Exploring the effectiveness of using humor for communicating about science

科学家和他们的机构越来越多地通过媒体与外行观众打交道。社交媒体的出现使科学家能够以新颖的方式与公众互动。社交网站从根本上改变了现代媒体环境，进而改变了媒体消费习惯。当被问及他们主要去哪里了解更多的科学问题时，超过一半的美国人指出互联网。这些在线空间为科学家提供了许多机会，让他们在与各种公众直接交流和接触方面发挥积极作用。此外，拟议的研究活动的灵感来自于美国国家科学院、工程院和医学院最近的一份报告，其中包括对科学传播研究人员的挑战，即确定通过社交媒体平台传播科学的更好方法。幽默曾被推荐为科学家在与公众交流时可以使用的一种方法；然而，几乎没有经验证据表明它的使用是有效的。研究人员将探索使用幽默进行人工智能、气候科学和微生物学交流的有效性。研究问题是：在使用幽默的社交媒体上，非专业受众如何回应关于科学问题的信息？科学家们对使用幽默构建社交媒体信息有何看法？科学传播学者和实践者之间的合作能否促进更有效的实践？这项研究的基础是计划行为理论和作为媒体效果理论的框架。一项公共调查将收集和分析推特上有无幽默的消息数据，每条消息的点赞和转发数量，以及它们的科学内容。调查参与者将被随机分配到24种实验条件中的一种。调查样本与美国人口普查局最近的数据相匹配，将从在线市场研究公司Qualtrics提供的选择加入小组中获得。这项研究的第二部分将量化科学家在社交媒体上使用幽默与公众交流的态度。数据将从全国范围内R1大学的科学家和研究生中随机抽样收集。数据将使用描述性统计和回归模型进行分析。该项目的更广泛影响有两个：研究结果将与促进知识和实践的科学传播学者和培训者分享；信息图(研究结果的直观表示)将分发给参与研究-实践伙伴关系的实践者。它将提供一套易于参考的、基于证据的指导方针，说明观众在社交媒体上对哪些类型的幽默反应积极。该项目由先进的非正式STEM学习计划资助，该计划资助用于各种环境的创新研究、方法和资源。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Increasingly, scientists and their institutions are engaging with lay audiences via media. The emergence of social media has allowed scientists to engage with publics in novel ways. Social networking sites have fundamentally changed the modern media environment and, subsequently, media consumption habits. When asked where they primarily go to learn more about scientific issues, more than half of Americans point to the Internet. These online spaces offer many opportunities for scientists to play active roles in communicating and engaging directly with various publics. Additionally, the proposed research activities were inspired by a recent report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that included a challenge to science communication researchers to determine better approaches for communicating science through social media platforms. Humor has been recommended as a method that scientists could use in communicating with publics; however, there is little empirical evidence that its use is effective. The researchers will explore the effectiveness of using humor for communicating about artificial intelligence, climate science and microbiomes.The research questions are: How do lay audiences respond to messages about scientific issues on social media that use humor? What are scientists' views toward using humor in constructing social media messages? Can collaborations between science communication scholars and practitioners facilitate more effective practices? The research is grounded in the theory of planned behavior and framing as a theory of media effects. A public survey will collect and analyze data on Twitter messages with and without humor, the number of likes and re-tweets of each message, and their scientific content. Survey participants will be randomly assigned to one of twenty-four experimental conditions. The survey sample, matching recent U.S. Census Bureau data, will be obtained from opt-in panels provided by Qualtrics, an online market research company. The second component of the research will quantify the attitudes of scientists toward using humor to communicate with publics on social media. Data will be collected from a random sample of scientists and graduate students at R1 universities nationwide. Data will be analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression modeling.The broader impacts of this project are twofold: findings from the research will be shared with science communication scholars and trainers advancing knowledge and practice; and an infographic (visual representation of findings) will be distributed to practitioners who participate in research-practice partnerships. It will provide a set of easily-referenced, evidence-based guidelines about the types of humor to which audiences respond positively on social media. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning Program which funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.