The influence of commercial humor on program enjoyment and evaluation

Journalism and Mass Communication Quaterly

Volumn 74, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 388-399

  Perry, Stephen D ^b   Jenzowsky, Stefan A ^b   Hester, Joe Bob ^b   King, Cynthia M ^a   Yi, Huiuk ^b  

^a CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0031161256     PISSN: 10776990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/107769909707400210     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. V. Kanti Prasad and Lois J. Smith, "Television Commercials in Violent Programming: An Experimental Evaluation of Their Effects on Children," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 22 (fall 1994): 340-51; Michael Bock, Kerstin Koppenhagen, and Christian Oberberg, "Wirkung von 'information' und 'unterhaltung' bei fernsehnachrichten und werbespots," Medienpsychologie: Zeitschrift fur Individual- und Massenkommunication 5 (March 1993): 124-38.
2. V. Kanti Prasad and Lois J. Smith, "Television Commercials in Violent Programming: An Experimental Evaluation of Their Effects on Children," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 22 (fall 1994): 340-51; Michael Bock, Kerstin Koppenhagen, and Christian Oberberg, "Wirkung von 'information' und 'unterhaltung' bei fernsehnachrichten und werbespots," Medienpsychologie: Zeitschrift fur Individual-und Massenkommunication 5 (March 1993): 124-38.
3. Claire E. Norris and Andrew M. Colman, "Context Effects on Memory for Television Advertisements," Social Behavior and Personality 21 (1993): 279-96.
4. Claire E. Norris and Andrew M. Colman, "Effects of Entertainment and Enjoyment of Television Programs on Perception and Memory of Advertisements," Social Behavior and Personality 22 (1994): 365-76.
5. Stephen D. Perry, Stefan Jenzowski, Jeanne Gartenschlaeger, Joe Bob Hester, Cynthia King Jablonski, and Huiuk Yi, "The Power of Humorous Context to Affect Perception of Commercials, Programs, and Products" (paper presented at the annual meeting of AEJMC, Atlanta, GA, August 1994).
6. Fiona Chew, "The Advertising Value of Making Possible a Public Television Program," Journal of Advertising Research 32 (November/December 1992): 47-52.
7. Jay Black and Jennings Bryant, Introduction to Media Communication, 4th ed. (Dubuque, IA: Brown & Benchmark, 1995).
8. Stanley J. Baran and Dennis K. Davis, Mass Communication Theory: Foundations Ferment and Future (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1995).
9. Banwari Mittal, "Public Assessment of Television Advertising: Faint Praise and Harsh Criticism," Journal of Advertising Research 34 (January/ February 1994): 35-53.
10. Linda F. Alwitt and Paul R. Prabhaker, "Identifying Who Dislikes Television Advertising: Not by Demographics Alone," Journal of Advertising Research 34 (November/December 1994): 17-29; see also Janet Hoek and Philip Gendall, "Wishful Thinking or Hard Core Hostility? Viewers' Support for a Reduction in Television Advertising," International Journal of Advertising 13 (February 1994): 65-76.
11. Linda F. Alwitt and Paul R. Prabhaker, "Identifying Who Dislikes Television Advertising: Not by Demographics Alone," Journal of Advertising Research 34 (November/December 1994): 17-29; see also Janet Hoek and Philip Gendall, "Wishful Thinking or Hard Core Hostility? Viewers' Support for a Reduction in Television Advertising," International Journal of Advertising 13 (February 1994): 65-76.
12. Sandra E. Moriarty and Shu-Ling Everett, "Commercial Breaks: A Viewing Behavior Study," Journalism Quarterly 71 (summer 1994): 346-55; see also Carrie Heeter and Bradley S. Greenberg, Cableviewing (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1988).
13. Sandra E. Moriarty and Shu-Ling Everett, "Commercial Breaks: A Viewing Behavior Study," Journalism Quarterly 71 (summer 1994): 346-55; see also Carrie Heeter and Bradley S. Greenberg, Cableviewing (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1988).
14. Mittal, "Public Assessment of Television Advertising," 43.
15. Hoek and Gendall, "Wishful Thinking or Hard Core Hostility?" 70-76.
16. Marc G. Weinberger, Harlan Spotts, Leland Campbell, and Amy L. Parsons, "The Use and Effect of Humor in Different Advertising Media," Journal of Advertising Research 35 (May/June 1995): 44-56.
17. Thomas J. Madden and Marc G. Weinberger, "The Effects of Humor on Attention in Magazine Advertising," Journal of Advertising 11 (May/June 1982): 8-14.
18. Paul E. McGhee, "The Role of Arousal and Hemispheric Lateralization in Humor," in Handbook of Humor Research: Volume 1 Basic Issues, ed. Paul E. McGhee and Jeffrey H. Goldstein (NY: Springer-Verlag, 1983), 13-37.
19. Thomas W. Whipple and Alice E. Courtney, "How Men and Women Judge Humor: Advertising Guidelines for Action and Research," in Current Issues &Research in Advertising, ed. James H. Leigh and Claude R. Martin Jr. (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan), 43-56.
20. Jerry Suls, "Cognitive Processes in Humor Appreciation," in Handbook of Humor Research: Volume 1 Basic Issues, 39-57.
21. For a thorough review of humor research in advertising and television see Marc G. Weinberger and Charles S. Gulas, "The Impact of Humor in Advertising: A Review," Journal of Advertising 21 (December 1992): 35-59; Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant, "Responding to Comedy: The Sense and Nonsense in Humor," in Responding to the Screen: Reception and Reaction Processes, ed. Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillmann (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1991), 261-79.
22. For a thorough review of humor research in advertising and television see Marc G. Weinberger and Charles S. Gulas, "The Impact of Humor in Advertising: A Review," Journal of Advertising 21 (December 1992): 35-59; Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant, "Responding to Comedy: The Sense and Nonsense in Humor," in Responding to the Screen: Reception and Reaction Processes, ed. Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillmann (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1991), 261-79.
23. Michael C. Keith, Production in Format Radio Handbook (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), x.
24. Michael C. Keith and Joseph M. Krause, The Radio Station, 2d ed. (Ramsey, NJ: Focal, 1989), 195.
25. Keith and Krause, The Radio Station, 197.
26. Craig Robert Evans, Marketing Channels: Infomercials and the Future of Televised Marketing (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994), 44.
27. Evans, Marketing Channels, 43.
28. Stephen D. Perry and William J. Gonzenbach, "The Impact of TV news and Commercials on Evaluations of the President: Priming and Trivializing the Issue of Health Care Reform" (paper presented to the World Association for Public Opinion Research, Danvers, MA, May 1994).
29. Seth Finn and Terry M. Hickson, "Impact of Arousing Commercials on Perception of TV News," Journalism Quarterly 63 (summer 1986): 369-71.
30. Dolf Zillmann, "Excitation Transfer in Communication-Mediated Aggressive Behavior," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 7 (July 1971): 419-34.
31. See also Dolf Zillmann, Bella Mody, and Joanne Cantor, "Empathetic Perception of Emotional Displays as a Function of Hedonic and Excitatory State Prior to Exposure," Journal of Research in Personality 8 (December 1974): 335-49.
32. Prasad and Smith, "Television Commercials in Violent Programming," 341-44.
33. John Mattes and Joanne Cantor, "Enhancing Responses to Television Advertisements via the Transfer of Residual Arousal from Prior Programming," Journal of Broadcasting 26 (spring 1982): 553-56.
34. Mahima Mathur and Amitava Chattopadhyay, "The Impact of Moods Generated by Television Programs on Responses to Advertising," Psychology and Marketing 8 (spring 1991): 59-77.
35. Prasad and Smith, "Television Commercials in Violent Programming," 345.
36. Joanne Cantor, Jennings Bryant, and Dolf Zillmann, "Enhancement of Humor Appreciation by Transferred Excitation," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 30 (December 1974): 812-21.
37. Norris and Colman, "Context Effects on Memory," 290.
38. Finn and Hickson, "Impact of Arousing Commercials," 369-71.
39. Mattes and Cantor, "Enhancing Responses to Television Advertisements," 553-56.
40. Finn and Hickson, "Impact of Arousing Commercials," 369-71.
41. H. Bruce Lammers, Laura Leibowitz, George Edward Seymour, and Judith E. Hennessey, "Humor and Cognitive Responses to Advertising Stimuli: A Trace Consolidation Approach," Journal of Business Research 11 (June 1983): 173-85. The manipulation of commercials employed by Lammers et al. in a study of humor in radio commercials is similar to that used in the present study. In their study, humorous quips by comedians were spliced out of the humorous version of an advertisement to create a serious version.
42. See Mattes and Cantor, "Enhancing Responses to Television Advertisements," 553-56.
43. While cultural differences in humor appreciation exist (see Weinberger and Gulas, "The Impact of Humor in Advertising," 35-59), the use of foreign commercials in this research would not confound findings since all conditions were exposed to the same commercials. In addition, the level of perceived humor was evaluated by the participants in the United States and was found to differ significantly between the high and lower humor conditions. The level of humor was still the only variable that could cause differences in results using experimental manipulation.
44. The authors chose to avoid a no-humor condition because non-humorous or serious programs are of another genre and introduce uncontrolled variables into the experiment. Experiments, including one conducted by this article's authors, trying to compare the effects of different genres of programming on humorous commercials have largely been unable to produce results. See Joann R. Cantor and P. Venus, "The Effect of Humor on Recall of a Radio Advertisement," Journal of Broadcasting 24 (1980): 13-22; Weinberger and Gulas, "The Impact of Humor in Advertising," 39, 50; and J. H. Murphy, I. C. Cunningham, and G. Wilcox, "The Impact of Program Environment on Recall of Humorous Television Commercials," Journal of Advertising Research 8 (March/April 1979): 17-21.
45. The authors chose to avoid a no-humor condition because non-humorous or serious programs are of another genre and introduce uncontrolled variables into the experiment. Experiments, including one conducted by this article's authors, trying to compare the effects of different genres of programming on humorous commercials have largely been unable to produce results. See Joann R. Cantor and P. Venus, "The Effect of Humor on Recall of a Radio Advertisement," Journal of Broadcasting 24 (1980): 13-22; Weinberger and Gulas, "The Impact of Humor in Advertising," 39, 50; and J. H. Murphy, I. C. Cunningham, and G. Wilcox, "The Impact of Program Environment on Recall of Humorous Television Commercials," Journal of Advertising Research 8 (March/April 1979): 17-21.
46. The authors chose to avoid a no-humor condition because non-humorous or serious programs are of another genre and introduce uncontrolled variables into the experiment. Experiments, including one conducted by this article's authors, trying to compare the effects of different genres of programming on humorous commercials have largely been unable to produce results. See Joann R. Cantor and P. Venus, "The Effect of Humor on Recall of a Radio Advertisement," Journal of Broadcasting 24 (1980): 13-22; Weinberger and Gulas, "The Impact of Humor in Advertising," 39, 50; and J. H. Murphy, I. C. Cunningham, and G. Wilcox, "The Impact of Program Environment on Recall of Humorous Television Commercials," Journal of Advertising Research 8 (March/April 1979): 17-21.
47. Evans, Marketing Channels, 43-44.