How AI micro-short dramas shape users’ sharing behavior: visual persuasion, emotional empathy, and communication transformation—evidence from China

Under the background of media convergence, micro-short dramas have become a popular form of communication because of their serial narrative structure and lightweight viewing features, and they are increasingly being integrated with digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence Generated Content.

Drawing on survey data from Chinese users with prior exposure to AI micro-short dramas, this study develops an integrated framework to examine users' sharing behavior. Grounded in media convergence, the framework combines visual persuasion theory, the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), and the SIPS model, and incorporates visual persuasion features, immersive experience, perceived information density, emotional empathy, and sharing behavior to construct a sequential explanatory framework of “visual features–cognitive/experiential processing–emotional empathy–sharing behavior”.

The results show that the visual persuasive features of AI micro-short dramas significantly promote users' sharing behavior by creating immersive experiences, increasing perceived information density, and triggering emotional empathy.

This study enriches the research on the sharing behaviors of users of AI micro-short dramas, and provided useful references for improving content creation and dissemination methods in practical scenarios such as “AI + content dissemination”.