Abstract: While there is mounting evidence that humor can be an effective means of engaging publics, much remains to be learned about the contextual factors that shape how audiences receive and process humorous scientific content. Analyzing data from a controlled experiment, this study explores the differential impact of exposure to stand-up comedy featuring a scientist that generates considerable laughter from the audience vs. stand-up comedy lacking audience reaction. Among the key findings, audience laughter served to heighten the affective response of viewers, and affective response was positively linked to two forms of audience engagement with science.
Topic: public engagement
Laughing with Science: The influence of audience approval on engagement
Abstract: While there is mounting evidence that humor can be an effective means of engaging publics, much remains to be learned about the contextual factors that shape how audiences receive and process humorous scientific content. Analyzing data from a controlled experiment (N = 217), this study explores the differential impact of exposure to stand-up comedy featuring a scientist that generates considerable laughter from the audience vs. stand-up comedy lacking audience reaction. Among the key findings, audience laughter served to heighten the affective response of viewers, and affective response was positively linked to two forms of audience engagement with science.
Fighting the tide: How U.S. health organizations use Twitter to address the opioid crisis
Abstract: This content analysis evaluated tweets about the opioid epidemic published in 2018 by U.S. federal and state health organizations to find out what components of both textual and visual of tweets can achieve the most effective communication for opioid epidemic including text characteristics, perceived discrete emotion and visual components of images. This study found out that compared to fear, inducing sadness and hope can be more effective in motivating more public engagement.