You’re Being Kinda Pushy: Exploring How News Outlets Frame Push Notifications as Credible Clickbait to Engage with Their Audiences

Push notifications are a digital strategy for outlets to provide news and a convenient way for audiences to absorb information. Past research shows the effectiveness of push notifications and how they are framed, but few studies have explored their relationship with clickbait. However, clickbait often has a negative connotation. Through an exploratory mixed methods study involving textual analysis of push notifications (<i>n</i> = 639) sent by three credible mainstream media outlets, namely <i>The Associated Press</i>, <i>The New York Times</i>, and <i>The Wall Street Journal</i>, and a survey of readers’ (<i>n</i> = 368) perception of push notifications and clickbait, this research explores how credible news outlets directly engage with their respective audiences by framing push notifications in the form of clickbait. This study builds on framing theory by proposing the concept of credible clickbait and illustrating how push notifications shape readers’ immediate perceptions of content being shared with them by news outlets they subscribe to. This research also aims to be a resource for journalists to increase audience interaction and foster sustained attention with stories.