Leona Yi-Fan Su

About

Leona Yi-Fan Su is an Associate Professor of Advertising at the College of Media. She holds a PhD in Mass Communications and an MPA in Public Affairs from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as a MS in Chemistry from National Taiwan University and a BS in Applied Chemistry from National Chiao-Tung University. Dr. Su is a faculty affiliate at the Institute of Communications Research, the Center for Digital Agriculture, and the Informatics Programs. She serves on the editorial board of Environmental Communication and has reviewed for the National Science Foundation and over 20 journals. Her research examines the interplay between media and society, with a particular focus on how social media and new technologies influence human communication and social behaviors in the context of scientific and health topics. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as New Media & Society, Communication & Society, Science Communication, and Health Communication. She is currently a co-principal investigator on an NSF-funded project exploring the use of humor in science communication on social media and leads a project analyzing tweets about emerging food technologies to understand branding strategies and public opinion. Dr. Su’s key research areas include social norms, humor, incivility, social media, engagement metrics, virtual assistants, big data, machine learning, brand communication, and science, health, and environmental communication. Her methodological…

Research topics

• Psychology
• Computer Science
• Social psychology
• Political Science
• Business
• Pedagogy
• Epistemology
• Economics
• Engineering
• Marketing

Selected publications

• Predicting Intentions to Engage With Scientific Messages on Twitter: The Roles of Mirth and Need for Humor

  Science Communication · 2020 · 43 citations

  Although humor is a recommended strategy for scientists to connect with publics, there is a lack of empirical evidence concerning its effectiveness. We conduct an experiment to test how funny science on Twitter affects engagement intentions. We find that different humor types caused viewers to experience different levels of mirth, which mediated the relationship between our experimental manipulation and engagement intentions. We also find need for humor, an individual trait, to moderate the rela…

  PublisherDOI

• Understanding the association between date labels and consumer-level food waste

  Food Quality and Preference · 2021 · 41 citations

  PublisherDOI

• Generating Science Buzz: An Examination of Multidimensional Engagement With Humorous Scientific Messages on Twitter and Instagram

  Science Communication · 2021-12-31 · 37 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This study investigates the types of humor embedded in funny scientific posts on social media and their effects on engagement. We mapped the landscape of such posts on Twitter and Instagram through content analysis of their message attributes. Regression analyses were then conducted to examine how different humor types, communicative functions, and visual attributes were associated with liking, retweeting, and commenting. On Twitter, wordplay and satire were found to be positively related to pos…

  PublisherDOI

• Following science on social media: The effects of humor and source likability

  Public Understanding of Science · 2021 · 36 citations

  Science communicators have been encouraged to use humor in their online engagement efforts. Yet, humor's effectiveness for engaging people with science remains an open question. We report the results of an experiment designed to elicit varied levels of mirth in respondents, which was positively associated with perceived likability of the communicator and motivation to follow more science on social media. Furthermore, mirth and perceived likability serially mediated the effect of the experimental…

  PublisherDOI

• Outdoor-sports brands’ Instagram strategies: how message attributes relate to consumer engagement

  International Journal of Advertising · 2022-10-22 · 30 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Brands increasingly use social media to engage with consumers as part of their marketing efforts. This study analyzes the Instagram strategies used by three global outdoor-sports brands and their respective effects on consumer-brand engagement, operationalized as the number of ‘likes’ and comments received by posts. Content analysis conducted on Instagram posts from Arc’teryx, Salomon, and Patagonia focused on messages’ textual, visual, and technical attributes. The results indicate that task- a…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Dominique Brossard

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  26 shared

• Dietram A. Scheufele

  24 shared

• Michael A. Xenos

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  18 shared

• Michael A. Cacciatore

  University of Georgia

  15 shared

• Sara K. Yeo

  University of Utah

  14 shared

• Meaghan McKasy

  Utah Valley University

  7 shared

• Jennifer Shiyue Zhang

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  7 shared

• Kristin Runge

  5 shared

Labs

• Charles H. Sandage Department of AdvertisingPI

Education

• Ph.D., Mass Communications

  University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Other, Public Affairs

  University of Wisconsin-Madison

• M.S., Chemistry

  National Taiwan University

• B.S., Applied Chemistry

  National Chiao-Tung University

Awards & honors

• Sandage Scholar in Advertising Research

Similar researchers at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

• Peter Sheldonh-95
• Daniel Simonsh-87
• Sang-Hwa Ohh-44