Multi-level Cultural Discount in AI-Driven Cross-Cultural Communication: Effectiveness of China Daily’s Virtual Anchor Yuanxi

Actively embracing emerging technologies represented by artificial intelligence and leveraging the new communicative dynamics they generate to expand the scope of international communication has become a widespread consensus in the global media industry. Within this context, there remains a relative lack of attention directed toward the communication effects of AI as an emerging actor in international communication. To address this gap, this study employed multi-level cultural discount theory to conduct text mining on all communication content disseminated by Yuanxi as an international communication actor to foreign audiences from the account’s creation through June 30, 2025. On one hand, the study performed a diachronic analysis of international communication effects from three perspectives: average communication effect, cumulative communication effect, and marginal communication effect. On the other hand, it examined the intercultural communication process through the lens of multi-level cultural discount. Cultural values undergo repeated, dynamic, and progressive discounting throughout the communication chain. This process is driven by the interplay of multiple factors, such as shifts in power dynamics, conflicts in content discourse, and the reconfiguration of spatial boundaries.