This is the first scholarly look at the breaking news e-mail alerts received daily by millions of subscribers from online news providers—alerts likely to increase with mobile media use. The study took a subscriber's perspective and analyzes 874 such alerts gathered during 26 continuous weeks in 2005 and 2006 from ABCNews.com, CBSNews.com, CNN.com, FoxNews.com, and MSNBC.com. MSNBC sent the highest number of alerts and scored well with readability metrics; it also sent alerts first most often, but those alerts were usually not attributed. CNN sent the fewest alerts, CBS scored poorly with readability, and ABC most often trailed its competitors. One-quarter of all alerts addressed government and politics, followed by crime and international news. The majority of alerts weren't attributed. Also, one-third of all alerts were sent by only one network. The authors discuss research context, practitioner implications, and future research opportunities.
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