Title: Scientists as comedians: The effects of humor on perceptions of scientists and scientific messages
Author(s) and Year: Sara Yeo, et al, 2020
Journal: Public Understanding of Science (closed access)
​TL;DR: In this interview, Dr. Sara Yeo talks about one of her studies, examining some of the positive effects of humor in science communication. In Dr. Yeo's words, "laughter works." Why I chose this paper: As a part of a landscape report to learn about the state of science communication in the science video content creation community, I conducted interviews with filmmakers and a topic that came up a few times was the complexities of using humor in science communication and the fear that it might cause the speaker to seem less competent. Realizing that using humor is a debated strategy, I decided to chat with Dr. Sara Yeo who has been studying humor in SciComm for years. |
We're excited to present the first episode of the SciCommBites video interview series! In this video, Dr. Reyhaneh Maktoufi chats with Dr. Sara Yeo about her 2020 paper investigating how incorporating humor into science communication efforts influences the perception of scientists.
Read the video's transcript here: