All joking aside? Comparing the effects of a humorous vs. a non-humorous message strategy in building organization–public relationships and community resilience

Abstract

ABSTRACT Communication scholars have studied the persuasive power of humor messages, but research provides mixed results. Also, the literature has been slow in demonstrating the practical effects of humorous messages on desired outcomes (e.g., organization–public relationships). Through an online experiment in the context of weather messages with samples of U.S. adults residing in the Southeastern U.S. (N = 209), we compared a humorous social media message designed to build relationships with the public to a non-humorous message in predicting OPRs and perceived community resilience when there is no high-impact weather on the horizon. Compared to a humorous message, a non-humorous message appeared to be more effective in increasing perceived community resilience and three dimensions of positive OPRs – trust, control mutuality, and commitment. The effects were more robust for community members with low to moderate levels of weather salience (i.e., the psychological value and importance that people have for the weather).