Hispanic Humor Styles on Facebook

Abstract

To better understand how humor is used in today's multicultural virtual environment, this study investigates the humor styles of Hispanic Americans in a virtual community. Based on the four humor styles, the current study builds a theoretical framework to explain why cultural norms, gender role, acculturation, and education influence the humor styles of Hispanic Americans in computer-mediated communication. Two research questions and five hypotheses are developed in the research framework. The statistical analysis is based on content analysis of 400 Hispanic Facebook users, 93 of whom use humor in most recent News Feed. The results provide preliminary evidence of the influences of cultural norms, gender role, acculturation, and education on Hispanic humor styles.