Abstract
WhatsApp, currently the leading messaging application in the world with an estimated 2 billion users, introduced the forwarded tag in July 2018. When WhatsApp users send messages that they received from someone else, a tag appears with the message to indicate it has been forwarded. By alerting receivers that the message was not written by the immediate sender and was merely passed along, the forwarded tag may trigger skepticism of, and efforts to, verify the message contents. But does it? This study conceptualizes the forwarded tag as an electronically relayed information cue (ERIC) and seeks to answer that question using a mixed-methods study conducted in Singapore. This study combines data from an online experiment (n = 266) and individual and group interviews (n = 65) in a sequential explanatory design. The online experiment found participants rated a WhatsApp message as less credible when it was accompanied by a forwarded tag, whereas the interviews found users associate the forwarded tag with originality and sincerity.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1851-1868 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | International Journal of Communication |
| Volume | 16 |
| Publication status | Published - 2022 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2022 (Edson C. Tandoc Jr., Sonny Rosenthal, Jerome Yeo, Zoe Ong, Tingting Yang, Shelly Malik, Mengxue Ou, Yichen Zhou, Jingwei Zheng, Hamka Afiq Bin Mohamed, Joanne Tan, Zhi Xin Lau, and Jia Yao Lim). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). Available at http://ijoc.org.
ASJC Scopus Subject Areas
- Communication
Keywords
- cue
- heuristic
- messaging apps
- misinformation
- qualitative