Email Newsletters: An Analysis of Content From Nine Top News Organizations

Abstract

Email newsletters are increasingly popular delivery systems for legacy and digital-native news outlets. The newsletter embodies another level of gatekeeping, but little research has explored which stories make it through the email newsletter “gate” and into the subscriber's inbox. This content analysis of newsletter items ( N = 1,231) from select broadcast, cable, print, and digital-native news outlets provides a snapshot of the focus, subject matter, and style of daily newsletters. Newsletter subscribers generally are encouraged to link to the outlet's full-length online content on its website; however, not all outlets attempt to make personal connections with their newsletter readers. In general, the newsletters are largely filled with nationally focused stories on politics and government and mimic the style of their full-length counterparts.

The politics of EU diaspora in the UK post-Brexit: civic organisations’ multi-scalar lobbying and mobilisation strategies

“…Our work follows the campaign work of the3million over a very dynamic period of five years, defined by unprecedented political changes with significant impact on EU citizens in the UK and beyond. While we found significant similarities in our work and that of Brinkerhoff ( 2009 ), Vining ( 2011 ), Karpf ( 2012 ), Vaccari ( 2017 ), Dommett and Rye ( 2018 ) and Seely and Spillman ( 2021 ) in terms of online association and lobbying strategies, we note other elements, such as self-investment in the cause and the role of the social and political capital of the leaders. Self-investment thus allows members and supporters to use emotional resources to frame issues from inside the organisation, while leaders use their own professional resources (academic, legal) to shape communication and lobbying strategies.…”

“…Research using e-mail newsletters by interest groups is not well represented in the scholarship (Seely and Spillman 2021 ), researchers choosing instead to focus on more visible social media (Facebook, Twitter). Data collection, while a political event, is still unfolding and is also rare, not least because diaspora studies consist mostly of retrospective intellectual inquiries into the geopolitics of the past (Koinova 2018 ).…”

“…E-mail newsletters have been mostly studied in relation to community campaign groups. Existing research finds that e-mail newsletters have an important community building effect (Seely and Spillman 2021 ). Like other digital tools, they target interested citizens (Vaccari 2017 : 70) and are cheap and quick, allowing the campaign group to respond promptly to emerging situations.…”

Understanding Journalists’ Workflows in News Curation

“…The Digital News Report by the Reuters Institutes uncovered that, apart from the convenience of the email format, readers enjoy the diverse perspectives and unique content offered by the newsletters, as well as the personality and voice of the curator [48]. Therefore, as prior work has noted, newsletters curated by journalists are more than just a compilation of stories [51,57], and often involve "representing and reformulating" [36] existing news stories in new configurations [13]. That is unlike algorithmic aggregation, which is limited to providing a list of news stories for their readers.…”

Email Newsletters: Relaunching in the Digital Media Environment

“…Окрема група досліджень зосереджена довкола технологічного аспекту підготовки та дизайну розсилок; тематичного спрямування та стилістики інформаційних бюлетенів [6]. Поточні тренди електронних розсилок.…”