How Does Humor Affect the Way Users View Information?
The art of manipulating a story to increase reader's attention has been an issue all throughout history. It is one that has been rebranded many times, often appearing under different names. Whether it's taken the form of 1780s Parisian canards, World War I yellow journalism, or more recent fake news, this technique is one journalists have been using since the birth of information.
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Now with the emergence of social media, I believe that the use of humor on social media has caused users to only care about stories if they are presented in a humorous way, which is what creates the opportunity for fake news. This tendency is a symptom of a bigger disease, and it is why you see journalists attempt to frame their headlines in a humorous way. This can cause the real meaning of the story to be lost behind the facade of the journalist's attempt to attract more readers, which is the definition of fake news.
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According to Kieth A. Carlson's study on the effect of humor on the brain, humorous material is often recalled at a higher rate then non-humorous. This is because the brain pays more attention to something stimulating, such as humor, and this increases retention rates. An example of this phenomenon would be Figure 1. In this tweet, CNN's story was quote tweeted by someone who recognized the funny material, and their tweet got even
Source: twitter.com
Figure 1: An example of how humorous material gets more attention
more attention. The original tweet didn't get that many retweets, but once it was framed in a humorous way, it blew up.
Source: twitter.com
Figure 2: A normal CNN report on Twitter
Source: twitter.com
Figure 3: An example of a humorous tweet getting more retweets
In other examples of tweets, such as Figure 2, the headlines are straightforward, informative, and boring. But in Figure 3, this tweet was, similarly to Figure 1, quote tweeted in a more humorous way resulting in it receiving over 400,000 retweets. Readers can see how the number of retweets are significantly less than when it was framed is a humorous way. And on Twitter, retweets mean attention.
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Because of this disparity in attention, news stations started to change the way they presented information. Social media users need to become aware of this tendency and to exercise caution when reading news stories off of social media. Read the whole article, do background research, or ask other people what they thought of the article. Don't let humor mask the real story!