Exploring the effectiveness of using humor for communicating about science

科学家及其机构越来越多地通过媒体与非专业受众接触。社交媒体的出现使科学家能够以新颖的方式与公众接触。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向互联网。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沟通和接触方面发挥积极作用。此外，拟议的研究活动受到美国国家科学院、工程院和医学院最近的一份报告的启发，该报告对科学传播研究人员提出了挑战，要求他们确定通过社交媒体平台传播科学的更好方法。幽默被推荐为科学家与公众交流的一种方法；然而，很少有经验证据表明它的使用是有效的。研究人员将探索用幽默来交流人工智能、气候科学和微生物组的有效性。研究的问题是：外行观众如何回应社交媒体上使用幽默的科学问题信息？科学家对在构建社交媒体信息时使用幽默有什么看法？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？本研究以计划行为理论和媒介效应框架理论为基础。公众调查将收集和分析Twitter上有幽默和没有幽默的信息、每条信息的点赞数和转发数、科学内容等数据。调查参与者将被随机分配到24个实验条件中的一个。调查样本将从在线市场研究公司Qualtrics提供的可选面板中获取，与美国人口普查局（U.S. Census Bureau）最近的数据相匹配。该研究的第二部分将量化科学家对在社交媒体上使用幽默与公众交流的态度。数据将从全国R1所大学的科学家和研究生中随机抽取样本。数据将使用描述性统计和回归模型进行分析。该项目的广泛影响是双重的：研究结果将与科学传播学者和培训人员分享，促进知识和实践；此外，还将向参与研究-实践伙伴关系的从业人员分发信息图表（研究结果的可视化表示）。它将提供一套易于参考的、以证据为基础的指导方针，以确定观众在社交媒体上对哪种幽默反应积极。该项目由推进非正式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。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.