’s inuence
on choosing those periods. us, all the notications received from 1 January to 14 January 2021, from 2 to 15 April 2021
and from 23 August to 5 September 2021 were studied, regardless of when the notications were received, their correct or
incorrect functioning and any other parameter. ree dierent study periods were chosen to prevent any specic news event
from disproportionately impacting the study’s results; this is why two-week periods were also selected for each period. In
total, 530 push notications were studied.
A Xiaomi Redmi 7 mobile phone was used in the research, with an Android operating system. is decision is justied by the
fact that the operating system is currently the most widespread: Android accounts for around 70.52% of the market compared
to 28.62% for the iOS operating system, according to data from the IDC conuslting rm (Ramírez, 2022). However, a Huawei
P40 Lite was also used to verify that the notications received were the same on both phones in the pre-test phase. Indeed,
they were.
Chronologically, the procedure for the research started by downloading the
BBC News, France Info, RTVE Noticias, RAI
and
Tagesschau
apps. Next, the notications and/or alerts and all their features were turned on, and the permissions to receive the
content were granted on the apps. A pre-test phase was then carried out to corroborate the applications’ correct functioning
in the last week of 2020 –except in the case of the Italian media outlet
RAI
as mentioned above
,
as we decided not to study it
to avoid alterations in the results obtained– and to nalise what would be the analysis code used in the research.
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e analysis code is composed of twelve variables and had already been used in previous research studies limited to the case
of Spanish media applications (De Sola and Ortiz-Sobrino, 2021), so its usefulness in similar research and its relevance for
the study’s objectives had been proven.
e analysis code is shown in Table 1 and includes twelve formal and content-related categories. e formal variables respond
to the correct or incorrect working of the notications sent by the media, the dates and times the notications were sent and
whether their content is displayed in the mobile applications or refers to the media’s website. On the other hand, the content
variables make it possible to establish the dominant topics in the notications, the journalistic genres they are associated
with, whether or not images and/or advertising are included in the content sent by the media: also whether the notication
topics are content specic to the media that send them; whether they refer to live broadcasts of certain events/facts and the
speed in sending notications when the alerts are the same.
Table 1. Analysis code
Date of receiving the notication
Corresponding to the periods analysed (1-14 January 2021, 2 to 15 April
2021 and 23 August to 5 September 2021).
Media analysed
1.
BBC
2.
France Info
3.
RTVE
4.
Tagesschau
Time notication is received
1. Between 00:00h and 05:59h
2. Between 06:00h and 11:59h
3. Between 12:00h and 17:59h
4. Between 18:00h and 23:59h
e general subject matter of the notication
1. Political or National
2. International
3. Sport
4. Events and Courts
5. Weather
6. Economy and employment
7. Society
8. Culture
9. Coronavirus
10. Gender-based violence
11. Lotteries and gambling
12. Others
13. Two or more of the above.
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Does the notication work correctly when I click to view it?
1. Yes
2. No
Where does the notication link go?
1. To the mobile app
2. To the media website
3. To the mobile app, but indicate that the content is to be viewed on the
website.
Does the notication incorporate an image in the preview?
1. Yes
2. No
Is the notication an issue specic to the media outlet sending
it?
1. Yes
2. No
If the answer to the previous question is “no,” in what order is the
notication received about other media?
1. First
2. Second
3. ird
4. Fourth
What genre does the notication identify with?
1. News and Chronicle
2. Reporting
3. Interview
4. Opinión
5. News Flash
1
6. Others
7. Two or more of the above
Does the notication refer to a live broadcast of an event?
1. Yes
2. No
Does an advertising window open when clicking on the notica
-
tion before taking us to the news content?
1. Yes
2. No
Source: created by the authors
1
In this research, we take on the researchers’ thesis: such as Rivas who argues that the news ash is a journalistic genre in itself and dierent from the news. is
author arms: “I think that no one can dispute its peculiar style, not easily denable, but which means that it cannot be considered in itself either a headline or
a lead or a news item, implying something of each aspect mentioned. I believe that, therefore, the scientic thing is to recognise its peculiarity and admit that the
ash is a news genre of its own” (1999: 163-164).
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3. Results
3.1. Customising notications on the BBC, France Info., RTVE and Tagesschau apps.
As stated in the objectives sections, the research does not intend to be a study for characterising the four studied media
outlets’ mobile applications. Still, it does aim to analyse everything related to the possibilities of personalising the push
notications.
However, we believe it is relevant to highlight that the four medias’ apps have been downloaded more than one million times,
according to the data in Google’s Play store. e users who have installed them have given the following ratings: 4.6 out of 5 in
the case of
FranceInfo
with 81 000 reviews; 4.0 out of 5.0 for
RTVE
with 73 000 reviews; 4.4 out of 5 for
BBC
News with 415 000
reviews. According to Google’s Play Store, there have been more than 10 million downloads of the British public broadcaster’s
app; nally, 4.6 out of 5.0 for the mobile app
Tagesschau
with 77 000 reviews.
Regarding their features, it should be noted that the
RTVE
app is quite limited since it only allows users to activate or
deactivate them via a tab in the app’s general setting menu, located on the left-hand side of the screen. ere is no option to
accept and/or reject alerts according to the apps’ sections, topics, authors, or other lters.
On the other hand, the
BBC
app has limited customisation options and has a tab in the general settings menu located in the
top right-hand corner. But, unlike
RTVE
, the
BBC
app then redirects users to the available settings on their phone, where the
user can customise the sound, light, turn on the vibration and even make the notication appear on the lock screen. Four
categories of alerts can be activated and deactivated: “Breaking news”, “Notications”, “Audio playback”, and “Top Stories”.
Along the same lines of managing customisation according to each user’s preferences,
France Info
includes a “Notication
parameters” section in the settings menu-accessed via the silhouette of a person icon. e user can customise whether or not
to receive alerts and activate or deactivate the mobile phone’s sound and vibration when notications are received without
directly leaving the app.
France Info
also allows users to select the notications from the following sections: politics, elections,
events, society, sport, economy and consumption, world, culture, health, science, true or false.
It is worth noting that
France Info
has a very agile, intuitive and useful option for application users. A bell icon next to the
aforementioned human silhouette in the top right-hand corner leads to the app’s general setting menu; clicking on it takes
you to the notication settings, where all the notications sent by the media in the last few days are found. You can also read
updated and extended alerts.
Finally, the
Taggeschau
app requires the longest route to customise notications. e user must access the menu via the
icon with three vertical dots at the top left-hand corner of the home screen, scroll down to the bottom of that page, click on
“settings”, and on the next page, there are three options for customising push notications; turn them on or o, turn premium
notications on or o- they oer editorial information on live broadcasts, new tickers and exclusive daily news content- and
turn the sound/vibration of incoming alerts on or o.
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3.2. e use of mobile notications in European media apps
3.2.1. Formal aspects of notifications
e rst signicant result from the research is that a high percentage of the notications sent by the four media analysed
work correctly: absolute in the cases of
France Info
and
BBC
, almost all of them in
Tagesschau’s
(97.14%) and notably in
RTVE
(93.01%).
us, French radio and television is the media that most regularly sends notications out of all those analysed. As shown in
Figure 1, 261 notications were received from
France Info
in the period studied
,
accounting for 49.25% of the total, followed
by the Spanish channel
RTVE
, which issued 143 notications, or 26.98%.
Tagesschau
and
BBC
used this tool far less: sending
70 and 56 notications, respectively, or 13.21% and 10.57%.
Figure 1. e number of notications received by the analysed media
teletipos y contenido exclusivo de las noticias diarias
-
y activar o desactivar el
sonido/vibración de las alertas recibidas.
3.2. El empleo de las notificaciones móviles en las
apps
de
los medios europeos
3.2.1. Aspectos formales de las notificaciones
El primer resultado significativo que revela la investigación es que las notificaciones
enviadas por los cuatro medios analizados funcionan correctamente en un porcentaje muy
elevado: absoluto, de hecho, en los casos de
France Info
y
BBC
, casi total en el de
Tagesschau
(97,14%) y más que notable en el de
RTVE
(93,01%).
Así las cosas, la radiotelevisión francesa es el medio que más habitualmente envía
notificaciones de todos los analizados. De hecho, como se recoge en la Figura 1, en el período
estudiado se recibieron 261 notificaciones de
France Info
, lo que representa el 49,25% del
total. A continuación, pero a una distancia considerable, la española
RTVE
emitió 143
notificaciones, el 26,98%. Por su parte,
Tagesschau
y
BBC
hicieron un uso mucho más
limitado de esta herramienta: enviaron 70 y 56 notificaciones respectivamente, lo que supone
el 13,21% y el 10,57%.
Figura 1. Número de notificaciones recibidas por medio analizado
Fuente: elaboración propia
En cuanto a la temporalidad de las notificaciones se han estudiado dos parámetros: el día y
la franja horaria de emisión. Sobre el primer aspecto, se ha detectado una gran variabilidad,
aunque con un aspecto constante: los medios analizados envían menos avisos los fines de
semana
, factor que podría estar relacionado, por un lado, con un menor número de
acontecimiento
s informativos (apenas hay convocatorias de agenda los sábados y domingos)
56
261
143
70
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
BBC
France Info
RTVETagesschau
Source: created by the author
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Two parameters were studied concerning the timing of the notications: the day and the broadcasting time slot. Regarding
the rst aspect, a signicant variability has been detected, although with one constant aspect: the media analysed send fewer
alerts on the weekends, which could be related to a lower number of news events (there are hardly any agenda announcements
on Saturdays and Sundays) and, on the other hand, human resources in the media are less available. As shown in Figure 2,
this is repeated on the 2 and 3 of January, 3, 4, 10 and 11 of April, 28 and 29 of August and 4 and 5 of September.
Figure 2. e number of notications received per day was analysed
Figure 1. The number of notifications received by the
analysed
media
Source: created by the author
Two parameters were studied concerning the timing of the notifications: the day and the
broadcast
ing time slot. Regarding the first aspect, a
significan
t variability has been
detected, although with
one
constant aspect: the media analysed send fewer alerts on the
weekends, which could be
related
to a lower number of news events (there are hardly any
agenda
announcements
on Saturdays and Sundays) and, on the other hand, human
resources in the media are less available. As shown in Figure 2, this is repeated on the 2
and 3 of January, 3,
4
, 10 and 11 of April, 28 and 29 of August and 4 and 5 of September.
Figure 2. The number of notifications received per day was
analysed
Source: created by the authors
56
261
143
70
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
BBC
France Info
RTVETagesschau
8
3
2
14
12
2626
18
16
6
8
14
25
21
6
8
3
4
11
18
9
17
6
7
11
18
13
12
7
19
13
27
13
7
10
14
12
22
18
12
77
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
01 january
02 jan
03 jan
04 jan
05 jan
06 jan
07 jan
08 jan
09 jan
10 jan
11 jan
12 jan
13 jan
14 jan
02 april
03 apr
04 apr
05 apr
06 apr
07 apr
08 apr
09 apr
10 apr
11 apr
12 apr
13 apr
14 apr
15 apr
23 august
24 aug
25 aug
26 aug
27 aug
28 aug
29 aug
30 aug
31 aug
1 september
02-sep
03-sep
04-sep
05-sep
Source: created by the authors
ere is no specic pattern regarding the evolution of the notications if we break down the three-time blocks analysed
(January, April and August-September) by the media outlet. ose of
RTVE
are distributed in a downward trajectory: 39.18%
in January, 31.5% in April and 29.39% in August-September; those of
France Info
in a sawtooth structure: 36.78%, 26.45% and
36.8%, respectively; those of
BBC
are mainly concentrated in the rst block analysed: 46.45% in January, compared to 26.8%
in April and also in August-September; and those of
Tagesschau
, on the other hand, generally in the last block: 30%, 20% and
50% respectively.
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Following this timeline, the media outlets mainly send their push notications between midday and ve in the afternoon
(39.06%) and, to a large extent, between six in the evening and midnight (35.09%). It is less common to receive alerts in the
morning, i.e., from 6 a.m. to 12 noon (24.53%) and hardly any activity at night, from 12a.m to 6 a.m. (1.32%).
We can see that the only element common to all four media outlets is that they do not send notications between 12 a.m.
and 6 a.m. is seems obvious: citizens sleep at that time in the four respective countries. However, the trends are dierent
beyond this.
France Info
and
Tagesschau
distribute their notications evenly. However, they prioritise the evening time slot:
in the case of the French public broadcaster, it broadcasts 30.27% of notications in the morning slot, 36.78% in the afternoon
and 32.57% in the evening; the German media outlet is similar, sending 27.14% of its notications in the morning, 37.14%
in the afternoon and 31.43% in the evening. However,
RTVE
and
BBC
do not send the news alerts until midday and only
send 18.88% and 8.93% of their alerts in the morning slot. us, the Spanish public corporation concentrates its alerts in the
afternoon (43.36%) and afternoon-evening (37.76%), and so does the
BBC
: 41.07% of its notications are in the afternoon slot
and 44.64% in the afternoon-evening slot.
On the other hand, it has been found that the user generally displays the content directly in the mobile application when
clicking on the notication. In some cases, the user is redirected to the media outlet’s website; this only occurs in 1.49% of the
RTVE
notications, 1.54% of
France Info’s
notications and 8.93% of
BBC
notications. Finally,
Tageschau’s
notications are
always displayed in the mobile application.
3.2.2. The content of notifications
Figure 3 shows the predominant themes in the notications received. Due to the high rate of transmission of coronavirus, it
is the subject that accounts for the highest number of notications as was to be expected: over a third (35.09%). It is worth
noting that this is followed by international news topics (23.77%), ahead of each country’s national news (10.18%), sport
(7.92%) and events and/or courts (6.79%). Weather (4.53%), social issues (4.15%), economy (2.83%) or culture (1.32%) are
rarely the main topics of the notications sent by the media.
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Figure 3. Dominant topics in the notications received
Figure 3. Dominant topics in the notifications received
Source: created by the authors
Pandemic-
related topics are not prevalent in
all
four media outlets; it is only the case for
RTVE
and
France Info,
accounting
for
42.66% and 40% of all the alerts sent through
their
respective applications on this issue. However, the
BBC
(71.43%) and
Tageschau
(32.86%) send the most alerts in the International section. In the case of the
BBC,
the
dominance of the international section is absolute since it only reports on social issues in
12.5% and on events or sports in 5.36% of the cases
,
respectively. On the other hand, the
German media outlet distributes its alerts over a variety of topics the most, which go
beyond international issues: 25.71% are related to the pandemic, 18.57% to national
politics and 11.43% to sport.
Regarding
RTVE
and
France Info
,
some points in common
emerge;
for
instance,
international political issues are the second most common topics in their reports
,
and
Spanish and French national politics
carry
substantial
weight
. However, there are also
differences: sports
(
11.54%) and events or courts (11.15%) are the most common topics
on
France Info,
while weather (10.49%) and economics (9.09%) are the most common
on
RTVE.
However, sport and courts hardly appear in
RTVE
’
s
alerts (2.8% and 1.4%
,
respectively),
and weather and the economy scarcely appear in the French public
broadcaster
(3.08% and 0.38% in each case).
Concerning the journalistic genres, the results corroborate the purely informative nature
of the notifications; 50% can be associated with news or chronicles, and 31% are news
flashes. Between both categories, they account for more than four out of
every
five
notifications, while publications identified as reports are rare (12%) and interviews (1%)
and other journalistic genres (2%) are almost non
existent
.
National
Politics
10.19%
International
23.77%
Sport 7.92%
Events/Courts
6.79%
Weather
4.53%
Economy/empl
oyment
2.83%
Society
4.15%
Culture
1.32%
Coronavirus
35.09%
Lotteries
0.38%
Others
2.45%
Various
0.57%
Source: created by the authors
Pandemic-related topics are not prevalent in all four media outlets; it is only the case for
RTVE
and
France Info,
accounting
for 42.66% and 40% of all the alerts sent through their respective applications on this issue. However, the
BBC
(71.43%)
and
Tageschau
(32.86%) send the most alerts in the International section. In the case of the
BBC,
the dominance of the
international section is absolute since it only reports on social issues in 12.5% and on events or sports in 5.36% of the cases,
respectively. On the other hand, the German media outlet distributes its alerts over a variety of topics the most, which go
beyond international issues: 25.71% are related to the pandemic, 18.57% to national politics and 11.43% to sport.
Regarding
RTVE
and
France Info,
some points in common emerge; for instance, international political issues are the second
most common topics in their reports, and Spanish and French national politics carry substantial weight. However, there are
also dierences: sports (11.54%) and events or courts (11.15%) are the most common topics on
France Info,
while weather
(10.49%) and economics (9.09%) are the most common on
RTVE.
However, sport and courts hardly appear in
RTVE’s
alerts
(2.8% and 1.4%, respectively), and weather and the economy scarcely appear in the French public broadcaster (3.08% and
0.38% in each case).
Concerning the journalistic genres, the results corroborate the purely informative nature of the notications; 50% can be
associated with news or chronicles, and 31% are news ashes. Between both categories, they account for more than four out
of every ve notications, while publications identied as reports are rare (12%) and interviews (1%) and other journalistic
genres (2%) are almost nonexistent.
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Figure 4. Dominant media genre in the notications received
Figure 4. Dominant
media
genre in the notifications received
Source: created by the authors
All the four media analysed
primari
ly send alerts identified as a news item or chronicle.
A high percentage of news flashes was found, which
,
however,
is lower in the case of
France Info
: while 46.38% of
Tagesschau
’
s
alerts
, 45.04% of
RTVE
’
s
and 35.71% of the
BBC
’
s
alerts
are identified
as
news flash
es
, they made up 21.58% of
France Info
’s.
However, 18.85% of the French public
broadcaster
’
s mobile notifications have the
characteristics of
a
news
item,
compared to only 2.9% of
Tagesschau
’
s
, 6.11% of
RTVE
’
s
and 7.14% of
BBC
’
s
.
A
ll the units of analysis identified with the
news
flash genre respond to mobile alerts
linked to events or topics
that
the media were reporting
on
live. In other words, almost a
third of the total received in the periods studied
is
related to broadcasting
events.
One of the other most interesting elements to emerge from the research is that
France
Info
not only report
s
more but also reports more on its own topics
2
:
44.23% of the news
alerts sent are topics generated by the French corporation
itself
: a percentage that is twice
as much as
Tagesschau
(22.
86%) and
RTVE
(18.
18%), and is more than three times higher
than
the
BBC
, which only
has
12.5% of
its
own
topics
.
The research focuses on analysing
RTVE
’s
, the
BBC
’s
,
France Info
’s
and
Tagesschau
’s
capacity
to respond to
everyday
news events, which are reported by all or at least several
-
of the media studied. It is worth noting
that
the media
that
issue the fewest notifications
-
those
that
could be concluded to have less internalised this culture of mobile notifications
-
report the fastest: thus,
Tagesschau
manages to be the first to report on 72.22% of the
occasions in which both it and other media report something, the
BBC
does so on 50% of
the occasions,
France Info
on
39.29% and
Radio Television Española
on
20.51%.
2
“Own topics” is understood in the study
to be those publication
s
that contain information exclusive to the
media
outlet sending the news alert.
Therefore,
“
o
wn topics”
are
not understood a
s
publications based on
agency press releases, or press conference
s
, or as a general rule, any derived from news events that are also
reported by other media
.
News/Timeline
50%
Report
12%
Interview
1%
News Flash
31%
Others
2%
Various
4%
Source: created by the authors
All the four media analysed primarily send alerts identied as a news item or chronicle. A high percentage of news ashes
was found, which, however, is lower in the case of
France Info
: while 46.38% of
Tagesschau’s
alerts, 45.04% of
RTVE
’s and
35.71% of the
BBC’s
alerts
are identied as news ashes, they made up 21.58% of
France Info’s.
However, 18.85% of the French
public broadcaster’s mobile notications have the characteristics of a news item, compared to only 2.9% of
Tagesschau’s
,
6.11% of
RTVE’s
and 7.14% of
BBC’s
.
All the units of analysis identied with the news ash genre respond to mobile alerts linked to events or topics that the media
were reporting on live. In other words, almost a third of the total received in the periods studied is related to broadcasting
events.
One of the other most interesting elements to emerge from the research is that
France Info
not only reports more but also
reports more on its own topics
2
: 44.23% of the news alerts sent are topics generated by the French corporation itself: a
percentage that is twice as much as
Tagesschau
(22.86%) and
RTVE
(18.18%), and is more than three times higher than the
BBC
, which only has 12.5% of its own topics.
2
“Own topics” is understood in the study to be those publications that contain information exclusive to the media outlet sending the news alert. erefore, “own
topics” are not understood as publications based on agency press releases, or press conferences, or as a general rule, any derived from news events that are also
reported by other media.
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e research focuses on analysing
RTVE’s
, the
BBC’s
,
France Info’s
and
Tagesschau’s
capacity to respond to everyday news
events, which are reported by all or at least several- of the media studied. It is worth noting that the media that issue the
fewest notications- those that could be concluded to have less internalised this culture of mobile notications- report the
fastest: thus,
Tagesschau
manages to be the rst to report on 72.22% of the occasions in which both it and other media report
something, the
BBC
does so on 50% of the occasions,
France Info
on 39.29% and
Radio Television Española
on 20.51%.
Mobile phone notications can consist of only text or text and image as a preview before clicking to view the content. e
study nds that images are currently underused:
Tagesschau
does not use them in any of its notications,
France Info
in only
1.15% and the
BBC
in only 10.71%. e only media outlet interested in routinely exploring this option is
Radio Television
Española
: the Spanish public broadcaster incorporates images in 65.03% of its alerts.
Mobile notications that include advertising or promotions of other media-generated content from the four corporations
studied is another resource to be explored and exploited.
France Info,
the
BBC
and
Tagesschau
do not open a window for
advertising or promotion before progressing to the journalistic content.
RTVE
only does so in 0.72% of the cases studied.
4. Discussion and conclusions
e use of mobile notications by European public media is a consolidated phenomenon. is research shows that the
four media analysed send journalistic content to the users of their mobile applications via notications in a continuous,
systematised and well-functioning manner. Despite the above, this is the general and common conclusion drawn from this
research, showing that the models are very dierent and are implemented to a varying degree:
France Info’s
is the most solidly
developed from both a quantitative and, above all, qualitative perspective.
is research shows that the media pay attention to two factors that previous research has highlighted as determining factors
in the successful evolution and implementation of technological innovations: ease and usefulness.
Both usefulness and usability of mobile news play a role in its use […]. While ease of use may lead to earlier acceptance,
transactional adoption is dicult without the perceived presence of usefulness (Chan-Olmsted et al., 2013: 140).
In this case, user-friendliness is absolute since the setting menus are straightforward. is innovation is useful because
mobile phone notications are understood by the four media outlets analysed as a purely informative element that enables
real-time reporting of news events through live formats. is is shown through the association between content oered and
how it is presented through journalistic genres such as news or news ashes, which was already noted almost a decade ago
by authors such as Canavilhas (2013), and it has been corroborated in more recent research such as Rom and Reich’s (2017).
e use of the new formats’ resources –live, in real-time– and the topics sent as push notications nowadays lead us to
conclude that the association between these alerts and breaking news is not accurate. And it is not, although the disruptive
philosophy of suddenly appearing on our mobile phones in the form of an alert may invite us to think about it because
denitions of breaking news such as the BBC itself –a reference media outlet with internationally recognised prestige– state
that breaking news must involve, as St
ă
nescu states, an “interruption of the broadcast with unusual, totally unexpected
events” (2015: 82).
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Along the same lines of this author, we also assume that breaking news must therefore have ve characteristics: it must be
extraordinary, unique, involve an absolute novelty, be of general interest and have a signicant impact (2015: 82). And as our
study reveals, sometimes the notications received have none of these ve characteristics.
On the other hand, advancing the possibilities of personalising notications should be a priority since the options are still
minimal according to the study results, except in the case of
France Info
, once again. Personalisation is key for users, who may
view receiving alerts as invading their personal sphere (Mäkelä, Boedeker and Helander, 2019).
We can conclude that a third feature shared by the media outlets studied is the timing of the notications. Moreover, this is
understood in a double sense. On the one hand, because the common denominator is a drop in the sending of notications
at weekends, but beyond that, there is no dened pattern in the number of push notications sent each day by each media
outlet, which has also been detected in previous studies focusing on other media, such as those by Wheatley and Ferrer-
Conill’s (2020) and De Sola’s and Ortiz-Sobrino’s (2021).
e research nds that media outlets attempt to capture their readers’ attention throughout the day. Still, it is in the evening
slot when mobile alerts are sent the most often- which is in line with previous studies such as Read’s (2017), which focused
only on the UK- and also at key times of the day, such as the beginning and the end of the day, which revalues the production
and brand of the media outlet (Pedrero-Esteban and Herrera-Damas, 2017).
From a thematic point of view, we conclude that mobile notications are still a part of the Covid-19 pandemic “news
monopoly”, which is predictable given the context. is aligns with the initial idea of a predominance of news genres and live
news updates. It is logical, under this premise, that content is abundantly linked to sports and politics, the media’s second
and third most used topics.
However, there is a notable and evident dierence in using notications from a quantitive perspective. While
France Info
(260) and
RTVE
(143) are quite committed to sending many mobile alerts,
Tagesschau
(70) and
BBC
(56) make much more
limited use of this tool.
Although it goes beyond the objectives of the study, these gures lead us to reect on the impact that events like this have
on users and open up new avenues for research: where is the limit between the interest in being informed and what is
considered to be over-information through a notication on a mobile phone? Can excessive sending lead to the loss of users,
or on the other hand, attract them and make them see the media as the only source of information they need? It is precisely
along these lines that studies such as St
ă
nescu’s state:
Nowadays, we create 10-12 breaking news stories per day, which leads to a decrease in journalists’ credibility and may ridicule
the journalistic concepts of breaking news or news alerts (2015: 81).
St
ă
nescu adds that abusive late-breaking alerts “may work for the time being, but over time they can lead to a decrease in the
overall audience of the media because [it] may lose credibility” (St
ă
nescu, 2015: 90).
Finally, we return to the idea that the models for using push notications are very dierent and have a varying degree of
implementation on
RTVE
,
France Info, BBC
and
Tagesschau
. However, the study shows that these dierences respond more
to each media’s development strategies than to the budgets available. In 2018 the German and British corporations had
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budgets of over 6 billion euros and workforces of over 21 000 employees, while the French broadcaster had a budget of 3.215
billion euros and 10 400 employees. RTVE’s reality painted a dierent picture: with a 974 million euro budget and just over 6
000 employees (Peinado and Alameda, 2018).
With all of the above the study faces a limitation; we took a snapshot of the year 2021 specically; that is, it is dicult to
determine whether the results obtained are circumstantial or respond to an established strategy over a long period, this is
minimised with the study of three-time frames distributed over a year. However, we are aware of mobile journalism’s constant
and fast evolution. In this sense, the research serves as a starting point for future research that will further examine the
development and evolution of mobile journalism and pop-up notications from mobile media applications.
5. Acknowledgements
Article translated into English by Sophie Phillips
.
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<p>[Enlace de URL / hc (has AS)]</p>
<p>[Enlace de URL / hc (has AS)]</p>
<p>[Enlace de URL / hc (has AS)]</p>
<p>[Enlace de URL / hc (has AS)]</p>
<p>[Enlace de URL / hc (has AS)]</p>