The role of mass media in education policies: a Chinese case study

ABSTRACT

The role of mass media in education policy processes is increasingly complex, but research on its contribution is far from adequate. This study uses the higher education quality assurance policies issued in China at the beginning of this century to explore the roles played by mass media in the creation and implementation of education policies. Mass media’s current influence on Chinese education policies mainly includes promoting policy agenda setting, enhancing policy legitimacy and monitoring the process of policy implementation. However, its role in constructing a platform for public discussion and improving policy design needs to be strengthened.

KEYWORDS:

• Mass media
• education policies
• higher education quality assurance policies
• policy-making
• policy implementation

Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank the two anonymous reviewers for their great advice. We also highly appreciate the important assistance by Professor Mark Boukes from University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in revising our paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research is funded by the Humanities and Social Sciences Youth Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (18YJC880056) and the 2018 Comprehensive Discipline Construction Fund of Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University (2018KYPY001).