Communication Commons^™

Audience Perceptions Of Five Types Of Radio Humor, Larry Zane Leslie

Doctoral Dissertations

Humor, a natural part of the human environment, is all around us; from newspaper comics and television sit-coms to popular movies and the latest joke. Yet the phenomenon of humor on radio, i.e., humor used by air personalities, has remained largely unstudied.

Can the variation in listener response to radio humor be accounted for? The relationship of five demographic variables to five types of humor was tested by regression analysis. The intent was to learn the extent to which each variable contributed to appreciation of each type of humor.

One hundred sixty subjects were exposed to fifteen humorous radio segments. …