Communication of Garden Aesthetic Symbols in A Dream of Red Mansions

As a literary masterpiece of the Qing Dynasty, A Dream of Red Mansions incorporates numerous aesthetic symbols epitomizing the essence of classic Chinese garden design. This study is an interdisciplinary study that employs Mixed-methods research to examine the communication effects of garden aesthetic symbols in A Dream of Red Mansions in contemporary communication campaigns. The research design integrates quantitative research and qualitative content analysis. Likert scale questionnaires were designed using stratified sampling and distributed. The questionnaires were distributed through an online platform and 433 valid questionnaires were returned. The questionnaires were subjected to content analysis, data analysis and age-stratified cross-tabulation analysis. The empirical study shows that the symbols of garden aesthetics have the advantage of popular cognition, and young people aged 18-24 years old demonstrate exceptional semiotic decoding competence and heightened media engagement frequency, and they constituting the core target audience of garden aesthetics symbol communication. The cognitive-emotional-behavioral measurements of the audience reveal that in the new media context, the willingness to accept the symbols and the loyalty of communication can be marked improvement by enhancing emotional resonance and cognitive matching. The analysis of intergenerational communication behaviors reveals that the youth group presents the characteristics of network media dependence, and their information acquisition mode and content co-creation behaviors are significantly different from those of the middle-aged and elderly groups in terms of their single reception mode.