Group project expressing a need for a Chrome extension that allows users to easily discover the source of content encountered in social media and other online interaction.

1. CMC Group 3
Presentation
Larissa Churchill
Jodi Masters
Gabrielle Wethor
Kristi Yun

2. Agenda
● General Context of the Problem
● Link to CMC--theory
● Market Analysis
● Product Design and Use Cases

3. Uninformed Content Sharing
-On social media, people can inadvertently join campaigns of misinformation or associate
themselves with negative groups or movements using hashtags and the risk danger of aligning with
certain communities and causes that are detrimental to their reputation and possibly leave them
susceptible to scams.
-A 2017 PEW Research study found that 62 percent of adults in the U.S., and 66 percent of all
Facebook users, get their news on social media (Spohr, 2017). Without proper vetting, fake news can
spread quickly and to numerous people. “Many social media sites do not currently fact check their
user’s posts, photos, videos and stories for accuracy, copyright protection or validity” (Citroen, 2017).

4. Uninformed Content Sharing
-In recent years, social networks have displayed symptoms of ideological polarization and the
formation of the so-called filter bubbles associated with the emerging phenomenon of fake news.
(Spohr, 2017). Filter Bubble are the results of the algorithms that dictate what we encounter online.
Each time we click, watch, share, or comment, search engines and social platforms harvest
information. This becomes a kind of “invisible auto propaganda, indoctrinating us with our own
ideas, amplifying our desires for things that are familiar and leaving us oblivious to the dangers
lurking in the dark territory of the unknown” (How Filter Bubbles…,n.d.).
-A growing intolerance for political difference and the observation that citizens in the US have
increasingly hostile feelings towards individuals on the other end of the political spectrum have
dangerous implications because individuals with ideologically homophobic and mostly partisan
social connections are more likely to read and share news articles that are aligned with their pre-
existing beliefs and views (Spohr, 2017).

5. Scams, Personal Well-being, and Professional Reputation
-Ignoring, discounting, or revising useful knowledge leads to suboptimal problem-solving and
decision-making that can affect an individual’s social, mental, and physical well-being. (Rapp &
Salovich, 2018).
-Social media is a “medium for increasing one’s knowledge and awareness of timely news and trends
by following important organizations, opinion leaders, and influential professionals. When used
unwisely and imprudently, there is the potential to delay, damage, or even destroy one’s
professional and personal life” (Bernhardt, Alber, & Gold, 2014).
-Your social media conveys “information about your personality, priorities, and values...based on all
aspects of your social media profile, including photos, nicknames, updates you post, comments you
like and share, and all of the friends, causes, organizations, games, and media you follow.” Most
social media users are “connected to overlapping networks of friends and family along with
professional colleagues...and your professional reputation is shaped as much by what you share
online as by what you do at work (Bernhardt, et al., 2014).

6. Scams, Personal Well-being, and Professional Reputation
-People 65 and older will soon make up the largest single age group in the United States, and will
remain that way for decades to come, according to the US Census. People over 65 are more likely to
consume and share fake news on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and the web. They are less
likely to differentiate between news and opinion and lack the understanding of how the algorithms
determine what online content they see. Because of this, “They are often targeted with ads from
hyper partisan and fake news sites…They’re also targeted by online scams, malware, and other
internet ills” (Silverman, 2019).
-However, the 2017 Better Business Bureau (BBB) Scam Tracker Annual Risk Report showed that
Americans ages 18 to 34 were more susceptible to scams (43.7% were victims) than Americans 55
and older (27.6% were victims) (Tatham, 2018)
-There has been a flowering of interest and funding for digital literacy programs, but few, if any, are
targeting older people (Silverman, 2019).

7. Links to CMC Theory
● A growing number of individuals are using the internet and social media to gather
information, follow news and current events, and to engage with social and political
issues.
● Because of this, source credibility is becoming an issue of growing importance in
CMC research. Most simply, source credibility refers to the perceived
trustworthiness and expertise of a source of information--in a CMC context this
could be an individual, group, or an organization sharing content in a mediated
platform like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. (Chung, Nam, & Stefanone, 2012).
● Whether or not a source is easily identified and deemed credible can influence the
information that users decide to share and interact with (Westerman, Spence, &
Van Der Heide, 2014).

8. Links to CMC Theory
● Especially in the age of social media, the use of a certain hashtag or the decision to
share a certain meme or picture can create an association or identification with a
group, viewpoint, social movement, or ideology that may not be obvious to all
users. As discussed by Tyree & Kirby (2017), these types of mediated
communication can have far-ranging contextual implications; those social media
users who shared the #THOT hashtag may not have been aware of the origin or
damaging stereotypes about women that their participation helped to reinforce.
● Additionally, the sharing of hashtags, images, and content on social media also
contributes to the construction of mediated identity which can have real-world
consequences (Tyree & Kirby, 2017). This makes understanding the source of
messages especially important for media users.

9. Links to CMC Theory
● Because of both the practical and theoretical rationale presented, giving users a
platform that allows them to access the source of mediated content is appropriate
and valuable.
● A Chrome Extension to allow users immediate access to the original source of the
content that they want to share or engage with on social media will provide greater
control and freedom, especially for users who need to confirm source credibility
and/or manage their online identity.

10. Chrome Extension: WhatsThat
● Available on Desktop and
Mobile
● Quick and Easy to use and
download
● Provides the user with the
ability to look up the origin
of any hashtag or internet
slang word

11. Use Cases
Older Tech Users
Thomas is a 65 year old Facebook user who loves to repost content. There is a viral post going around that all Thomas’ friends are
sharing. He likes the images used and agrees with the overall message, but there is a word used in the post that Thomas has never
heard of or seen before. He looks up the word in the dictionary but nothing comes up. Thomas can highlight the word and click on the
WhatsThat symbol to retrieve the origin of the word and similar words or phrases.
Youth
Sarah is a 14 year old girl that could tweet and retweet back and forth with her friends all day. Her friend tags in her a tweet. To make
her friend happy, she wants to “like” the tweet but there is a hashtag used in the tweet that she has never seen before. She clicks on the
hashtag to see what other tweets are being used with the same hashtag, but she still can’t grasp the meaning of the hashtag. Using
WhatsThat, Sarah can highlight the word and click on the WhatsThat symbol to receive a paragraph describing the hashtag and where
it came from.
International
Steffi is a 22 year old German student studying abroad in the United States for a semester. She’s making all kinds of new friends and
loves tagging her friends in her Instagram Stories. Steffi’s friend sent her a direct message on Instagram and asked her to share it with
her followers. The message includes a phrase she is unfamiliar with, and since it is a phrase and not a single-word, she knows she
cannot look it up in the dictionary. Steffi can use WhatsThat to search for the meaning of the phrase.

12. ● PC
Control + F allows users to find a word on the page they're on
● iOS
“”Look Up” allows users to highlight a word and a pop-up menu will allow users to look up the
definition, knowledge of the word, usage in recent articles and Twitter feeds, etc.
● Android
“Find in Page” option located in three stacked dot Chrome extension in Google Chrome that
will highlight any word you're looking for
“Web Search” option is very similar to the iOS “Look Up” option

13. Images of Text Finders

14. References
Bernhardt, J. M., Alber, J., & Gold, R. S. (2014). A Social Media Primer for Professionals: Digital Dos and Don’ts. Health Promotion
Practice, 15(2), 168–172. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839913517235
Biersdorfer, J.D. (2017). How to do a text search on mobile. The New York Times. Retrieved from:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/technology/personaltech/how-to-do-a-text-search-on-mobile.html
Chung, C. J., Nam, Y., & Stefanone, M. A. (2012). Exploring Online News Credibility: The Relative Influence of Traditional and
Technological Factors. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 17(2), 171–186. https://doi-
org.leo.lib.unomaha.edu/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2011.01565.x
Finneman, T., & Thomas, R. J. (2018). A family of falsehoods: Deception, media hoaxes and fake news. Newspaper
Research Journal, 39(3), 350–361. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739532918796228
Hardwicke, T. (2018). How to look up a word definition on your iPhone or iPad. Mac rumors. Retrieved from
https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/look-up-word-definitions-ios-11/
Rapp, D. N., & Salovich, N. A. (2018). Can’t We Just Disregard Fake News? The Consequences of Exposure to Inaccurate
Information. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 5(2), 232–239. https://doi.org/10.1177/2372732218785193

15. References
Silverman, C. (April 3, 2019). Old, online, and fed on lies: how an aging population will reshape the internet. Retrieved from
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/old-and-online-fake-news-aging-population
Spohr, D. (2017). Fake news and ideological polarization: Filter bubbles and selective exposure on social media. Business Information
Review, 34(3), 150–160. https://doi.org/10.1177/0266382117722446
Tatham, M. (2018, June 18). You may be surprised who's getting scammed the most. Retrieved from
https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/you-may-be-surprised-whos-getting-scammed-the-most/
Tyree, T.C.M. & Kirby, M.D. (2017). #THOTSBeLike: The construction of the THOT female sexual stereotype in social media. In K.
Langmia & T.C.M. Tyree, Social media: Culture and Identity (pp. 3-25). Lanham, MA: Lexington Books.
Westerman, D., Spence, P. R., & Van Der Heide, B. (2014). Social Media as Information Source: Recency of Updates and Credibility
of Information. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(2), 171–183. https://doi-
org.leo.lib.unomaha.edu/10.1111/jcc4.12041
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.crackware.me/amp/iphone-and-ipad/how-to-search-for-text-in-any-mobile-browser/
https://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/06/16/ios-10-look-up/