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Abstract Social, cultural, and political (SCP) symbols in campaigns play vital roles in connecting emotionally with people, representing identity, simplifying complex issues, and reinforcing political ideologies. This study investigates the impact of SCP symbol content on engagement, emotional responses, and trust in electoral process in TikTok-based anti-disinformation campaigns during Taiwanese 2024 general elections. Utilizing advanced natural language processing and machine learning, we analyzed posts and comments, categorizing them for presence and type of SCP symbols. We employed a multi-faceted approach, examining engagement metrics, emotional responses, and trust evaluations across different symbol categories. Our novel categorization ranged from content without symbols to those incorporating multiple symbol types, providing nuanced understanding of symbolic influence. Findings reveal a strong positive correlation between the complexity of symbolic content and user engagement, with cultural symbols emerging as potent in driving interaction and fostering trust. Emotional analysis showed symbol-rich content elicited more positive emotional responses, especially with cultural symbols. Trust evaluations showed increases in symbol diversity increased trust, with cultural and political symbols generating the highest trust levels towards Taiwan’s democratic and electoral process. Statistical validation through non-parametric tests confirmed that the observed effects were not artifacts of data distribution or follower count variations. Our findings have significant implications for public affairs, strategic communications, policymakers, and platform managers, providing a framework for crafting more effective, culturally resonant content in digital socio-political campaigns. This study also opens avenues for further research into the long-term effects of symbolic communication on political behavior and democratic participation in the digital age.
Bhattacharya et al. (Mon,) studied this question.