Title: Humour in firm-initiated social media conversations: a conceptual model

Authors: Jing Ge; Ulrike Gretzel; Yunxia Zhu

Addresses: Laboratory for Intelligent Systems in Tourism, 440 N Wolfe Rd, Sunnyvale, CA 94085, USA ' University of Southern California, 3502 Watt Way Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA ' UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, St Lucia QLD 4072, Australia

Abstract: Humour plays an important role in driving firm-consumer conversations on social media, yet the examination of humour from a rhetorical perspective remains unheeded in marketing and tourism literature. Drawing on the linguistic concepts of moves, speech acts, humour and rhetorical appeals, this research aims to develop a conceptual model for applying humour as a rhetorical device to initiate social media conversations. Based on this conceptual model, implications for future research are discussed. This research opens up new paths for exploring humour on social media from a rhetorical perspective and enriches the persuasion literature. It also offers tourism marketers a deep understanding of how to initiate conversations by fully leveraging the technological basis of social media. In addition, it informs the orchestration of conversations on social media through particular humour types and specific rhetorical appeals.

Keywords: humour; firm-consumer conversations; rhetoric; persuasion; social media; tourism; conceptual model.

DOI: 10.1504/IJDCET.2018.092180

International Journal of Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism, 2018 Vol.2 No.4, pp.273 - 293

Received: 29 Apr 2017
Accepted: 07 Oct 2017
Published online: 08 Jun 2018 *

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