Abstract: [Purpose/Significance] The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of identity symbols and audio-visual symbols on users' emotion arousal and the effect of value co-creation in government anti-fraud short videos, with emotion arousal experience as a mediating factor linking symbolic interaction and value co-creation in order to reveal the mechanism of the value co-creation process in government short videos. [Design/Methodology] The experimental method based on contextual simulation was used to collect user experience data, in which the remote eye-tracking device was used to collect emotion arousal data, and the questionnaire scale were used to collect data on the effectiveness of value co-creation, after which descriptive statistics, ANOVA, and regression analysis were used to explore the effects of the identity symbols and audio-visual symbols on the emotion arousal and value co-creation of the users, and Bootstrap was used to carry out mediation and effect tests of the emotion arousal. [Findings/Conclusion] The more diverse the audio-visual symbols in government short videos, the better the effect of users' emotion arousal and value co-creation will be; among the identity symbols, the symbols of victim and fraud criminal bring the best emotional arousal and value co-creation, followed by symbols of the police, and the worst are symbols of celebrity. When the independent variables are the audio-visual symbols with multi and identity symbols with victims, the emotion arousal has a significant mediating effect on the value co-creation. [Originality/Value] Using non-interventional eye-tracking experiment to collect emotional data, this paper demonstrates the feasibility of utilizing eye-movement signals for emotion recognition under multimodal information stimulation. Drawing on symbolic interaction theory, it elucidates the emotional and cognitive interaction mechanisms of government short videos users at the micro psychological level, examining the dynamics from the perspectives of identity symbols and audio-visual symbols, offering practical insights for enhancing the depth of meaningful interaction between government short videos and their users.

Keywords: Symbolic interaction, Identity symbol, Audio-visual symbol, Emotion arousal, Value co-creation, Anti-fraud short videos