A Study of the Application of Semiotics in News Communication Mechanisms in the Digital Era

Any news fact is reproduced as news representation in the form of symbols. In this paper, we first analyze the role of symbols in news representation and propose the common components of news symbols such as subject-object, scene, light color, etc. Construct a model for news symbol analysis that is based on clustering and design a method for segmenting news content based on rules and statistics. The symbolic representation is simulated, and the symbolic ideographic similarity is evaluated after the news content space is transformed into the symbolic representation space, and K-means clustering is carried out. The model was used to analyze the symbolic forms of news from two representative news websites and then calculate the 60 best multi-symbol combinations of “Chinese New Year Festival” news content. A questionnaire survey was conducted to test the degree of audience recognition of the symbolic representations of the news imagery matching. The study found that CCTV's “Chinese New Year Festival” news reports have clear thematic representations, rich symbolic imagery, and are easy to understand, with evaluation scores of 4.61, 4.27, 4.16, and 4.08 for color, character expressions, festive atmosphere, and cultural symbols, respectively. The purpose of this study is to explore and innovate ideas while evaluating the application of semiotics in news communication in the digital age.