Rural variety shows, as an emerging medium, promote artistic rural construction through visual culture and emotional expression. The work aims to establish an evaluation system for the effectiveness of rural variety shows in artistic rural construction, explore the appeal and behavioral influence mechanism of variety show design elements on Generation Z's visit to the countryside, and provide an evaluation basis for the sustainability of artistic rural construction. Combined with the grounded theory and the SOR model, through the three-level coding of online comments on the shows, the key design elements such as "visual image", "audio-visual richness", and "emotional resonance" are extracted, and an evaluation model of "variety show design elements - perception of rural construction value - willingness of young people to participate" is constructed. Further, the causal relationship among the variables is verified through questionnaire surveys. Rural variety shows have significantly enhanced the Z-generation's understanding and value perception of artistic rural construction projects through design elements such as "visual image", "integration of popular culture", and "emotional narrative". Among them, the audience's perception of "the innovativeness of cultural symbols" and "the practicality of spatial design" has a significant mediating effect between the stimulation of variety shows and the participation behavior in rural construction. This research provides theoretical support for optimizing the content design of rural variety shows and improving the evaluation system of the effectiveness of artistic rural construction, and offers references for the practical paths of rural landscape design and the return strategy of young talents.