Leona Yi-Fan Su
Biographic Data
| ID | 4257820 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Leona Yi-Fan Su |
| GIVEN NAMES | Leona Yi-Fan |
| FAMILY NAME | Su |
| SIGNATURE | SU L Y |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8661-7196 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 50 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Modality matters
Purpose Text- and voice-based conversational agents (CAs) provide interactivity beyond the messages public health agencies traditionally use to share information and correct misperceptions. Yet, little research has compared how interactivity and modality influence misperception correction and behavior change. This study examines how modality and information quantity shape cognitive load, misperception change, and behavioral intention. Design/meth…
Online incivility
In this systematic review, we analyzed 67 peer-reviewed articles published between 2005 and 2025 that employ experimental designs to establish clear causality. Specifically, we focused on how online incivility is defined, operationalized, and theorized, as well as its documented effects. We found that there was a lack of theory unique to incivility; the main sites of online incivility are the comment sections of social media platforms and news we…
Conversational agents and charitable behavioral intentions
Voice-based (vs. text-based) CAs do not boost charitable behavioral intentions. • Voice-based CAs increase such intentions more if they speak formally. • Text-based CAs increase such intentions more if their messages are informal. • Mindless (vs. mindful) anthropomorphism is more likely to explain users' charitable responses to computers. Conversational agents (CAs) are increasingly utilized by organizations for fundraising and volunteer recruitm…
Understanding Knowledge Among White, Black, and Hispanic Audiences
Examining the Use of Aggressive Satirical Humor on Perceptions of Trustworthiness in Communication About Renewable Energy
We examined the effects of gentle and harsh satire on perceived trustworthiness of a scientist in an audio clip. Using a three-condition between-subjects survey experiment ( N = 723), we found that respondents in the experimental (vs. control) conditions reported greater perceived aggression, which was negatively associated with perceived trustworthiness of the scientist. The negative effects of the audio clips with satire on perceived trustworth…
Engaging the dismissive
This study aims to understand the influence of mirth, anger, and hope, as elicited by messages with different humor types, on support for global warming action, and the potential moderating role of individual climate concern. Although mirth did not significantly vary across the different stimuli, the analysis found that climate concern moderated the influence of hope on support for global warming actions. The implications of these findings, espec…
Communicating About Renewable Energy With Satire
Satire is often used in science communication, but it is unclear how it influences perceptions of message credibility and reliance on the information. We examine how two satire types (gentle, harsh) influence perceived message credibility and information reliance, which we define as using the information in discussions or for attitudinal and behavioral changes. Using a partial mediation model, we found no effects of gentle satire, but harsh satir…
Outdoor-sports brands’ Instagram strategies
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 techn…
Integrating Human Insights Into Text Analysis
Textual social media data have become indispensable to researchers’ understanding of message strategies and other marketing practices. In a new departure for the field of brand communication, this study adopts and extends a semi-supervised machine-learning approach, guided latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), which incorporates human insights into the discovery and classification of topics. We used it to analyze tweets from businesses involved with…
Generating Science Buzz
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…
Covid Issue
Visual narratives are promising tools for science and health communication, especially for broad audiences in times of public health crisis, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we used the Lifeology illustrated “flashcard” course platform to construct visual narratives about COVID-19, and then assessed their impact on behavioral intentions. We conducted a survey experiment among 1,775 health app users. Participants viewed illustr…
Expressing unpopular opinion or trolling
Following science on social media
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 likabilit…
What Do Childcare Providers Know about Environmental Influences on Children’s Health? Implications for Environmental Health Literacy Efforts
Children are uniquely vulnerable to toxicant exposures in their environment, which can have long-lasting impacts on their health. Childcare providers are an important population to target for environmental health literacy, as most children in the United States under five years of age spend a significant number of waking hours in non-parental care. There is an increasing body of evidence that children are exposed to toxicants in the childcare envi…
Political and personality predispositions and topical contexts matter
Building on existing theoretical frameworks for the study of incivility, interactivity, and negativity bias, this study contributes to the growing body of literature on the impact of incivility in online comments. Specifically, it tests incivility’s impact on news engagement intentions; investigates political and personality predispositions’ roles as perceptual filters; and extends this scholarship to the context of multiple scientific news topic…
Predicting Intentions to Engage With Scientific Messages on Twitter
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 fo…
The effect of comment moderation on perceived bias in science news
Uncivil comments following online news articles about issues of science and technology have been shown to lead to biased interpretations of the news content itself. Using an experiment embedded in a nationally representative survey, we provide evidence that cues about comment moderation ‒ even without any change in the comments themselves ‒ have the potential to alleviate this so-called nasty effect. Participants exposed to uncivil comments that …
Distinguishing scientific knowledge
The impact of knowledge on public attitudes toward scientific issues remains unclear, due in part to ill-defined differences in how research designs conceptualize knowledge. Using genetically modified foods as a framework, we explore the impacts of perceived familiarity and factual knowledge, and the moderating roles of media attention and a food-specific attitudinal variable (food consciousness), in shaping these relationships. Based on the diff…
Uncivil and personal? Comparing patterns of incivility in comments on the Facebook pages of news outlets
Social media and its embedded user commentary are playing increasingly influential roles in the news process. However, researchers’ understanding of the social media commenting environment remains limited, despite rising concerns over uncivil comments. Accordingly, this study used a supervised machine learning–based method of content analysis to examine the extent and patterns of incivility in the comment sections of 42 US news outlets’ Facebook …
Scientists Joking on Social Media
The #overlyhonestmethods trend on Twitter is a space used by many scientists to peel back the curtain on their work and share observations and insights into the research world. We employ computer-assisted coding to assess the themes of 58,125 #overlyhonestmethods posts from January 7, 2013—the hashtag’s inception—to January 6, 2016. We additionally manually code a random sample of the census of tweets to evaluate the types of humor employed, as w…
YouTube, Social Norms and Perceived Salience of Climate Change in the American Mind
This online experiment explored how contextual information embedded in new media channels such as YouTube may serve as normative social cues to users. Specifically, we examined whether the number of views listed under a YouTube video about climate change would elicit inferences regarding how “others” feel about the climate issue and, consequently, might influence perceptions of issue salience. Participants in this experiment were exposed to a You…
Analyzing public sentiments online
Recent technological developments have created novel opportunities for analyzing and identifying patterns in large volumes of digital content. However, many content analysis tools require researchers to choose between the validity of human-based coding and the ability to analyze large volumes of content through computer-based techniques. This study argues for the use of supervised content analysis tools that capitalize on the strengths of human- …
Information-Sharing and Community-Building
Social media have given rise to new opportunities for science organizations to communicate with the public. Building on theories of science communication and public relations, this study examined scientific institutions’ use of Twitter for one-way and two-way communication in connection with science festivals over the period 2012 to 2015, using NanoDays as a case study. It identified three communicative functions of tweets by organizations—inform…
Policy decision-making, public involvement and nuclear energy
Despite renewed interest in involving the general public in energy and environmental policymaking, little is known about how policy stakeholders with specialized knowledge and extensive experiences perceive the value of such activity. This study seeks to explore how a series of social, cognitive, and communication factors relates to expert stakeholders' attitudes toward public involvement in energy policymaking. Using data from a national survey …
Inequalities in Scientific Understanding
This study assesses two key types of knowledge assessments, factual and perceived knowledge, in the study of knowledge gaps. In addition, we distinguish between communication channels in exploring the phenomenon, examining nanotechnology knowledge gaps based on levels of attention to traditional media, science blog use, and the frequency of interpersonal discussion. Using regression analysis, we find that how researchers measure knowledge can sig…
Uncivil and personal? Comparing patterns of incivility in comments on the Facebook pages of news outlets
Social media and its embedded user commentary are playing increasingly influential roles in the news process. However, researchers’ understanding of the social media commenting environment remains limited, despite rising concerns over uncivil comments. Accordingly, this study used a supervised machine learning–based method of content analysis to examine the extent and patterns of incivility in the comment sections of 42 US news outlets’ Facebook …
Predicting Intentions to Engage With Scientific Messages on Twitter
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 fo…
Scientists Joking on Social Media
The #overlyhonestmethods trend on Twitter is a space used by many scientists to peel back the curtain on their work and share observations and insights into the research world. We employ computer-assisted coding to assess the themes of 58,125 #overlyhonestmethods posts from January 7, 2013—the hashtag’s inception—to January 6, 2016. We additionally manually code a random sample of the census of tweets to evaluate the types of humor employed, as w…
Inequalities in Scientific Understanding
This study assesses two key types of knowledge assessments, factual and perceived knowledge, in the study of knowledge gaps. In addition, we distinguish between communication channels in exploring the phenomenon, examining nanotechnology knowledge gaps based on levels of attention to traditional media, science blog use, and the frequency of interpersonal discussion. Using regression analysis, we find that how researchers measure knowledge can sig…
Political and personality predispositions and topical contexts matter
Building on existing theoretical frameworks for the study of incivility, interactivity, and negativity bias, this study contributes to the growing body of literature on the impact of incivility in online comments. Specifically, it tests incivility’s impact on news engagement intentions; investigates political and personality predispositions’ roles as perceptual filters; and extends this scholarship to the context of multiple scientific news topic…
Generating Science Buzz
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…
Information-Sharing and Community-Building
Social media have given rise to new opportunities for science organizations to communicate with the public. Building on theories of science communication and public relations, this study examined scientific institutions’ use of Twitter for one-way and two-way communication in connection with science festivals over the period 2012 to 2015, using NanoDays as a case study. It identified three communicative functions of tweets by organizations—inform…
Inequalities in Scientific Understanding
This study assesses two key types of knowledge assessments, factual and perceived knowledge, in the study of knowledge gaps. In addition, we distinguish between communication channels in exploring the phenomenon, examining nanotechnology knowledge gaps based on levels of attention to traditional media, science blog use, and the frequency of interpersonal discussion. Using regression analysis, we find that how researchers measure knowledge can sig…
Policy decision-making, public involvement and nuclear energy
Despite renewed interest in involving the general public in energy and environmental policymaking, little is known about how policy stakeholders with specialized knowledge and extensive experiences perceive the value of such activity. This study seeks to explore how a series of social, cognitive, and communication factors relates to expert stakeholders' attitudes toward public involvement in energy policymaking. Using data from a national survey …
YouTube, Social Norms and Perceived Salience of Climate Change in the American Mind
This online experiment explored how contextual information embedded in new media channels such as YouTube may serve as normative social cues to users. Specifically, we examined whether the number of views listed under a YouTube video about climate change would elicit inferences regarding how “others” feel about the climate issue and, consequently, might influence perceptions of issue salience. Participants in this experiment were exposed to a You…
Analyzing public sentiments online
Recent technological developments have created novel opportunities for analyzing and identifying patterns in large volumes of digital content. However, many content analysis tools require researchers to choose between the validity of human-based coding and the ability to analyze large volumes of content through computer-based techniques. This study argues for the use of supervised content analysis tools that capitalize on the strengths of human- …
Information-Sharing and Community-Building
Social media have given rise to new opportunities for science organizations to communicate with the public. Building on theories of science communication and public relations, this study examined scientific institutions’ use of Twitter for one-way and two-way communication in connection with science festivals over the period 2012 to 2015, using NanoDays as a case study. It identified three communicative functions of tweets by organizations—inform…
Uncivil and personal? Comparing patterns of incivility in comments on the Facebook pages of news outlets
Social media and its embedded user commentary are playing increasingly influential roles in the news process. However, researchers’ understanding of the social media commenting environment remains limited, despite rising concerns over uncivil comments. Accordingly, this study used a supervised machine learning–based method of content analysis to examine the extent and patterns of incivility in the comment sections of 42 US news outlets’ Facebook …
Scientists Joking on Social Media
The #overlyhonestmethods trend on Twitter is a space used by many scientists to peel back the curtain on their work and share observations and insights into the research world. We employ computer-assisted coding to assess the themes of 58,125 #overlyhonestmethods posts from January 7, 2013—the hashtag’s inception—to January 6, 2016. We additionally manually code a random sample of the census of tweets to evaluate the types of humor employed, as w…
The effect of comment moderation on perceived bias in science news
Uncivil comments following online news articles about issues of science and technology have been shown to lead to biased interpretations of the news content itself. Using an experiment embedded in a nationally representative survey, we provide evidence that cues about comment moderation ‒ even without any change in the comments themselves ‒ have the potential to alleviate this so-called nasty effect. Participants exposed to uncivil comments that …
Distinguishing scientific knowledge
The impact of knowledge on public attitudes toward scientific issues remains unclear, due in part to ill-defined differences in how research designs conceptualize knowledge. Using genetically modified foods as a framework, we explore the impacts of perceived familiarity and factual knowledge, and the moderating roles of media attention and a food-specific attitudinal variable (food consciousness), in shaping these relationships. Based on the diff…
Political and personality predispositions and topical contexts matter
Building on existing theoretical frameworks for the study of incivility, interactivity, and negativity bias, this study contributes to the growing body of literature on the impact of incivility in online comments. Specifically, it tests incivility’s impact on news engagement intentions; investigates political and personality predispositions’ roles as perceptual filters; and extends this scholarship to the context of multiple scientific news topic…
Predicting Intentions to Engage With Scientific Messages on Twitter
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 fo…
Covid Issue
Visual narratives are promising tools for science and health communication, especially for broad audiences in times of public health crisis, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we used the Lifeology illustrated “flashcard” course platform to construct visual narratives about COVID-19, and then assessed their impact on behavioral intentions. We conducted a survey experiment among 1,775 health app users. Participants viewed illustr…
Expressing unpopular opinion or trolling
Following science on social media
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 likabilit…
What Do Childcare Providers Know about Environmental Influences on Children’s Health? Implications for Environmental Health Literacy Efforts
Children are uniquely vulnerable to toxicant exposures in their environment, which can have long-lasting impacts on their health. Childcare providers are an important population to target for environmental health literacy, as most children in the United States under five years of age spend a significant number of waking hours in non-parental care. There is an increasing body of evidence that children are exposed to toxicants in the childcare envi…
Generating Science Buzz
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…
Outdoor-sports brands’ Instagram strategies
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 techn…
Integrating Human Insights Into Text Analysis
Textual social media data have become indispensable to researchers’ understanding of message strategies and other marketing practices. In a new departure for the field of brand communication, this study adopts and extends a semi-supervised machine-learning approach, guided latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), which incorporates human insights into the discovery and classification of topics. We used it to analyze tweets from businesses involved with…
Engaging the dismissive
This study aims to understand the influence of mirth, anger, and hope, as elicited by messages with different humor types, on support for global warming action, and the potential moderating role of individual climate concern. Although mirth did not significantly vary across the different stimuli, the analysis found that climate concern moderated the influence of hope on support for global warming actions. The implications of these findings, espec…
Communicating About Renewable Energy With Satire
Satire is often used in science communication, but it is unclear how it influences perceptions of message credibility and reliance on the information. We examine how two satire types (gentle, harsh) influence perceived message credibility and information reliance, which we define as using the information in discussions or for attitudinal and behavioral changes. Using a partial mediation model, we found no effects of gentle satire, but harsh satir…
Conversational agents and charitable behavioral intentions
Voice-based (vs. text-based) CAs do not boost charitable behavioral intentions. • Voice-based CAs increase such intentions more if they speak formally. • Text-based CAs increase such intentions more if their messages are informal. • Mindless (vs. mindful) anthropomorphism is more likely to explain users' charitable responses to computers. Conversational agents (CAs) are increasingly utilized by organizations for fundraising and volunteer recruitm…
Understanding Knowledge Among White, Black, and Hispanic Audiences
Examining the Use of Aggressive Satirical Humor on Perceptions of Trustworthiness in Communication About Renewable Energy
We examined the effects of gentle and harsh satire on perceived trustworthiness of a scientist in an audio clip. Using a three-condition between-subjects survey experiment ( N = 723), we found that respondents in the experimental (vs. control) conditions reported greater perceived aggression, which was negatively associated with perceived trustworthiness of the scientist. The negative effects of the audio clips with satire on perceived trustworth…
Modality matters
Purpose Text- and voice-based conversational agents (CAs) provide interactivity beyond the messages public health agencies traditionally use to share information and correct misperceptions. Yet, little research has compared how interactivity and modality influence misperception correction and behavior change. This study examines how modality and information quantity shape cognitive load, misperception change, and behavioral intention. Design/meth…
Online incivility
In this systematic review, we analyzed 67 peer-reviewed articles published between 2005 and 2025 that employ experimental designs to establish clear causality. Specifically, we focused on how online incivility is defined, operationalized, and theorized, as well as its documented effects. We found that there was a lack of theory unique to incivility; the main sites of online incivility are the comment sections of social media platforms and news we…
Psychology (19 works) · Computer Science (16 works) · Social Psychology (12 works) · Political science (11 works) · Social media (10 works) · Climate Change Communication and Perception (9 works) · Media Influence and Health (8 works) · Humor Studies and Applications (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · World Wide Web (7 works)